OLD AND NEW WORDS.
One very interesting point in the study of language is the cause
of the introduction of new, and the falling off of old, words. It
is to be observed that a new word is generally ushered in with a
sort of parade--a flourish of trumpets; many writers make a rush
at it, and drag it in, whether applicable or not. Its novelty is
attractive; and it is often used in a sense which really does
not belong to it. But it is not every word thus introduced that
maintains its place: it is often found, after all, that it has
more sound than sense, and is rather ornamental than useful; and
then it is sure to fall into neglect, dies away, and is heard of
no more. On the other hand, in the natural course of things, many
words which have done good service, and for a long period, are
at length discontinued, and give way to new, and sometimes more
useful, terms. These slip out of the language unperceived; they
are no longer wanted--no one enquires for them; some new and more
expressive terms push them out, and they are consigned to oblivion.
It is quite ludicrous to observe how strangely uneducated or
illiterate people use words which, to them, are quite new. They
are so fascinated with their novelty, or, perhaps, with their
sound and length, that they apply them in all manner of odd
and eccentric meanings. Two of these words--‘promiscuous’ and
‘immaterial’--seem to be great favourites with a certain class: an
ignorant Englishman somehow imagines that the word ‘immaterial’
conveys a sort of reproach, and he insults his fellow-workman by
calling him an ‘_immaterial_,’ meaning that he is a fellow of no
worth or respectability. The word ‘promiscuous’ is often used by
the lower orders in the same loose way. A witness in a trial, not
long ago, stated that ‘he met the prisoner “promiscuously” (or,
as he pronounced it, ‘permiskously’) in the streets;’ meaning, by
chance, or casually.
If we trace the history of the English language through the
various phases of its career, from its earliest up to its present
condition, we shall find that it has been continually growing more
Romance and less Saxon. It is said that a process of decay had set
in even before the introduction of Anglo-Saxon into England--that
the language had already lost some of its inflections; and it is
well known that, in process of time, these endings, with some few
exceptions, wholly disappeared. Again, at a later period, many
Saxon nouns which had formed their plurals in _en_ rejected this
form, and adopted the Romance (or French) plural-ending, _s_. At
one time, the word ‘eye’ formed its plural ‘eyne,’ or ‘eyen;’
‘tree’ made ‘treen;’ ‘shoe,’ ‘shoon;’ and even the Romance word
‘uncle,’ ‘unclen.’ These forms have now all departed, and in their
place we have ‘eye_s_,’ ‘tree_s_,’ ‘shoe_s_,’ &c.
The mode of forming a plural by a change of the internal vowel,
which was common in Saxon nouns, has now almost vanished from the
language. We have some few left; but not more than five or six
examples, as ‘tooth,’ ‘goose,’ ‘foot,’ ‘man,’ ‘woman,’ and ‘mouse.’
We may be quite confident that any new nouns brought into English
will form their plurals by the French, and not the German, system.
Again, verbs of strong conjugation are much fewer than formerly.
Many verbs now form the past tense by adding _d_ or _ed_ to the
present which, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, changed
the internal vowel-sound for that purpose. To ‘climb’ formerly
made ‘clomb’ (a form used by Milton in the seventeenth century);
‘quake’ made ‘quoke;’ ‘laugh,’ ‘lofe;’ ‘reach,’ ‘raught;’ and many
others. All these now adopt the weak form of conjugation, and form
the past tense by adding _d_ or _ed_ to the root of the verb:
‘climb-_ed_,’ ‘laugh-_ed_,’ ‘reach-_ed_,’ ‘quak-_ed_,’ &c. And so
it will be with all verbs that may be hereafter brought into the
language; they will, one and all, form the past tense by adding
_ed_.
But not only have we lost these Saxon characteristics: whole lists
of Saxon words have disappeared which once did good service in the
language. This may be easily shown by glancing over a few pages of
Chaucer or Mandeville, where we shall find a multitude of terms
which have been long disused. For example:--
clepen to call
thorpe village
grutchen to murmur
stound moment
sterve to die
swappen to strike
foryield to repay
reden to advise, &c.
