Stories That Words Tell Us Part 6

But the religious writers of the Reformation period gave us another kind of word besides those found in the translations of the Bible.

Many of these writers thought it was their duty to abuse the people who did not agree with them on the subject of religion. Tyndale himself, who invented such beautiful words in his translations, was the first to use the word _dunce_. He called the Catholics by this name, which he made out of the name of a philosopher of the Middle Ages called Duns Scotus. The Protestants despised the Catholic or scholastic philosophy. But Duns Scotus was quite a clever man in his day, and it is curious that his name should have given us the word _dunce_, which became quite a common word as time went on.

Other new words which the Protestants used against the Catholics were _Romish_, _Romanist_ (which Luther had used, but which Coverdale was the first to use in English), _popery_, _popishness_, _papistical_, _monkish_, all of which are still used to-day, and still have an anti-Catholic meaning. It was then that Rome was first described as _Babylon_, the meaning of the Protestants being that the city was as wicked as ancient Babylon, the name of which is used as a type of all wickedness in the Apocalypse, and these writers often used the words _Babylonian_ and _Babylonish_ instead of _Roman_. The name _Scarlet Woman_, also taken from the Apocalypse, was also often used to describe the Catholic Church.

The expression _Roman Catholic_, to which no one objects, was invented later, at the time that it was thought that Charles I. was going to marry a Spanish princess, and, of course, a Catholic. It was invented as being more polite than the terms by which the Protestants had so often abused the Catholics, and it has been used ever since.

Other new words came from the breaking up of Protestantism into different sects. _Puritan_ was the name given to those who wished to "purify" the Protestant religion from all the old ceremonies of Catholicism. The Calvinists (or followers of the French reformer, John Calvin) believed that souls were "predestined" to go to heaven or to be lost. The people who were predestined to be lost they described as _reprobate_, and this word we still use, but with a different meaning.

A reprobate nowadays is a person who is looked upon as hopelessly bad, and the word is also sometimes used jokingly.

The name _Protestant_ itself is interesting. It was first used to describe the Lutherans, who "protested" against, and would not agree with, the decisions made by the Emperor Charles V. on the subject of religion.

The names of the different forms of Protestantism are often very interesting, and were, of course, new words invented to describe the different forms of belief. The first great division was between the _Lutherans_ and the _Calvinists_. The meaning of these names is plain.

They were merely the followers of Martin Luther and John Calvin.

But later on there were many divisions, such as the _Baptists_, who were so called because they thought that people should not be baptized until they were grown up. They also administered the sacrament in a different way from most other Churches, the person baptized being dipped in the water. At one time these people were called _Anabaptists_, _ana_ being the Greek word for "again." But this was supposed to be a term of abuse similar to those showered on the Roman Catholics, and in time it died out.

Then there were the _Independents_, who were so called because they believed that each congregation should be independent of every other.

Perhaps the most peculiar name applied to one of the many sects in the England of the seventeenth century was that of the _Quakers_. This, too, was a name of abuse at first; but the "Society of Friends," to whom it was applied, came sometimes to use it themselves. They were a people who believed in great simplicity of life and manners and dress, and had no priests. At their religious meetings silence was kept until some one was moved to speak. The name was taken from the text, "quaking at the word of the Lord."

The names chosen by religious leaders, and those applied to the sects by their enemies, can teach us a great deal of history.

CHAPTER VIII.

WORDS FROM THE NAMES OF PEOPLE.

Many words have been taken from the names of people, saints and sinners, men who have helped on human progress and men who have tried to stand in its way, from queens and kings and n.o.bles, and from quite humble people.

One large group of words has been made from the names of great inventors. All through history men have been inventing new things. We realize this if we think of what England is like to-day, and what it was like in the days of the early Britons. But even by the time of the early Britons many things had been invented which the earlier races of men had not known. Perhaps the greatest inventor the world has ever known was the man who first discovered how to make fire; but we shall never know who he was.

