Stories That Words Tell Us Part 13

The word _nice_ has had a rather more varied history. It had its original meaning of "foolish" from the literal meaning of the Latin word _nescius_, "ignorant," from which it was derived. Gradually it came to mean "foolishly particular about small things;" and we still have a similar use of the word, as when we say a person has a "nice taste in wines," or is a "nice observer," or speak of a "nice distinction," by which we mean a subtle distinction not very easily observed. But this is, of course, not the commonest sense in which we use the word. By _nice_ we generally mean the opposite of _nasty_. A "nice" observer was a good observer, and from this kind of idea the word _nice_ came to have the general sense of "good" in some way.

_Nice_ is not a particularly dignified word, and is little used by good writers, except in its more special and earlier sense. It is, perhaps, less used in America than in England, and it is interesting to notice that _nasty_, the word which in English always seems to be the opposite of _nice_, is not considered a respectable word in America, where it has kept its earlier meaning of "filthy," or absolutely disgusting in some way.

Again, the word _disgust_, by which we express complete loathing for anything, used merely to mean "dislike" or "distaste." In the same way, the word _loathe_, by which we mean "to hate" or feel the greatest disgust for, originally meant merely "to dislike." The stronger meaning came from the fact that the word was often used to describe the dislike a sick person feels for food. Every one knows how strong this feeling can be, and it is from this that _loathe_ and _loathsome_ took the strong meaning they now have. Curiously enough, the adjective _loath_ or _loth_, from the same word, has kept the old mild meaning. When we say we are "loth" to do a thing, we do not mean that we hate doing it, but merely that we feel rather unwilling to do it. In Old English, too, the word _filth_ and its derivative _foul_ were not quite such strong words as _dirt_ and _dirty_.

Again, the words _stench_ and _stink_ in Old English meant merely "smell" or "odour." One could then speak of the "sweet stench" of a flower; but in the later Middle Ages these words came to have their present meaning of "smelling most disagreeably."

We saw how the taking of the word _fol_ from the French, meaning "foolish," caused the meaning of several English words which before had this meaning to be changed. The coming in of foreign words has been a very common cause for such changes of meaning. The word _fiend_ in English has now a quite different meaning from its original meaning in English, when it simply meant "enemy," the opposite to "friend."

When the word "enemy" itself was borrowed from the French, the word _fiend_ came to be less and less often used in this sense. In time _fiend_ came to be another word for _devil_, the chief enemy of mankind. But in modern times we do not use the word much in this sense. It is most often now applied to persons. It sounds rather milder than calling a person a "devil," but it means exactly the same thing.

The word _stool_ came to have its present special meaning through the coming into English from the French of the word _chair_. Before the Norman Conquest any kind of seat for one person was a "stool," even sometimes a royal throne. The word _deer_ also had in Old English the meaning of "beast" in general, but the coming in of the word _beast_ from the French led to its falling into disuse, and by degrees it became the special name of the chief beast of chase.

Again, the Latin word _spirit_ led to the less frequent use of the word _ghost_, which was previously the general word for _spirit_. When spirit came to be generally used, _ghost_ came to have the special meaning which it has for us now--that of the apparition of a dead person.

A great many words have changed their meaning even since the time of Shakespeare through being transferred from the subject of the feeling they describe to the object, or from the object to the subject. Thus one example of this is the word _grievous_. We speak now of a "grievous wrong," or a "grievous sin," or a "grievous mistake," and all these phrases suggest a certain sorrow in ourselves for the fact described. But this was not the case in the time of Queen Elizabeth, when it was decreed that a "st.u.r.dy beggar," a man who could work but begged instead, should be "grievously whipped." In this case _grievously_ merely meant "severely." On the other hand, the word _pitiful_, which used to mean "compa.s.sionate," is no longer applied to what we feel at seeing a sad thing, but to the sadness of the thing itself. We do not now say a person is pitiful when he feels sorry for some one, but we speak of a "pitiful sight" or a "pitiful plight."

The word _pity_ itself is used still in both ways, subjectively and objectively. A person can feel "pity," and there is "pity" in the thing for which we feel sorry. This is the sense in which it is used in such expressions as "Oh, the pity of it!"