Even in Shakspere and Milton we may find many words which are now
obsolete. All these, again, are Saxon; so that it may be truly said
that our losses have been Saxon, whilst our additions have been all
Romance, i.e. Latin or French.
In most cases substitutions have been made; but we shall always
find that the disused word was Saxon, while the one substituted
for it is French or Latin. Thus, for the Saxon compound
‘monath-seoc’ (month sick) we now have ‘lunatic;’ instead of
‘waeter-adl’ (water-illness), we have ‘dropsy.’ The old Anglo-Saxon
‘eorth-gemet’ (earth-measure) has given way to the Greek
‘geometry;’ and the Saxon ‘witena-gemot’ (meeting of wise men), has
been transformed into the French ‘parliament.’
In all probability it was the influence of the Norman conquest that
assisted this tendency to substitute single terms for compound
words. The French language not being favourable to such formations,
after a time pushed out many Saxon compounds; and yet, in point
of clearness, power, and feeling, the Saxon words were far more
effective. Their separate parts were significant, and familiar to
the commonest understanding; whereas the new word was, of course,
at first altogether foreign, and even after a time was far from
being so impressive as the other. For example, the meaning of the
Anglo-Saxon noun ‘_sige-beacan_’ must have been clear to the most
uneducated mind: ‘sige’ is ‘victory,’ and ‘beacan’ is ‘sign;’
that is, ‘victory-sign.’ Now, for this was substituted ‘trophy,’
which, being a more uncommon word, does not explain itself as the
other, and is, therefore, not so vivid or picturesque. Again,
‘_heah-setl_’ is translated into ‘throne.’ In the former word we
have two distinct ideas, ‘high’ and ‘seat,’ both familiar to the
most illiterate peasant; whereas the word ‘throne,’ though now
common enough, must at first have puzzled the people considerably.
One very expressive Saxon word, ‘_wanhope_,’ has disappeared
from the language. This may be considered a real loss; ‘wanhope’
expressed that condition of the mind in which we have not actually
lost all hope, but when it is beginning to _wane_, i.e. grow
gradually less, and we feel it slipping away from us. ‘Hope’ and
‘despair’ are the two opposite ends of the scale, and ‘wanhope’
formerly expressed an intermediate state of mind. This was a
beautiful word, and we have now no equivalent for it.
A host of Saxon derivatives have also vanished from the language
which were once in common use; and among them may be named those
having the prefix ‘_for_.’ We still retain the words ‘forbear,’
‘forbid,’ ‘forget,’ ‘forgive,’ ‘forlorn,’ and ‘forswear;’ but in
the writings of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries we often meet
with ‘forfend,’ ‘fordrive,’ ‘forsay,’ ‘forspend,’ ‘forwither,’
‘forwaste,’ &c., all of which are now dead and buried. One word of
this class survives, though in a different form, viz. the Saxon
verb ‘fordon.’ This verb, though given up, may be still seen in
the familiar expression ‘_to do for_.’
This tendency towards raising the French at the expense of
the Saxon portion of English may be accounted for by various
circumstances of our history. First, there can be no doubt that
the Norman conquest was mainly instrumental in producing this
effect. This event could not have failed to be unfavourable to
the prosperity of the Saxon. The relation in which the conquerors
stood to the conquered was of itself sufficient to account for it,
and though the enmity between the two races will explain how the
two languages were kept so long separated, when the fusion did
at length take place, the advantage was clearly in favour of the
governing classes.
Another cause of this leaning to the French may have been the
number of French words introduced by Chaucer. The English language
(if, indeed, it then deserved that name) was in the latter part
of the reign of Edward III. only just beginning to be formed. The
Saxon element, which ever since the Conquest had been crushed, was
now lifting its head, whilst the French was somewhat discouraged.
But the language was not then fit for literary, especially for
poetical, purposes; and, therefore, at the very time when it first
appeared as English, a large influx of French words took place.