The people who discovered how to make metal weapons instead of the stone weapons which early men used were great inventors too; and those who discovered how to grow crops of corn and wheat, and so gave new food to the human race. But all this happened in times long past, before men had any idea of writing down their records, and so these inventors have not left their names for us to admire.

But in historical times, and especially in the centuries since the Renaissance, there have been many inventors, and it will be interesting to see how the things they invented got their names. The word _inventor_ itself means a "finder," and comes to us from the Latin word _invenio_, "I find."

The greatest number of inventions have been made in the last hundred and fifty years. The printing-press was, of course, a great invention of the fifteenth century, but it was simply called the _printing-press_, and did not take the name of its inventor. Yet this was a new name too, for the people of the Middle Ages would not have known what a printing-press was.

Several early printers have, however, had their names preserved in the description of the beautiful books they produced. All lovers of rare books are admirers of what they call _Aldines_ and _Elzevirs_--that is, books printed at the press of Aldo Manuzio and his family at Venice in the sixteenth century, and by the Elzevir family in Holland in the seventeenth century.

We speak of a _Bradshaw_ and a _Baedeker_ to describe the best-known of all railway guides and guide-books. The first takes its name from George Bradshaw, a map engraver, who was born in Manchester in 1801, and lived there till he died, in 1853. In 1839 he published on his own account "Bradshaw's Railway Time Table," of which he changed the name to "Railway Companion" in the next year. He corrected it a few days after the beginning of each month by the railway time sheets, but even then the railway companies sometimes made changes later in the month. In a short time, however, the companies agreed to fix their time tables monthly, and in December 1841 Bradshaw was able to publish the first number of "Bradshaw's Monthly Railway Guide." Six years afterwards he published the first number of "Bradshaw's Continental Railway Guide."

The famous series of guides now called _Baedekers_ take their name from Karl Baedeker, a German publisher, who in the first half of the nineteenth century began to publish this famous series.

Members of Parliament still speak of the volumes containing the printed record of what goes on in Parliament as _Hansard_. This name comes from that of the first publisher of such records, Luke Hansard, who was printer to the House of Commons from 1798 until he died, in 1828. His family continued to print the reports as late as 1889, and though the work is now shared by other firms, the name is still kept.

Not only books but musical instruments are frequently called after their makers. The two most famous and valuable kinds of old violins take their names from the Italian family of the Amati, who made violins in the sixteenth century, and Antonio Stradivari, who was their pupil. An _Amati_ and a _Stradivarius_, often called a "Strad"

for short, are the names now given by musicians to the splendid old violins made by these people.

The names of many flowers have been taken from the names of persons, and this still goes on to-day when new varieties of roses or sweet peas are called after the person who first grew them, or some friend of this person. These modern names are not, as a rule, very romantic, but some of the older ones are interesting. The _dahlia_, for instance, was called after Dahl, a Swedish botanist, who was a pupil of the great botanist Linnaeus, after whom the chief botanical society in England, the _Linnaean Society_, is called. The _lobelia_ was so called after Matthias de Lobel, a Flemish botanist and physician to King James I. The _fuchsia_ took its name from Leonard Fuchs, a sixteenth-century botanist, the first German who really studied botany.

There are many more new things and names to-day than in earlier times, names which our grand-parents and even our parents did not know when they were children. We talk familiarly now about _aeroplanes_ and the different kinds of aeroplanes, such as the _monoplane_, _biplane_, etc. But these are new names invented in the last twenty years. Some of the names of airs.h.i.+ps and aeroplanes are very interesting. The _Taube_, for instance, is so called from the German word meaning "dove," because it looks very like a bird when it is up in the sky.

The great German airs.h.i.+ps called _Zeppelins_ took their name from the German Count Zeppelin, who invented them; and the splendid French airs.h.i.+ps called _Fokkers_ also take their name from their inventor, and so does the _Gotha_--name of ill-fame.

The man who first discovered gunpowder is forgotten, but many of the powerful guns which are used in modern warfare are called after their inventors. The _Gatling gun_ is not much talked of to-day, but it was a famous gun in its time, and took its name from the American inventor, Richard Jordan Gatling, who lived in the early nineteenth century, and devoted his life to inventions. Some were peaceable inventions, like machines for sowing cotton and rice; but he is best remembered by the great gun to which he gave his name.