The word _hateful_ once meant "full of hate," but came to be used for the thing inspiring hate instead of for the people feeling it. So, _painful_ used to mean "painstaking," but of course has no longer this meaning.

One very common way in which words have changed their meanings is through the name of one thing being given to another which resembles it. The word _pen_ comes from the Latin _penna_, "a feather;" and as in olden days the ordinary pens were "quills" of birds, the name was very good. We still keep it, of course, for the steel pens and gold pens of to-day, which we thus literally speak of as feathers. _Pencil_ is a word with a somewhat similar history. It comes from the Latin _penicillus_, which itself came from _peniculus_, or "little tail," a kind of cleaning instrument which the Romans used as we use brushes.

_Pencil_ was originally the name of a very fine painter's brush, and from this it became the name of an instrument made of lead which was used for making marks. Then it was pa.s.sed on to various kinds of pencils, including what we know as a lead-pencil, in which, as a writer on words has pointed out, there is really neither lead nor pencil.

The word _handkerchief_ is also an interesting word. The word _kerchief_ came from the French _couvre-chef_, "a covering for the head." Another similar word is one which the Normans brought into England, _curfew_, which means "cover fire." When the curfew bell rang the people were obliged to extinguish all lights and fires. The "kerchief" was originally a covering for the head. Then the fas.h.i.+on arose of carrying a square of similar material in the hand, and so we get _handkerchief_, and later _pocket-handkerchief_, which, if we a.n.a.lyse it, is rather a clumsy word, "pocket-hand-cover-head." The reason it is so is that the people who added _pocket_ and _hand_ knew nothing of the real meaning of _kerchief_.

There are several words which used to mean "at the present time" which have now come to mean "at a future time." This can only have come about through the people who used them not keeping their promises, but putting off doing things until later. The word _soon_ in Old English meant "immediately," so that when a person said that he would do a thing soon he meant that he would do it "instantly." The trouble was that often he did _not_, and so often did this happen that the meaning of the word changed, and _soon_ came to have its present meaning of "in a short time." The same thing happened with the words _presently_ and _directly_, and the phrase _by-and-by_, all of which used to mean "instantly." _Presently_ and _directly_ seem to promise things in a shorter time than _soon_, but _by-and-by_ is a very uncertain phrase indeed. It is perhaps because Scotch people are superior to the English in the matter of doing things to time that with them _presently_ still really means "instantly."

In all the examples we have seen of changes in the meaning of words it is fairly easy to see how the changes have come about. But there are some words which have changed so much in meaning that their present sense seems to have no connection with their earlier meaning. The word _treacle_ is a splendid example of this. It comes from a Greek word meaning "having to do with a wild beast," and this seems to have no connection whatever with our present use of the word _treacle_ as another word for _syrup of sugar_. The steps by which this word came to change its meaning so enormously were these. From the general meaning of "having to do with a wild beast," it came to mean "remedy for the bite of a wild beast." As remedies for wounds and bites were, in the old days, generally thick syrups, the word came in time to mean merely "syrup," and lastly the sweet syrup which we now know as "treacle."

Another word which has changed immensely in its meaning is _premises_.

By the word _premises_ we generally mean a house or shop and the land just round it. But the real meaning of the word _premises_ is the "things already mentioned." It came to have its present sense from the frequent use of the word in doc.u.ments drawn up by lawyers. In these, which very frequently dealt with business relating to houses, the "things before mentioned" meant the "house, etc.," and in time people came to think that this was the actual meaning of _premises_, and so we get the present use of the word.

The word _humour_ is one which has changed its meaning very much in the course of its history. It comes to us from the Latin word _humor_, which means a "fluid" or "liquid." By "humour" we now mean either "temper," as when we speak of being in a "good" or "bad" humour, or that quality in a person which makes him very quick to find "fun" in things. And from the first meaning of "temper" we have the verb "to humour," by which we mean to give in to or indulge a person's whims.

But in the Middle Ages "humour" was a word used by writers on philosophy to describe the four liquids which they believed (like the Greek philosophers) that the human body contained. These four "humours" were blood, phlegm, yellow bile (or choler), and black bile (or melancholy). According to the balance of these humours a man's character showed itself. From this belief we get the adjectives--which we still use without any thought of their origin--_sanguine_ ("hopeful"), _phlegmatic_ ("indifferent and not easily excited"), _choleric_ ("easily roused to anger"), and _melancholy_ ("inclined to sadness"). A person had these various temperaments according as the amount of blood, phlegm, yellow or black bile was uppermost in his composition. From the idea that having too much of any of the "humours" would make a person diseased or odd in character, we got the use of the word _humours_ to describe odd and queer things; and from this it came to have its modern meaning, which takes us very far from the original Latin.