But this result was assisted by other circumstances. The number of
Huguenot refugees who found shelter in England after the massacre
of St. Bartholomew added materially to the French population of
this country, and assisted in swelling the French vocabulary of the
English language.
In the seventeenth century the marriage of Charles I. and Henrietta
Maria of France could not fail to produce some effect on the
language and literature of the age, and though this French taste
received a check during the rule of Cromwell, it returned with
double force at the Restoration. The foreign tastes acquired by
Charles II. in his wanderings on the continent mainly contributed
to this state of things, and on the return of the Stewarts, the
general tone of the court and nobility, as well as the literature
of the age, was French.
But this was as nothing when compared with the consequences of
Louis XIV.’s revocation of the Edict of Nantes, in 1685. We are
told by Mr. Smiles that, in consequence of this cruel and impolitic
act, as many as 400,000 French emigrants found an asylum in this
country. It is impossible that this could have been without effect
on the English language, and although statistics on the subject
are wanting, we may confidently conclude that this immigration
considerably increased the French element of the English language.
There can be little doubt that the style of Latinity which
Johnson adopted also led to the abandonment of many words of
Saxon origin. He was the most weighty authority in England in all
things regarding language, style, and literature, till the year
of his death, 1784; and his numerous imitators, maintaining his
peculiarities of style, still further contributed to the same state
of things. Add to all these influences the general leaning of most
writers of the present day, and we shall not be surprised at the
condition of the English language.
When we consider the numerous and continual attacks which the
Saxon element of English has thus sustained, we may be inclined
to wonder that there should be any of it left--that it should not
have been utterly crushed and annihilated by these raids. But this
wonder will be increased when we find that it not only exists, but
constitutes to this day by far the larger portion of our language.
This is surely sufficient to prove the innate depth, force, and
vigour of that element; and we may fairly conclude that if it has
so far been able to make head against these innovations, it retains
an intrinsic power to resist future attacks of the same nature.
In truth, Saxon is not so much an element as the very basis and
foundation of English. The great body of articles, pronouns,
numerals, conjunctions, prepositions, signs, auxiliaries, &c.--in
fine, all the framework and joints of the language--are drawn from
that source.
There are, however, some French philologists who would have it
that the majority of words in English is much in favour of French.
M. Thommerel gives himself great pains to prove this conclusion,
but apparently on very insufficient grounds; and M. Génin, who
has written some valuable works on his own language, says, in his
‘Variations du langage Français,’ that the English are indebted
to the French for more than three quarters of their language!
‘Les Anglais,’ he writes, ‘ne sont riches que de nos dépouilles;
si l’on se mettait à cribler leur langue, et à reprendre ce qui
nous appartient, il ne leur resterait pas même de quoi se dire:
“Bonjour! comment vous portez-vous?” Leur fameuse formule, _How do
you do?_ est volée à la France.’ The tone of this remark is pretty
evident, and he surely here allows his patriotism to get the better
of his good sense; for he certainly ought to have known that,
though our language is enriched with many French words, the main
body of English, since the fourteenth century, has been, and is at
the present moment, drawn from a Saxon and not a French source.
In the case of ‘How do you do?’ however, he is probably right. He
quotes from several ballads of the twelfth century the expression
‘Comment le faites-vous?’ as then used in the English sense of ‘How
do you do?’ to prove that we have adopted--or rather, as he says,
stolen--this form from the French. It has been suggested that the
verb _do_, in this phrase, is derived from the Saxon ‘dugan,’ to
prosper or prevail, from which comes the more modern ‘doughty;’ as
in ‘_a doughty knight_.’ According to this explanation, ‘How do
you do?’ is equivalent to ‘How do you get on, or prosper?’ But Mr.
Wedgewood, in his ‘Dictionary of English Etymology,’ rejects this
view. He agrees here with M. Génin, that it is a close translation
of the old French ‘Comment le faites-vous?’ And so the matter now
stands.
