Produced by Thierry Alberto, Sankar Viswanathan, and the
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STORIES THAT
WORDS TELL US
BY
ELIZABETH O'NEILL, M.A.
AUTHOR OF "THE WORLD'S STORY,"
"A NURSERY HISTORY
OF ENGLAND," ETC.
LONDON: T. C. & E. C. JACK, LTD.
35 PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C.
AND EDINBURGH
1918
* * * * *
CONTENTS
I. SOME STORIES OF BRITISH HISTORY TOLD FROM ENGLISH WORDS
II. HOW WE GOT OUR CHRISTIAN NAMES AND SURNAMES
III. STORIES IN THE NAMES OF PLACES
IV. NEW NAMES FOR NEW PLACES
V. STORIES IN OLD LONDON NAMES
VI. WORDS MADE BY GREAT WRITERS
VII. WORDS THE BIBLE HAS GIVEN US
VIII. WORDS FROM THE NAMES OF PEOPLE
IX. WORDS FROM THE NAMES OF ANIMALS
X. WORDS FROM THE NAMES OF PLACES
XI. PICTURES IN WORDS
XII. WORDS FROM NATIONAL CHARACTER
XIII. WORDS MADE BY WAR
XIV. PROVERBS
XV. SLANG
XVI. WORDS WHICH HAVE CHANGED THEIR MEANING
XVII. DIFFERENT WORDS WITH THE SAME MEANING, AND THE SAME WORDS WITH
DIFFERENT MEANINGS
XVIII. NICE WORDS FOR NASTY THINGS
XIX. THE MORAL OF THESE STORIES
* * * * *
STORIES THAT WORDS TELL US.
CHAPTER I.
SOME STORIES OF BRITISH HISTORY TOLD FROM ENGLISH WORDS.
Nearly all children must remember times when a word they know quite
well and use often has suddenly seemed very strange to them. Perhaps
they began repeating the word half to themselves again and again, and
wondered why they had never noticed before what a queer word it is.
Then generally they have forgotten all about it, and the next time
they have used the word it has not seemed strange at all.
But as a matter of fact words _are_ very strange things. Every word we
use has its own story, and has changed, sometimes many times since
some man or woman or child first used it. Some words are very old and
some are quite new, for every living language--that is, every language
used regularly by some nation--is always growing, and having new words
added to it. The only languages which do not grow in this way are the
"dead" languages which were spoken long ago by nations which are dead
too.
Latin is a "dead" language. When it was spoken by the old Romans it
was, of course, a living language, and grew and changed; but though it
is a very beautiful language, it is no longer used as the regular
speech of a nation, and so does not change any more.
But it is quite different with a living language. Just as a baby when
it begins to speak uses only a few words, and learns more and more as
it grows older, so nations use more words as they grow older and
become more and more civilized. Savages use only a few words, not many
more, perhaps, than a baby, and not as many as a child belonging to a
civilized nation. But the people of great civilizations like England
and France use many thousands of words, and the more educated a person
is the more words he is able to choose from to express his thoughts.
We do not know how the first words which men and women spoke were
made. People who study the history of languages, and who are called
_Philologists_, or "Lovers of Words," say that words may have come to
be used in any one of three different ways; but of course this is only
guessing, for though we know a great deal about the way words and
languages grow, we do not really know how they first began. Some
people used to think that the earliest men had a language all
ready-made for them, but this could not be. We know at least that the
millions of words in use in the world to-day have grown out of quite a
few simple sounds or "root" words. Every word we use contains a story
about some man or woman or child of the past or the present. In this
chapter we shall see how some common English words can tell us stories
of the past.
In reading British history we learn how different peoples have at
different times owned the land: how the Britons were conquered by the
English; how the Danes tried to conquer the English in their turn, and
how great numbers of them settled down in the _Danelaw_, in the east
of England; how, later on, the Norman duke and his followers overcame
Harold, and became the rulers of England, and so on. But suppose we
knew nothing at all about British history, and had to guess what had
happened in the past, we might guess a great deal of British history
from the words used by English people to-day. For the English language
has itself been growing, and borrowing words from other languages all
through British history. Scholars who have studied many languages can
easily pick out these borrowed words and say from which language they
were taken.