Another famous gun of which we have heard a great deal in the Great War is the _Maxim gun_, which again took its name from its inventor, Sir Hiram Maxim. The _shrapnel_, of which also so much was heard in the Great War, the terrible sh.e.l.ls which burst a certain time after leaving the gun without striking against anything, took its name from its inventor. The chief peculiarity of shrapnel is that the bullets fall from above in a shower from the sh.e.l.l as it bursts in the air.

But there are many other names which we should not easily guess to come from the names of inventors. People talk of a macadamized road without knowing that these roads are so called because they are made in the way invented by John M'Adam, who lived from 1756 to 1836. The name _macadam_ is often used now to denote the material used in making roads. Sometimes this material is of a sort which John M'Adam would not have approved of at all, for he did not believe in pouring a fluid material over the stones, or in the heavy rollers which are now often used in making new roads.

Another useful article, the homely _mackintosh_, takes its name from that of another Scotsman, Charles Macintosh, who lived at the same time as M'Adam. It was he who first, in 1823, finished the invention of a waterproof cloth.

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries many great discoveries were made in science, and many names of discoverers and inventors have been preserved in scientific words. _Galvanism_, one branch of electricity, took its name from Luigi Galvani, an Italian professor, who made great discoveries about electricity in the bodies of animals. Every one has heard of a galvanic battery, but not everybody knows how it got its name.

_Mesmerism_, or the science by which the human mind is influenced by suggestions from itself or another mind, took its name from Friedrich Anton Mesmer, who first made great discoveries about animal magnetism.

Another famous discoverer of the powers of electricity, and one who is still a young man, is Guglielmo Marconi, a native of Bologna. It was he who invented the great system of wireless telegraphy which is now used in nearly all big s.h.i.+ps. In 1899 he first succeeded in sending a message in this way from England to France, and in the next year he sent one right across the Atlantic. Now s.h.i.+ps frequently send a _Marconigram_ home when they are right in the middle of the ocean; and many lives have been saved through s.h.i.+ps in distress having been able to send out wireless messages which have brought other vessels steaming up to their aid. In fact, this invention of Marconi's is, perhaps, the greatest of all modern inventions, and it is but right that it should preserve his name.

A different kind of invention has preserved the name of the fourth Earl of Sandwich, an eighteenth-century n.o.bleman, who was so fond of card games that he could not bear to leave the card table even to eat his meals, and so invented what has ever since been called by his name--the _sandwich_.

Not unlike the origin of the name sandwich is that of _Abernethy_ biscuits, so called after the doctor who invented the recipe for making them.

It was another doctor, the French physician, Joseph Ignace Guillotin, who gave his name to the _guillotine_, the terrible knife with which people were beheaded in thousands during the French Revolution.

Guillotin did not really invent it, nor was he himself guillotined, as has often been said. The guillotine is supposed to have been invented long ago in Persia, and was used in the Middle Ages both in Italy and Germany. The Frenchman whose name it bears was a kindly person, who merely advised this method of execution at the time of the French Revolution, because he thought, and rightly, that if people were to be beheaded at all, it should be done swiftly and not clumsily.

But many things are called by the names of persons who were not inventors at all. Sometimes a new kind of clothing is called after some great person just to make it seem distinguished. A _Chesterfield_ overcoat is so called because the tailor who first gave this kind of coat that name wished to suggest that it had all the elegance displayed in the clothing of the famous eighteenth-century dandy, the fourth Earl of Chesterfield. So the well-known _Raglan_ coats and sleeves took their name first from an English general, Baron Raglan, who fought in the Crimean War. Both Wellington and Blucher, the two generals who fought together and defeated Napoleon at Waterloo, gave their names to different kinds of boots. _Bluchers_ are strong leather half boots or high shoes, and _Wellingtons_ are high riding boots reaching to the bend of the knee at the back of the leg, and covering the knee in front. Wellington is supposed to have worn such boots in his campaigns.