Various circumstances give rise to new words, which either remain
in or depart from the language as they may be found serviceable or
otherwise. One modern importation is ‘_Handbook_.’ This appears
an unnecessary innovation, more especially as we had already a
word which answered the same purpose, and quite as well, viz.
‘_Manual_,’ and which has the additional recommendation of being a
simple, not a compound, word. ‘Handbook’ is of German origin, and
probably owes its introduction to that German influence which came
in with the late Prince Consort. Mr. Murray has largely contributed
to its popularity by his numerous and well-known ‘handbooks,’ and
the word will now most probably retain its place in the language.
D’Israeli the elder claims the honour of having introduced the word
‘_Fatherland_’ into English. This is certainly a useful addition
to our vocabulary. We had before no word to distinguish between
the two Latin meanings of ‘_rus_’ and ‘_patria_;’ ‘country’ being
equivocal in sense, since it may mean either the land of our birth,
or that part of it distinguished from the town. Here the French
have hitherto had the advantage of us: they have ‘patrie,’ for
‘Fatherland;’ ‘pays,’ for a territorial division; and ‘campagne,’
in a rural sense.
The exact date of the introduction of the term ‘_stand-point_’ is
not known, but it is among the new words of about thirty or forty
years’ standing; and we may conclude from its form that it is
German. This word is, no doubt, an improvement on ‘point of view,’
as being a closer, and therefore more convenient, expression. It is
now in common use, especially with writers on mental philosophy.
The noun ‘_antecedent_’ has been hitherto used exclusively as
a term of grammar, but of late years it has appeared in a new
sense. It is now often used, in the plural number, to signify the
actions and general conduct of some one whose reputation we wish
to ascertain. We must inquire, they say, into his ‘antecedents;’
that is, try to find out what he has been doing, who were his
companions, how he has hitherto conducted himself, &c. This is
certainly a convenient term enough. It expresses concisely what
would otherwise require a rather ponderous circumlocution. Mr.
‘Punch,’ with his usual satirical spirit, said that it would
be more satisfactory to know something of a suspected man’s
_relatives_ than of his _antecedents_!
We learn from Lord Macaulay that the word ‘gutted’ was first used
on the night in which James II. fled from London: ‘The king’s
printing-house ... was, to use a coarse metaphor, _which then for
the first time, came into fashion_, completely _gutted_.’
The first writer who used the word ‘anecdote’ was Procopius, the
Greek historian of the reign of Justinian. He wrote a work which he
called ‘Anecdotes,’ or a ‘Secret History.’ The Emperor Justinian
and his wife, Theodora, are here represented as two demons, who
had assumed a human form for the destruction of mankind. Procopius
tells us that he wrote this work as a supplement to his ‘History,’
in which he could not, for fear of torture and death, speak of
some living persons as they deserved. The word ‘anecdote’ is
compounded from the Greek ἀν (an) not, ἐκ (ek) out, and δότα
(dota) given. It thus means a fact not given out or put forth--an
unpublished story. Though this was its original meaning, every
one, of course, knows that we have now whole volumes of published
anecdotes.
The ending ‘ation’ is, in English, chiefly applied to Latin roots;
as in ‘consult_ation_,’ ‘cre_ation_,’ ‘don_ation_,’ &c. It is
said that Mr. Dundas, afterwards Lord Melville, was the first to
use the word ‘_starvation_,’ which he introduced in one of his
speeches in the House of Commons, on the American war, 1775. Here
we had, for the first time, a Saxon root--‘starve’--with a Latin
ending--‘ation;’ a hybrid formation. From this circumstance,
we are told that Mr. Dundas was ever afterwards called by his
acquaintances, ‘Starvation Dundas.’ But whatever objection may
have been made to it, the word has now taken a firm hold on the
language, and is used by the best writers as a perfectly legitimate
term.