It was from this same curious idea of the formation of the human body that we get two different uses of the word _temper_. _Temper_ was originally the word used to describe the right mixture of the four "humours." From this we got the words _good-tempered_ and _bad-tempered_. Perhaps because it is natural to notice more when people are bad-tempered rather than good, not more than a hundred years ago the word _temper_ came to mean in one use "bad temper." For this is what we mean when we say we "give way to temper." But we have the original sense of "good temper" in the expression to "keep one's temper." So here we have the same word meaning two opposite things.

Several words which used to have a meaning connected with religion have now come to have a more general meaning which seems very different from the original. A word of this sort in English is _order_, which came through the French word _ordre_, from the Latin _ordo_. Though the Latin word had the meaning which we now give to the word _order_, in the English of the thirteenth century it had only the special meaning (which it still keeps as one of its meanings) of an "order" or "society" of monks. In the fourteenth century it began to have the meaning of "fixed arrangement," but the adjective _orderly_ and the noun _orderliness_ did not come into use until the sixteenth century. The word _regular_ has a similar history. Coming from the Latin _regula_, "a rule," its modern general meaning in English of "according to rule" seems very natural; but the word which began to be used in English in the fourteenth century did not take the modern meaning until the end of the sixteenth century. Before this, it too was used as a word to describe monastic orders. The "regular" clergy were priests who were also monks, while the "secular" clergy were priests but not monks. The words _regularity_, _regulation_, and _regulate_ did not come into use until the seventeenth century.

Another word which has now a quite different meaning from its original meaning is _clerk_. A "clerk" nowadays is a person who is employed in an office to keep accounts, write letters, etc. But a "clerk" in the Middle Ages was what we should now more generally call a "cleric," a man in Holy Orders. As the "clerks" in the Middle Ages were practically the only people who could read and write, it is, perhaps, not unnatural that the name should be now used to describe a cla.s.s of people whose chief occupation is writing (whether with the hand or a typewriter). People in the Middle Ages would have wondered what could possibly be meant by a word which is common in Scotland for a "woman clerk"--_clerkess_.

The words which change their meanings in this way tell us the longest, and perhaps the best, stories of all.

CHAPTER XVII.

DIFFERENT WORDS WITH THE SAME MEANING, AND THE SAME WORDS WITH DIFFERENT MEANINGS.

We have seen that there are great numbers of words in English which come from the Latin language. Sometimes they have come to us through Old French words borrowed from the Latin, and sometimes from the Latin words directly, or modern French words taken from the Latin. The fact that we have borrowed from the Latin in these two ways has led sometimes to our borrowing twice over from the same word. Different forms going back in this way to the same origin are known as "doublets." The English language is full of them, and they, too, can tell us some interesting stories.

Many of these pairs of words seem to have no relation at all with each other, so much has one or the other, or both, changed in meaning from that of the original word from which they come. A familiar pair of doublets is _dainty_ and _dignity_, both of which come from the Latin word _dignitas_. _Dignity_, which came into the English language either directly from the Latin or through the modern French word _dignite_, has not wandered at all from the meaning of the Latin word, which had first the idea of "merit" or "value," and then that of honourable position or character which the word _dignity_ has in English. _Dainty_ has a quite different meaning; though it, too, came from _dignitas_, but through the less dignified way of the Old French word _daintie_.

The English words _dish_, _dais_, _desk_, and _disc_ all come from the Latin word _discus_, by which the Romans meant first a round flat plate thrown in certain games (a "quoit"), and secondly a plate or dish. In Old English this word became _dish_. In Old French it became _deis_, and from this we have the English _dais_--the raised platform of a throne. In Italian it became _desco_, from which we got _desk_; and the scientific men of modern times, in their need of a word to describe exactly a round, flat object, have gone back as near as possible to the Latin and given us _disc_. It is to be noticed that the original idea of the Latin word--"having a flat surface"--is kept in these four descendants of a remote ancestor.

