* * * * *
"NEWS," "NOISE," AND "PARLIAMENT."
1. _News._--I regret that MR. HICKSON perseveres in his extravagant
notion about _news_, and that the learning and ingenuity which your
correspondent P.C.S.S., I have no doubt justly, gives him credit for,
should be so unworthily employed.
Does MR. HICKSON really "very much doubt whether our word _news_
contains the idea of _new_ at all?" What then has it got to do with
_neues_?
Does MR. HICKSON'S mind, "in its ordinary mechanical action," really
think that the entry of "old newes, or stale newes" in an old dictionary
is any proof of _news_ having nothing to do with _new_? Does he then
separate _health_ from _heal_ and _hale_, because we speak of "bad
health" and "ill health"?
Will MR. HICKSON explain why _news_ may not be treated as an elliptical
expression for _new things_, as well as _greens_ for _green vegetables_,
and _odds_ for _odd chances_?
When MR. HICKSON says _dogmaticè_, "For the adoption of words we have no
rule, and we act just as our convenience or necessity dictates; but in
their formation we _must strictly_ conform to the laws we find
established,"--does he deliberately mean to say that there are no
exceptions and anomalies in the formation of language, except
importations of foreign words? If he means this, I should like to hear
some reasons for this wonderful simplification of grammar.
Why may not "convenience or necessity" sometimes lead us to swerve from
the ordinary rules of the formulation of language, as well as to import
words bodily, and, according to MR. HICKSON'S views of the origin of
_news_, without reference to context, meaning, part of speech, or
anything else?
Why may we not have the liberty of forming a plural noun _news_ from the
adjective _new_, though we have never used the singular _new_ as a noun,
when the French have indulged themselves with the plural noun of
adjective formation, _les nouvelles_, without feeling themselves
compelled to make _une nouvelle_ a part of their language?
Why may we not form a plural noun _news_ from _new_, to express the same
idea which in Latin is expressed by _nova_, and in French by _les
nouvelles_?
Why may not goods be a plural noun formed from the adjective _good_,
exactly as the Romans formed _bona_ and the Germans have formed _Güter_?
Why does MR. HICKSON compel us to treat goods as singular, and make us
go back to the Gothic? Does he say that _die Güter_, the German for
_goods_ or _possessions_, is singular? Why too must riches be singular,
and be the French word _richesse_ imported into our language? Why may we
not have a plural noun _riches_, as the Romans had _divitæ_, and the
Germans have _die Reichthumer_? and what if _riches_ be irregularly
formed from the adjective _rich_? Are there, MR. HICKSON, no
irregularities in the formation of a language? Is this really so?
If "from convenience or necessity" words are and may be imported from
foreign languages bodily into our own, why might not our forefathers,
feeling the convenience or necessity of having words corresponding to
_bona_, _nova_, _divitiæ_, have formed _goods_, _news_, _riches_, from
_good_, _new_, _rich_?
_News_ must be singular, says MR. HICKSON; but _means_ "is beyond all
dispute plural," for Shakspeare talks of "a mean:" with _news_, however,
there is the slight difficulty of the absence of the noun _new_ to start
from. Why is the absence of the singular an insuperable difficulty in
the way of the formation of a plural noun from an adjective, any more
than of plural nouns otherwise formed, which have no singulars, as
_clothes_, _measles_, _alms_, &c. What says MR. HICKSON of these words?
Are they all singular nouns and imported from other languages? for he
admits no other irregularity in the formation of a language.
2. _Noise._--I agree with MR. HICKSON that the old derivations of
_noise_ are unsatisfactory, but I continue to think his monstrous. I
fear we cannot decide in your columns which of us has the right German
pronunciation of _neues_; and I am sorry to find that you, Mr. Editor,
are with MR. HICKSON in giving to the German _eu_ the exact sound of
_oi_ in _noise_. I remain unconvinced, and shall continue to pronounce
the _eu_ with less fullness than _oi_ in _noise_. However, this is a
small matter, and I am quite content with MR. HICKSON to waive it. The
derivation appears to me nonsensical, and I cannot but think would
appear so to any one who was not bitten by a fancy.
I do not profess, as I said before, to give the root of _noise_. But it
is probably the same as of _noisome_, _annoy,_ the French _nuire_, Latin
_nocere_, which brings us again to _noxa_; and the French word _noise_
has probably the same root, though its specific meaning is different
from that of our word _noise_. Without venturing to assert it
dogmatically, I should expect the now usual meaning of _noise_ to be its
primary meaning, viz. "a loud sound" or "disturbance;" and this accords
with my notion of its alliances. The French word _bruit_ has both the
meanings of our word _noise_; and _to bruit_ and _to noise_ are with us
interchangeable terms. The French _bruit_ also has the sense of _a
disturbance_ more definitely than our word _noise_. "Il y a du bruit"
means "There is a row." {139} I mention _bruit_ and its meanings merely
as a parallel case to _noise_, if it be, as I think, that "a loud sound"
is its primary, and "a rumour" its secondary meaning.
I have no doubt there are many instances, and old ones, among our poets,
and prose writers too, of the use of the noun _annoy_. I only remember
at present Mr. Wordsworth's--
"There, at Blencatharn's rugged feet,
Sir Lancelot gave a safe retreat
To noble Clifford; from annoy
Concealed the persecuted boy."
3. _Parliament._--FRANCISCUS's etymology of Parliament (Vol. ii., p.
85.) is, I think, fit companion for MR. HICKSON's derivations of _news_
and _noise_. I take FRANCISCUS for a wag: but lest others of your
readers may think him serious, and be seduced into a foolish explanation
of the word _Parliament_ by his joke, I hope you will allow me to
mention that _palam mente_, literally translated, means _before the
mind_, and that, if FRANCISCUS or any one else tries to get "freedom of
thought or deliberation" out of this, or to get Parliament out of it, or
even to get sense out of it, he will only follow the fortune which
FRANCISCUS says has befallen all his predecessors, and stumble _in
limine_. The presence of _r_, and the turning of _mens_ into _mentum_,
are minor difficulties. If FRANCISCUS be not a wag, he is perhaps an
anti-ballot man, bent on finding an argument against the ballot in the
etymology of _Parliament_: but whatever he be, I trust your readers
generally will remain content with the old though humble explanation of
_parliament_, that it is a modern Latinisation of the French word
_parlement_, and that it literally means a talk-shop, and has nothing to
do with open or secret voting, though it be doubtless true that Roman
judges voted _clam vel palam_, and that _palam_ and _mens_ are two Latin
words.