Of course these scholars know a great deal about British history; but
let us imagine one who does not. He would notice in the English
language some words (though not many) which must have come from the
language which the Britons spoke. He would know, too, that the name
_Welsh_, which was given to the Britons who were driven into the
western parts of England, comes from an Old English word, _wealh_,
which meant "slave." He might then guess that, besides the Britons who
were driven away into the west of the country, there were others whom
the English conquered and made to work as slaves. From the name
_wealh_, or "slave," given to these, all the Britons who remained came
to be known as _Welsh_.
Yet though the English conquered the Britons, the two peoples could
not have mixed much or married very often with each other; for if they
had done so, many more British words would have been borrowed by the
English language. To the English the Britons were strangers and
"slaves."
We could, too, guess some of the things which these old English
conquerors of Britain did and believed from examining some common
English words. If we think of the days of the week besides _Sunday_,
or the "Sun's day," and _Monday_, the "Moon's day," we find _Tuesday_,
"Tew's day," _Wednesday_, "Woden's day," _Thursday_, "Thor's day,"
_Friday_, "Freya's day," _Saturday_, "Saturn's day," and it would not
be hard to guess that most of the days are called after gods or
goddesses whom the English worshipped while they were still heathen,
Tew was in the old English religion the bravest of all the gods, for
he gave up his own arm to save the other gods. Woden, the wisest of
the gods, had given up not an arm but an eye, which he had sold for
the waters of wisdom. Thor was the fierce god of thunder, who hurled
lightning at the giants. Freya was a beautiful goddess who wore a
magic necklace which had the power to make men love. We might then
guess from the way in which our old English forefathers named the days
of the week what sort of gods they worshipped, and what kind of men
they were--great fighters, admiring courage and strength above all
things, but poetical, too, loving grace and beauty.
But, as everybody knows, the English people soon changed their
religion and became Christians; and any student of the English
language would soon guess this, even if he knew nothing of English
history. He would be able to guess, too, that the English got their
Christianity from a people who spoke Latin, for so many of the English
words connected with religion come from the Latin language. It was, of
course, the Roman monk St. Augustine who brought the Christian
religion to the English. Latin was the language of the Romans. The
word _religion_ itself is a Latin word meaning reverence for the gods;
and _Mass_, the name given to the chief service of the Catholic
religion, comes from the Latin _missa_, taken from the words, _Ite
missa est_ ("Go; the Mass is ended"), with which the priest finishes
the Mass. _Missa_ is only a part of the verb _mittere_, "to finish."
The words _priest_, _bishop_, _monk_, _altar_, _vestment_, and many
others, came into the English language from the Latin with the
Christian religion.
Even, again, if a student of the English language knew nothing about
the invasions of England by the fierce Danes, he might guess something
about them from the fact that there are many Danish words in the
English language, and especially the names of places. Such common
words as _husband_, _knife_, _root_, _skin_, came into English from
the Danish.
But many more words were added to the English language through the
Norman Conquest. It is quite easy to see, from the great number of
French words in the English language, that France and England must at
one time have had a great deal to do with each other. But it was the
English who used French words, and not the French who used English.
This was quite natural when a Norman, or North French, duke became
king of England, and Norman nobles came in great numbers to live in
England and help to rule her.
Sir Walter Scott, in his great book "Ivanhoe," makes one man say that
all the names of living animals are English, like _ox_, _sheep_,
_deer_, and _swine_, but their flesh when it becomes meat is given
French names--_beef_, _mutton_, _venison_, and _pork_. The reason for
this is easy to see: Englishmen worked hard looking after the animals
while they were alive, and the rich Normans ate their flesh when they
were dead.
England never, of course, became really Norman. Although the English
were not so learned or polite or at that time so civilized as the
Normans, there were so many more of them that in time the Normans
became English, and spoke the English language. But when we remember
that for three hundred years French was spoken in the law courts and
by the nobility of England, and all the English kings were really
Frenchmen, it is easy to understand that a great many French words
found their way into the English language.