The words _chieftain_ and _captain_ are doublets coming from the Late Latin word _capitaneus_, "chief;" the former through the Old French word _chevetaine_, and the latter more directly from the Latin.

_Frail_ and _fragile_ are another pair, coming from the Latin word _fragilis_, "easily broken;" the one through Old French, and the other through Modern French.

Both these pairs of words have kept fairly close to the original meaning; but _caitiff_ and _captive_, another pair of doublets, have quite different meanings from each other. Both come from the Latin word _captivus_, "captive," the one indirectly and the other directly.

_Caitiff_, which is not a word used now except occasionally in poetry, means a "base, cowardly person;" but _captive_ has, of course, the original meaning of the Latin word.

Another pair of doublets, which are quite different in form and almost opposite to each other in meaning, are _guest_ and _hostile_. These two words come from the same root word; but this goes further back than Latin, to the language known as the Aryan, from which nearly all the languages of Europe and the chief language of India come.

_Hostile_ comes from the Latin _hostis_, "an enemy;" but _hostis_ itself comes from the same Aryan word as that from which _guest_ comes, and so these two words are doublets in English. They express very different ideas: we are not generally "hostile" or "full of enmity" against a "guest," one who partakes of our hospitality.

Another pair of doublets not from the Latin are _s.h.i.+rt_ and _skirt_, which are both old Germanic words. _Skirt_ came later into the language, being from the Scandinavian, while _s.h.i.+rt_ is an Old English word.

The word _cross_ and the many words in English beginning with _cruci_--such as _crucial_, _crucifix_, and _cruciform_--the adverb _across_, as well as the less common word _crux_, all come from the Latin word _crux_, "a cross." The word _cross_ first came into the English language with Christianity itself, for the death of our Lord on the cross was, of course, the first story which converts to Christianity were told. It came through the Irish from the Norwegian word _cros_, which came direct from the Latin. All the words beginning with _cruci_ come straight from the Latin. _Cruciform_ and _crucifix_ refer to the form of a cross, and so sometimes does the word _crucial_. But, as a rule, _crucial_ is used as the adjective of the word _crux_, which means the "test," or "difficult point," in deciding or doing something. The Romans did not use _crux_ in this sense; but it is interesting to notice that they did use it in the figurative sense of "trouble" just as we do. This came from the fact that the common form of execution for all subjects of the Roman Empire except Roman citizens was crucifixion.

Two such different words as _tavern_ and _tabernacle_, the one meaning an inn and the other the most sacred part of the sanctuary in a church, are doublets from the Latin word _tabernaculum_, "tent." The first comes from the French _taverne_, and the second directly from the Latin.

The words _mint_ and _money_ both come from the Latin word _moneta_, which was an adjective attached by the Romans to the name of the G.o.ddess Juno. The place where the Romans coined their money was attached to the temple of Juno Moneta, or Juno the Adviser. From this fact the Romans themselves came to use _moneta_ as the name for coins, or what we call money. The word pa.s.sed into French as _monnaie_, which is still the French word both for _money_ and _mint_, the place where we coin our money. In German it became _munze_, which has the same meanings. In English it became _mint_. But the English language, as we have seen, has a fine gift for borrowing. In time it acquired the French word _monnaie_, which became _money_ as the name for coins, while it kept the word _mint_ to describe the place where coins are made.

The words _bower_, formerly the name of a sleeping-place for ladies and now generally meaning a summer-house, and _byre_, the place where cows sleep, both come from the Old English word _bur_, "a bower." The word _flour_ (which so late as the eighteenth century Dr. Johnson did not include in his great dictionary) is the same word as _flower_.

Flour is merely the flower of wheat. Again, _poesy_ and _posy_ are really the same word, _posy_ being derived from _poesy_. _Posy_ used to mean a copy of verses presented to some one with a bouquet. Now it stands either for verses, as when we speak of the "posy of a ring," or more commonly a bunch of flowers without any verses.

The words _bench_ and _bank_ both come from the same Teutonic word which became _benc_ in Old English and _banc_ in French. _Bench_ comes from _benc_, but _bank_ has a more complicated history. From the French _banc_ we borrowed the word to use in the old expression a "bank of oars." From the Scandinavians, who also had the word, we got _bank_, used for the "bank of a river." Meanwhile the Italians had also borrowed the old Germanic word which became with them _banca_ or _banco_, the bench or table of a money-changer. From this the French got _banque_, and this became in English _bank_ as we use it in connection with money.