The mania of modern times for grand terms has produced some very
curious words. Tradesmen, in advertising some new invention or
article for sale, almost always endeavour to attract public
attention towards it by giving it an unusually grand name,
generally from a Greek source, but often a strange combination. To
take a few cases of these mysterious compounds:--‘_Rypophagon_’
Soap. This, it may be presumed, means dirt-eating, or
dirt-consuming, soap. But, as all soap cleanses the skin, why
should this sort be designated as particularly cleansing? Simply
to sell the article. Indeed, we can hardly walk far in the streets
of London without seeing some fantastic term of this sort paraded
in the shop windows. The hair-dresser exhibits his ‘_Auricomous_’
Fluid; and the son of Crispin his ‘_Antigropelos_’ Boots. These
meet us at every turn. One tradesman has lately advertised a
machine which he thinks proper to call a ‘_Dotosthene_;’ by which,
we may conjecture, he means, an instrument for strengthening the
back.
Some years ago the writer, walking up Oxford Street, became aware
of a fellow carrying on his back before him a huge placard, on
which was inscribed the strange word ‘Therapolegeia.’ This was
a decided poser. On rubbing up his Greek, however, he at length
discovered that this curious word might possibly mean, ‘an office
for the registry of servants;’ and so it turned out. But which of
the two parties--the ladies who wished to hire the servants, or
the servants who wanted to be hired--best understood the word
‘Therapolegeia’ is a problem still to be solved.
Tailors--I beg their pardon, _Merchant Clothiers_!--now persist
in calling coats and waistcoats ‘tunics’ and ‘vests;’ and
as for ‘trousers,’ the word is considered far too gross for
ears polite! And what has become of ladies’ bonnets? They are
gone--departed--vanished! but they have left their ghosts behind
them, in the shape of a wretched little bunch of silk and ribbons,
dignified by the name of ‘Head-dress!’
Some of these outlandish compounds are not very intelligible. One
of them--‘Orthopœdic’--is a term applied to an institution lately
established in Oxford Street, for operating on club-feet. The
name is probably intended to raise the establishment in public
estimation, but the form of the word has justly called forth the
censure of some critics. If this word, as seems probable, is meant
to convey the idea of ‘straight-footed,’ the third syllable should
be formed from the Greek ποῦς, ποδός, a foot, and the whole word
should stand ‘orth_o_podic,’ and not ‘orthop_œ_dic.’
‘Stereotype,’ a term now commonly known to printers, and, indeed,
to general readers, was invented and first used by Didot, the
well-known French printer. This word will certainly maintain its
place in English.
The adjective ‘inimical’ is said to owe its origin to Mr. Windham,
who first introduced it in one of his speeches in the House of
Commons about eighty years ago. It is useful to mark a distinction
between private and public enmity; ‘inimical’ having the first, and
‘hostile’ the second, meaning. But the word is not very popular, in
spite of its four syllables, and does not appear to make its way.
The great French Revolution of 1789, as might have been expected,
brought forth many new words, some of which have been adopted in
English. One, destined to become a very prominent feature of the
times, was ‘Guillotine.’ This well-known instrument was named after
its inventor, Dr. Guillotin. How or why they made it feminine, by
adding to it an _e_, is not clear; but the word now stands ‘_La_
Guillotin_e_,’ and has secured for itself a permanent place in the
French language.
Other words which were the offspring of those dreadful times have
disappeared from common use and parlance, and are only occasionally
referred to as memorials of the age which produced them. Such
are the new names then given to the months; as ‘Brumaire,’
‘Vendémiaire,’ ‘Fructidor,’ ‘Thermidor,’ &c. When the fury of the
revolutionary spirit was at length exhausted, and things were
brought back to their former condition, these words naturally
fell into disuse, and at last disappeared. There were, however,
others belonging to this period which seem to have taken a stronger
hold on the people’s mind, and which form to this day part of the
legitimate vocabulary of the French language. In this class may be
named ‘fusillade’ and ‘noyade:’ those horrible wholesale shootings
and drownings of the Vendéans which formed such a frightful
picture of that awful period. ‘Terroriste’ first appeared under
Robespierre’s administration; and the assassins of the unfortunate
prisoners in September 1792 were termed ‘Septembriseurs.’