As it was the Normans who governed England, many of our words about
law and government came from the French. Englishmen are very proud of
the "jury system," by which every British subject is tried by his
equals. It was England who really began this system, but the name
_jury_ is French, as are also _judge_, _court_, _justice_, _prison_,
_gaol_. The English Parliament, too, is called the "Mother of
Parliaments," but _parliament_ is a French word, and means really a
meeting for the purpose of talking.
Nearly all titles, like _duke_, _baron_, _marquis_, are French, for it
was Frenchmen who first got and gave these titles; though _earl_
remains from the Danish _eorl_. It is a rather peculiar thing that
nearly all our names for _relatives_ outside one's own family come
from the French used by the Normans--_uncle_, _aunt_, _nephew_,
_niece_, _cousin_; while _father_, _mother_, _brother_, and _sister_
come from the Old English words.
In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the real "Middle Ages," the
French poets, scholars, and writers were the greatest in Europe. The
greatest doctors, lawyers, and scholars of the western lands of Europe
had often been educated at schools or universities in France. Those
who wrote about medicine and law often used French words to describe
things for which no English word was known. The French writers
borrowed many words from Latin, and the English writers did the same.
Sometimes they took Latin words from the French, but sometimes they
only imitated the French writers, and took a Latin word and changed it
to seem like a French word.
If we were to count the words used by English writers in the twelfth
and thirteenth centuries, we should find that quite one-tenth of these
are words borrowed from other languages. After this time fewer words
were borrowed, but still the English language has borrowed much more
than most languages.
Some people think that it is a pity that we have borrowed so many
words, and say that we should speak and write "pure English." But we
must remember that Britain has had the most wonderful history of all
the nations. She has had the greatest explorers, adventurers, and
sailors. She has built up the greatest empire the world has ever seen.
It is only natural that her language should have borrowed from the
languages of nearly every nation in the world, even from the Chinese
and from the native languages of Australia and Africa.
Ever since the middle of the sixteenth century England has been a
great sea-going nation. Her sailors have explored and traded all over
the world, and naturally they have brought back many new words from
East and West. Sometimes these are the names of new things brought
from strange lands. Thus _calico_ was given that name from _Calicut_,
because the cotton used to make calico came from there. From Arabia we
got the words _harem_ and _magazine_, and from Turkey the name
_coffee_, though this is really an Arabian word. We had already
learned the words _cotton_, _sugar_, and _orange_ from the Arabs at
the time of the Crusades. From the West Indies and from South America
many words came, though the English learned these first from the
Spaniards, who were the first to discover these lands. Among these
words are the names of such common things as _chocolate_, _cocoa,
tomato_. The words _canoe_, _tobacco_, and _potato_ come to us from
the island of Hayti. The words _hammock_ and _hurricane_ come to us
from the Caribbean Islands, and so did the word _cannibal_, which came
from _Caniba_, which was sometimes used instead of Carib.
Even the common word _breeze_, by which we now mean a light wind,
first came to us from the Spanish word _briza_, which meant the
north-east trade wind. The name _alligator_, an animal which
Englishmen saw for the first time in these far-off voyages, is really
only an attempt to use the Spanish words for the lizard--_al lagarto_.
When the English at length settled themselves in North America they
took many words from the native Indians, such as _tomahawk_,
_moccasin_, and _hickory_.
In England and in Europe generally history shows us that there were a
great many changes in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. This new
love for adventure, which gave us so many new words, was one sign of
the times. Then there were changes in manners, in religion, and in the
way people thought about things. People had quite a new idea of the
world. They now knew that, instead of being the centre of the
universe, the earth was but one of many worlds whirling through space.
The minds of men became more lively. They began to criticize all sorts
of things which they had believed in and reverenced before. During the
Middle Ages many things which the Romans and Greeks had loved had been
forgotten and despised; but now there was a sudden new enthusiasm for
the beautiful statues and fine writings of the ancient Greeks and
Romans. It was not long before this new great change got a name. It
was called the _Renaissance_, or "New Birth," because so many old and
forgotten things seemed to come to life again, and it looked as though
men had been born again into a new time.
One of the chief results of the Renaissance was a change in religion.
The Protestants declared that they had reformed or changed religion
for the better, and the change in religion is now always spoken of as
the Reformation; just as the reform of the Catholic Church which soon
followed was called the _Counter-Reformation_, or movement against the
Reformation--_counter_ coming from the Latin word for "against."