The Latin word _ratio_, "reckoning," has given three words to the English language. It pa.s.sed into Old French as _resoun_, and from this we got the word _reason_. Later on the French made a new word direct from the Latin--_ration_; which, again, pa.s.sed into English as a convenient name for the allowance of food to a soldier. It has now a more general sense, as when in the Great War people talk of the whole nation being put "on rations." Then again, as every child who is old enough to study mathematics knows, we use the Latin word itself, _ratio_, as a mathematical term.

Another Latin word which has given three different words to the English language is _gentilis_. From it we have _gentile_, _gentle_, and _genteel_. Yet the Latin word had not the same meaning as any of these words. _Gentilis_ meant "belonging to the same _gens_ or 'clan.'" It became later a distinguis.h.i.+ng term from _Jew_. All who were not Jews were _Gentiles_, and this is still the meaning of the word _gentile_ in English. It came directly from the Latin. But _gentilis_ became _gentil_ in French; and we have borrowed twice from this word, getting _gentle_, which expresses one idea contained in the French word, though the French word means more than our word _gentle_.

It has the sense of "very amiable and attractive." The last word of the three, _genteel_, is rather a vulgar word. It means "like gentlemen and ladies have to do," and only rather ignorant people use the word seriously.

Doublets from Latin words for the most part resemble each other in meaning and form, though, as we have seen, this is not always the case. We could give a long list of examples where both sense and form are similar, but there is only s.p.a.ce to mention a few. _Poor_ and _pauper_ (a miserably poor person) both come from the Latin _pauper_, "poor." _Story_ and _history_ both come from _historia_, a word which had both meanings in Latin. _Human_ and _humane_ are both from the Latin _huma.n.u.s_, "belonging to mankind." _Sure_ and _secure_ are both from the Latin _securus_, "safe." _Nourishment_ and _nutriment_ are both from the Latin _nutrimentum_. _Amiable_ and _amicable_ are both from the Latin _amicabilis_, "friendly."

Examples of doublets which are similar in form but not in sense are _chant_ and _cant_, which both come from the Latin _cantare_, "to sing." _Chant_ has the original idea, being a form of singing, especially in church; but _cant_ has wandered far from the original sense, meaning insincere words, especially such as are used by people pretending to be religious or pious. The word _cant_ was first used in describing the chanting or whining of beggars, who were supposed often to be telling lies; and from this it got its present use, which has nothing to do with singing.

_Blame_ and _blaspheme_, both coming from the Latin _blasphemare_, itself taken from a Hebrew word, are not, perhaps, quite so different in sense; but _blame_ means merely to find fault with a person, while _blaspheme_ means to speak against G.o.d.

_Chance_ and _cadence_ both come from the Latin _cadere_, "to fall,"

but have very little resemblance in meaning. _Chance_ is what happens or befalls, and _cadence_ is movement measured by the fall of the voice in speaking or singing.

But the most interesting doublets of all are those which have neither form nor sense in common. No one would guess that the words _hyena_ and _sow_, the names of two such different animals, are doublets. Both come from the Greek word _sus_ or _hus_, "sow." The Saxons, when they first settled in England, had the words _su_, "pig," and _sugu_, "sow;" and later the word _hyena_ was taken from the Latin word _hyaena_, itself derived from the Greek _huaina_, "sow."

The words _furnish_ and _veneer_, again, are doublets which do not resemble each other very closely either in sound or in sense. Both come from the Old French word _furnir_, which has become _fournir_ in Modern French, and means "to furnish." The English word _furnish_ was taken direct from the French, while the word _veneer_, which used to be spelt _fineer_, came into English from a German word also borrowed from the French _furnir_.

No one would easily guess that the name _nutmeg_ had anything to do with _musk_; but the word comes from the name which Latin writers in the Middle Ages gave to this useful seed--_nux muscata_, "musky nut."

It seems strange, when we come to think of it, that great English sailors like Admiral Jellicoe and Admiral Beatty are called by a t.i.tle which is really the same as the name of an Arabian chieftain--_Emir_.