It is natural to suppose that political names would be born with
the parties which they designate. The terms ‘Whig’ and ‘Tory’ were
never heard of till the close of the seventeenth century; and it
is curious that there is much obscurity concerning the etymology
of both these words. All that is positively known on the subject
is, that the first is of Scotch, and the second of Irish, origin.
‘Whig’ was first applied to the Scotch covenanters, and ‘Tory’ to
the Popish outlaws who favoured the cause of King James II. in
Ireland. It may be remarked, by the way, that these two words,
though not wholly extinct, are now much less frequently heard
than formerly. Different circumstances of political warfare
have introduced new terms in both these cases. ‘Tories’ became
‘Protectionists’ during the great debates on the Corn-Laws; and now
they call themselves ‘Conservatives.’ The Whigs, again, appeared
on one occasion as ‘Reformers,’ and they are at present known as
‘Liberals.’
The name ‘Puritan,’ as applied to a religious sect, still
flourishes in English. It was first heard of in the reign of Queen
Elizabeth, and then given as a nickname to a party which would
have even reformed the Reformation. These ‘Puritans’ affected a
superhuman purity of morals, and hence their name. They were also
sometimes called ‘Precisians,’ from their excessive fastidiousness
about insignificant matters (this latter word has now fallen out of
use).
The distinction between ‘Roundhead’ and ‘Cavalier’ first appeared
during the civil war between Charles I. and his Parliament. The
‘Roundhead,’ in his sour and sullen spirit, condemned all outward
ornament, and wore his hair cropped close; thus showing the _round_
form of his _head_; in contradistinction to the chivalrous tone,
the romantic spirit, and the _flowing locks_ of the Cavalier.
The opprobrious term ‘_Gueux_’ (Beggars) was adopted in 1566
by the Dutch revolters against the rule of Philip II. Margaret
of Parma, then governor of the Netherlands, being somewhat
disconcerted at the numbers of that party, was reassured by her
minister, Barlaimont, who remarked to her, that there was nothing
to be feared from a crowd of ‘beggars.’ The party of confederates
accepted this name, and prided themselves on it; and in every
language in which the history of the revolt of the Netherlands has
been written, this French term, ‘gueux,’ is used to designate these
malcontents.
Many popular authors, presuming on their own authority, have
endeavoured to introduce new and strange terms into the English
language. Coleridge, in his work ‘On Church and State,’ makes use
of the following extraordinary words:--‘Influencive,’ ‘extroitive,
‘retroitive,’ and ‘productivity.’ Bentley uses:--‘Commentitious,’
‘aliene,’ ‘negoce,’ and ‘exscribe.’ But no other writers adopted
these words: a clear proof that they were not wanted.
Charles Lamb used, in his writings, several words which have not
succeeded in maintaining a place in the language. Among them may be
named, ‘agnise,’ ‘burgeon,’ and ‘arride.’
Again, any subject of temporary excitement will generally give
birth to some new words. The Indian Mutiny gave us ‘to loot;’ and
during the American civil war, we made our first acquaintance
with ‘secesh,’ ‘skedaddle,’ and ‘stampede.’ Words born under such
circumstances may be long- or short-lived: some maintain a place in
the language, others have but a brief existence; they ‘fret their
hour upon the stage,’ and then are heard no more.
We have also many examples of words which originated in some
question of passing interest, and which, though the causes of
their first appearance have long since passed away, still remain
in our language, and do us excellent service there. The general
belief in astrology in the Middle Ages left us several words of
this class. Though we no longer believe that the position of the
stars can affect our fortunes, we still use the word ‘disaster,’ in
the sense of a calamity or misfortune. From the same source come
the adjectives, ‘jovial,’ ‘mercurial,’ ‘martial,’ and ‘saturnine.’
These express qualities supposed to belong to those heathen gods
whose names were given to the constellation under which any one was
born. In astrological phraseology a man’s fortune is still said to
be _in the ascendant_, or to _culminate_. Both these expressions
were first used by the astrologers, and referred to certain stars
which, when they had risen to their greatest height, were believed
to portend prosperity. The word ‘aspect,’ though now expressing the
general appearance of things, was first applied, astrologically,
to the physical appearance or outward view of the heavens; and
‘lunatic’ was first used in the sense of one supposed to be
mentally affected by a change of the moon.