In England the Renaissance and Reformation led to great changes not
only in religion but in government, and the way people thought of
their country and their rulers. People came to have a new love for and
pride in their country. It was in the sixteenth century that the old
word _nation_, which before had meant a race or band of peoples, came
to be used as we use it now, to mean the people of one country under
one government. In the sixteenth century Englishmen became prouder
than ever of belonging to the English "nation." They felt a new love
for other Englishmen, and it was at this time that the expressions
_fellow-countrymen_ and _mother-country_ were first used.
The seventeenth century was, of course, a period during which great
things happened to the English state. It was the period of the great
Civil War, in which the Parliament fought against the king, so that it
could have the chief part in the government of the country.
All sorts of new words grew up during the Civil War. The word
_Royalist_ now first began to be used, meaning the people who were on
the king's side. The Royalists called the men who fought for the
Parliament _Roundheads_, because of their hair being cropped short,
not hanging in ringlets, as was the fashion of the day.
The people who fought against the king were all men who had broken
away from the English Church, and become much more "Protestant." They
were very strict in many ways, especially in keeping the "Sabbath," as
they called Sunday. They dressed very plainly, and they thought the
followers of the king, with their long hair and lace and ruffles, very
frivolous people indeed. It was the men of the Parliament side who
first gave the name _Cavalier_ to the Royalists. It was meant by them
to show contempt, and came from the Italian word _cavaliere_, which
means literally "a horseman," coming from the Late Latin word
_caballus_, "a horse."
It is a curious fact that we now use the word _cavalier_ as an
adjective to mean rude and off-hand, whereas the Cavaliers of the
seventeenth century certainly had much better manners than the
Roundheads; and at the end of that century the word was sometimes used
in the general sense of gay and frank.
Both sides in the Civil War invented a good many new words with which
to abuse the enemy. Milton, who wrote on the side of the Parliament,
made a great many; but the Royalists invented more, and perhaps more
expressive, words. At any rate they have been kept and used as quite
ordinary English words. The word _cant_, for instance, which every
one understands to mean pious or sentimental words which the person
who says them does not really mean, was first used in this way by the
Royalists to describe the sayings of the Parliament men who were much
given to preaching and the singing of psalms. Before that time the
word _cant_ had meant a certain kind of singing, and also the whining
sound beggars sometimes made.
In the eighteenth century, when Parliament was divided into two great
parties, their names were given to them in the same way. The _Tories_
were so called from the name given to some very wild, almost savage,
people who lived in the bog lands of Ireland; and the name _Whigs_ was
given by the Tories, and came from a Scotch word, _Whigamore_, the
name of some very fierce Protestants in the south of Scotland. At
first these names were just words of abuse, but they came to be the
regular names of the two parties, and people forgot all about their
first meanings.
The great growth in the power of the peoples of Europe since the
French Revolution has brought about great changes in the way these
countries are governed. It was the French Revolution which led to the
widespread opinion that all the people in a nation should help in the
government. It was in writing on these subjects that English writers
borrowed the words _aristocrat_ and _democrat_ from the French
writers. _Aristocracy_ comes from an old Greek word meaning the rule
of the few; but the French Revolution writers gave it a new meaning,
as something evil. Before the Revolution the name _despotism_ had been
used for the rule of a single tyrant, but it now came to mean unjust
rule, even by several people.
The French Revolution gave us several other words. We all now know the
word _terrorize_, but it only came into English from the French at the
time of the Revolution, when the French people became used to "Reigns
of Terror." But if the French Revolution gave us many of the words
which relate to democracy or government by the people, England has
always been the country of parliamentary government, and many terms
now used by the other countries of Europe have been invented in
England--words like _parliament_ itself, _bill_, _budget_, and
_speech_.
Nearly all the words connected with science, and especially the
"ologies," as they are called, like _physiology_ and _zoology_, are
fairly new words in English. In the Middle Ages there was no real
study of science, and so naturally there were not many words connected
with it; but in the last two centuries the study of science has been
one of the most important things in history. We shall see more of
these scientific words in another chapter.
Perhaps we have said enough in this chapter to show how each big
movement in history has given us a new group of words and how these
words are in a way historians of these movements.