Our language is always suffering another kind of impoverishment which is
somewhat mysterious in its causes and perhaps impossible to prevent. This
is the kind of blight which attacks many of our most ancient, beautiful,
and expressive words, rendering them first of all unsuitable for
colloquial use, though they may be still used in prose. Next they are
driven out of the prose vocabulary into that of poetry, and at last
removed into that limbo of archaisms and affectations to which so many
beautiful but dead words of our language have been unhappily banished. It
is not that these words lose their lustre, as many words lose it, by
hackneyed use and common handling; the process is exactly opposite; by not
being used enough, the phosphorescence of decay seems to attack them, and
give them a kind of shimmer which makes them seem too fine for common
occasions. But once a word falls out of colloquial speech its life is
threatened; it may linger on in literature, but its radiance, at first
perhaps brighter, will gradually diminish, and it must sooner or later
fade away, or live only as a conscious archaism. The fate of many
beautiful old words like _teen_ and _dole_ and _meed_ has thus been
decided; they are now practically lost to the language, and can probably
never be restored to common use.[2] It is, however, an interesting
question, and one worthy of the consideration of our members, whether it
may be possible, at its beginning, to stop this process of decay; whether
a word at the moment when it begins to seem too poetical, might not
perhaps be reclaimed for common speech by timely and not inappropriate
usage, and thus saved, before it is too late, from the blight of
over-expressiveness which will otherwise kill it in the end.
[Footnote 2: But concerning the words _dole_ and _meed_ see Tract II _On
English Homophones_. Both these words have suffered through homophony.
_Dole_ is a terrible example. 1, a portion = deal; 2, grief = Fr. deuil,
Lat. _dolor_; 3, deceit, from the Latin _dolus_, Gk. [Greek: dolos]. All
three have been in wide use and have good authority; but neither 2 (which
is presumably that which the writer intends) nor 3 can be restored, nor is
it desirable that they should be, the sound having been specially isolated
to a substantive and verb in the sense of No. 1.
_Meed_ is likewise lost by homophony with 1 mead = meadow and 2 mead =
metheglin: and it is a very serious loss. No. 1 is almost extinct except
among farmers and hay merchants, but the absurd ambiguity of No. 2 is
effective.
_Teen_, the writer's third example, has shown recent signs of renewed
vitality in literature. [Ed.]]
The usage in regard to these tainted words varies a good deal, though
probably not so much as people generally think: some of them, like _delve_
and _dwell_, still linger on in metaphors; and people will still speak of
_delving_ into their minds, and _dwelling_ in thought, who would never
think of _delving_ in the garden, or _dwelling_ in England; and we will
call people _swine_* or _hounds_, although we cannot use these words for
the animals they more properly designate. We can speak of a _swift_*
punishment, but not a _swift_ bird, or airplane, or steamer, and we _shun_
a thought, but not a bore; and many similar instances could be given.
Perhaps words of this kind cannot be saved from the unhappy doom which
threatens them. It is not impossible, on the other hand, that, by a slight
conscious effort, some of these words might still be saved; and there may
be, among our members, persons of sufficient courage to suffer, in a pious
cause, the imputation of preciosity and affectation which such attempts
involve. To the consideration of such persons we could recommend words
like _maid_, _maiden_, _damsel_, _weep_, _bide_, _sojourn_, _seek_,
_heinous_, _swift_, _chide_*, and the many other excellent and expressive
old words which are now falling into colloquial disuse.
There is one curious means by which the life of these words may be
lengthened and by which, possibly, they may regain a current and
colloquial use. They can be still used humorously and as it were in
quotation marks; words like _pelf_, _maiden_, _lad_, _damsel_, and many
others are sometimes used in this way, which at any rate keeps them from
falling into the limbo of silence. Whether any of them have by this means
renewed their life would be an interesting subject of inquiry; it is said
that at Eton the good old word _usher_, used first only for humorous
effect, has now found its way back into the common and colloquial speech
of the school.