Other superstitions have produced words of a like nature. The
ancient Roman divination may be still traced in our English words
‘augur,’ ‘auspice,’ ‘omen,’ &c. The left hand was always regarded
by the ancients as portending ill-luck; and hence our modern word
‘sinister,’ which at first meant simply ‘left-handed,’ has now come
to signify ‘foreboding evil.’
‘Its,’ the possessive form of the neuter personal pronoun, is of
comparatively late introduction into our language. In Anglo-Saxon,
the same form served for both the masculine and neuter possessive;
thus:--
m. f. n.
Nom. He heo hit.
Gen. _His_ hire _his_.
At first, the nominative neuter, ‘it,’ was used for the possessive
neuter, of which many instances occur in Shakspere. See ‘King
John,’ act. ii. sc. 1: ‘Go to _it_ grandame, child.’ The same may
be found in the authorised version of the Scriptures (of 1611); see
Leviticus xxv. 5: ‘That which groweth of “_it_” own accord.’ But
in this translation the word ‘its’ is not once found. Genesis i.
11: ‘The tree yielding fruit after _his_ kind.’ Mark. ix. 50: ‘If
the salt have lost _his_ saltness,’ &c. Milton avoids the use of
‘its.’ It seldom occurs in his prose works, and there are not more
than three or four instances of it in his poems. The precise date
and occasion of the first introduction of ‘_its_’ into the English
language have not been ascertained, but it was probably early in
the seventeenth century. It is said that the ‘Rowley’s Poems’ of
Chatterton was detected to be a forgery by the presence of the word
‘_its_’ several times in the MS. Rowley was represented as a monk
of the fifteenth century, when the word was certainly not in the
language.
_New French Words._
M. Génin, in his chapter on the age of certain French words and
phrases, mentions the following cases:[1]--
1. ‘Désagrément’ and ‘renaissance;’ mentioned by Père Bouhours as
new words in 1675, two years after the death of Molière.
2. ‘Insidieux’ and ‘sécurité;’ established in the language by
Malherbe.
3. ‘Sagacité;’ first found in the works of St.-Réal and Balzac.
4. The sixteenth century was remarkable for an irruption of
diminutives, introduced chiefly by the influence of Ronsard and
his school. Most of these are now lost; but two of them, viz.
‘historiette’ and ‘amourette,’ are retained.
5. It was Ménage who first used the word ‘prosateur.’
6. The negative words ‘intolérance,’ ‘inexpérimenter,’ ‘indévot,’
‘irréligieux,’ and ‘impardonnable’ were subjects of much discussion
about the end of the seventeenth century, and did not take root in
the language till the eighteenth.
7. The Abbé St.-Pierre first used the word ‘bienfaisance.’
8. St.-Évremond discusses the word ‘vaste,’ remarking that it was
then new, and not firmly established.
9. Ronsard first used ‘avidité,’ and ‘ode;’ and Baïf introduced
‘épigramme,’ ‘aigredoux,’ and ‘élégie.’
10. In the seventeenth century, the literati of the Hôtel
Rambouillet produced several new words: Ségrais gave to the French
language ‘impardonnable;’ Desmarets, ‘plumeux;’ and Balzac,
‘féliciter.’
The members of the Port-Royal also furnished their contingent of
new words, which the Jesuits of course condemned as ridiculous and
detestable. Among these new terms were ‘hydrie’ and ‘amphore.’ The
first appears in a translation of Ecclesiastes xii. 6: ‘Antequam
conteratur _hydria_ ad fontem’--‘Before the _pitcher_ be broken
at the well.’ The second, ‘amphore,’ was used in a translation of
Horace’s ode, ‘Ad Amphoram.’ But ‘hydrie’ was not destined to live,
and has become obsolete; ‘amphore’ is still retained.