Another article of clothing which was very popular with ladies at one time was the _Garibaldi_ blouse, which was so called after the red s.h.i.+rts which were worn by the followers of the famous soldier who won liberty for Italy, Garibaldi.

The rather vulgar name for ladies' divided skirts--_bloomers_--came from the name of an American woman, Mrs. Amelia Jenks Bloomer, who used to wear a skirt which reached to her knee, and then was divided into Turkish trousers tied round her ankles.

A great many different kinds of carriages and vehicles have been called by the names of people. The _brougham_, which is still a favourite form of closed carriage, got its name from Lord Brougham.

The old four-wheeled carriage with a curved gla.s.s front got its name from the Duke of Clarence, who afterwards became King William IV.; and the carriage known as the _Victoria_ was so called as a compliment to Queen Victoria. We do not hear much of this kind of carriage now; but the two-wheeled cab known as the _hansom_ is still to be seen in the streets of London, in spite of the coming of the taxicab. This form of conveyance took its name from an architect who invented it in 1834. An earlier kind of two-wheeled carriage invented a few years before this, but which was displaced by the hansom, was the _stanhope_, also called after its inventor. The general name for a two-wheeled carriage of this sort used to be the _phaeton_, and this was not taken from any person, but from the sun-chariot in which, according to the old Greek story, the son of Helios rode to destruction when he had roused the anger of the great Greek G.o.d, Zeus.

The names of old Greeks and Romans have given us many words. We speak of a very rich man as a _Croesus_, a word which was the name of a fabulously rich tyrant in Ancient Greece. A person who is supposed to be a great judge of food, and devoted to the pleasures of the table, is called an _epicure_, from the old Greek philosopher Epicurus, who taught that the chief aim of life was to feel pleasure. The word _cynic_, too, comes from the name given to certain Greek philosophers who despised pleasure. The name was originally a nickname for these philosophers, and was taken from the Greek word _kunos_, "dog."

We describe a person who chooses to live a very hard life as a _Spartan_, because the people of the old Greek state of Sparta planned their lives so that every one should be disciplined and drilled to make good soldiers, and were never allowed to indulge in too much comfort or too many amus.e.m.e.nts, lest they should become lazy in mind and weak in body. A _Draconian_ system of law is one which has no mercy, and preserves the name of Draco, a statesman who was appointed to draw up laws for the Athenians six hundred and twenty-one years before the birth of Our Lord, and who drew up a very strict code of laws.

The word _mausoleum_, which is now used to describe any large or distinguished tomb, comes from the tomb built for Mausolus, king of Caria (in Greek Asia Minor), by his widow, Artemisia, in 353 B.C. The tomb itself, which rises to a height of over one hundred and twelve feet, is now to be seen in the British Museum.

The verb _to hector_, meaning "to bully," is taken from the name of the Trojan hero Hector, in the famous old Greek poem, the Iliad.

Hector was not, as a matter of fact, a bully, but a very brave man, and it is curious that his name should have come to be used in this unpleasant sense. The other great Greek poem, the Odyssey, has given us the name of one of its characters for a fairly common English word.

A _mentor_ is a person who gives us wise advice, but the original Mentor was a character in this great poem, the wise counsellor of Telemachus.

From the names of great Romans, too, we have many words. If we describe a person as a _Nero_, every one knows that this means a cruel tyrant. Nero was the worst of all the Roman emperors, and the story tells that he was so heartless that he played on his violin while watching the burning of Rome. Some people even said that he himself set the city on fire. Again, the name of Julius Caesar, who was the first imperial governor of Rome, though he was never called emperor, has given us a common name. _Caesar_ came to mean "an emperor;" and the modern German _Kaiser_ and the Russian _Tsar_ come from this name of the "n.o.blest Roman of them all."

An earlier Roman was Fabius Cunctator (or "Fabius the Procrastinator"), a general who, instead of fighting actual battles with the Carthaginian Hannibal, the great enemy of Rome, preferred to tire him out by keeping him waiting and never giving battle. His name has given us the word _Fabian_, to describe this kind of tactics.