The method by which this Society proposes to work is to collect expert
opinion on matters wherein our present use is indeterminate or
unsatisfactory, and thus to arrive at a general understanding and
consensus of opinion which might be relied on to influence practice.
This method implies the active co-operation of the members of the Society,
who, it is presumed, are all interested in our aims; and the purpose of
our secretary's paper (printed above) is to suggest topics on which
members might usefully contribute facts and opinions.
The committee, who have added a few notes to the paper, offer some remarks
on the topics suggested.
1. Whether it is advisable to Anglicize the spelling of certain French
words, like _timbre_, in order to promote their assimilation. A paper
dealing with this question, giving as full a list as possible of the
_words that are at present in a precarious condition_, and proposing in
each case the curative spelling, is invited; and any single practical
contribution to the subject will be welcome.
2. A full list of foreign nouns that are uncertain of their Englished
plurals is required. The unreadiness to come to a decided opinion in
doubtful cases is due to the absence of any overruling principle; and the
lack of a general principle is due to ignorance of all the particulars
which it would affect. Inconsistent practice is no doubt in many cases
established irrevocably, and yet if all the words about which there is at
present any uncomfortable feeling were collected and exhibited, it would
then probably appear that the majority of instances indicated a general
rule of propriety and convenience, and this would immediately decide all
doubtful cases, and these, when once recognized and established in
educated practice, would win over many other words that are refractory in
the absence of rule. What exceptions remained would be tabulated as
definitely recognized exceptions.
3. Besides the class of words indicated in Mr. Pearsall Smith's paper,
there is another set of plural forms needing attention, and that is the
Greek words that denote the various sciences and arts; there is in these
an uncertainty and inconsistency in the use of singular and plural forms.
We say Music and Physics, but should we say Ethic or Ethics, Esthetic or
Esthetics? Here again agreement on a general rule to govern doubtful cases
would be a boon. The experience of writers and teachers who are in daily
contact with such words should make their opinions of value, and we invite
them to deal with the subject. The corresponding use of Latin plurals
taking singular verbs, as _Morals_, should be brought under rule.
4. The question of the use of _ae_ (_æ_) and _oe_ (_[oe]_). Our Society
from the first abjured the whole controversy about reforms of spelling,
but questions of literary propriety and convenience must sometimes involve
the spellings; and this is an instance of it. On the main question of
phonetic spelling the Society would urge its members to distinguish the
use of phonetic script in _teaching_, from its introduction into English
_literature_. The first is absolutely desirable and inevitable: the second
is not only undesirable but impracticable, though this would not preclude
a good deal of reasonable reform in our literary spelling in a phonetic
direction. Those who fear that if phonetics is taught in the schools it
will then follow that our books will be commonly printed in phonetic
symbols, should read Dr. Henry Bradley's lecture to the British Academy
'On the relations between spoken and written language' (1913), and they
will see that the Society's Tract II, on 'English Homophones', illustrates
the unpractical nature of any scheme either of pure phonetics in the
printing of English books, or even of such a scheme as is offered by 'the
Simplified Spelling Society'; because the great number of homophones which
are now distinguished by their different spellings would make such a
phonetic writing as unutilitarian as our present system is: moreover, if
it were adopted it would inevitably lead to the elimination of far more of
these homophones than we can afford to lose; since it would enforce by its
spelling the law which now operates only by speech, that homophones are
self-destructive.
5. Mr. Pearsall Smith has returned to the question of dialectal
regeneration mentioned in Tract I, in which we invited contributions on
the subject. In response we had a paper sent to us, which we do not print
because, though full of learning and interesting detail, it was a curious
and general disquisition calculated to divert attention from the practical
points. What the Society asks for is not a list of lost words that are
interesting in themselves: we need rather definite instances of good
dialect words which are not homophones and which would conveniently supply
wants. That is, any word proposed for rehabilitation in our practical
vocabulary should be not only a good word in itself, but should fall into
some definite place and relieve and enrich our speech by its usefulness.
It is evident that no one person can be expected to supply a full list of
such words, but on the other hand there must be very many of our members
who could contribute one or two; and such contributions are invited.
Exempli gratia. Here are two words with very different titles and claims,
_nesh_ and _hyppish_.
_Nesh_, which has two columns in the Oxford Dictionary, begins in A.D.
888, and is still heartily alive in Yorks. and North Derbyshire, where it
is used in the sense of being _oversensitive to pain and especially to
cold_. In this special signification, to which it has locally settled down
after a thousand years of experience, it has no rival; and its restoration
to our domestic vocabulary would probably have a wholesome moral and
physical effect on our children.
_Hyppish_ is the Englished form of hypochondriacal, its suffix carrying
its usual diminutive value, so that its meaning is 'somewhat
hypochondriacal'. Berkeley, Gray, and Swift used _hyps_ or _the hyp_ for
hypochondriasis, and the adjective was apparently common. It would seem
that _hypochondria_ was then spoken, as _hypocrisy_ still is, with the
correct and pleasant short vowels of the Greek prefix, not as now with a
long alien diphthong _haipo-_. It was presumably this short y that
accidentally killed _hyppish_; for the word _hipped_ was used of a horse
lamed in the hip, and alongside of this _hipped_, and maybe attracted by
it, an adjective _hypt_ arose. When once _hyp_ and _hypt_ were confounded
with _hip_ and _hipped_, _hyppish_ would suffer and lose definition. But
_hypt_ and _hipped_ combined forces, and were probably even from the first
in their present uncertain condition, for when nowadays a man says that he
is _hipped_, he has no definite notion of what he means except that he is
in some way, either in his loins or mind incapacitated and out of sorts.
Whether _hypt_ and _hipped_ have mortally wounded each other or are still
fighting in the dark may be open to discussion: _hyppish_ has now a fair
field, and if people would know what the word means, it might be restored,
like _nesh_, to useful domestic activity.
6. The example given of the word _fast_ on p. 12 suggests another matter
to which attention might be paid. If one looks up any word in the Oxford
Dictionary, one will be almost distressed to see how various the
significations are to which it is authoritatively susceptible. A word
seems to behave like an animal that goes skirting about discontentedly, in
search of a more congenial habitation. It is sometimes successful, and
meets with surprising welcome in some strange corner where it establishes
itself, forgetful of its old home: sometimes, like the bad spirit in the
gospel, it will return to the house whence it came forth. It is, of
course, natural and essential to a living language that such shades and
varieties of meaning should evolve themselves, although they are
incidentally a source of ambiguity and subtle traps for careless logic;
but when these varieties so diverge as to arrive ultimately at absurdities
and contradictions, then it is advisable to get rid of them. In such
extreme cases the surgeon's knife may sometimes save life; it is the only
cure; and _to use a word in a deforming or deformed sense should be
condemned as a solecism_. Contributions, stating examples of this with the
proposed taboo, are invited.
7. This last fault, of damaging a word by wrong use, might come under the
general head of 'Abuse of words'. This is a wide and popular topic, as may
be seen by the constant small rain of private protests in the
correspondence columns of the newspapers. The committee of the S.P.E.
would be glad to meet the public taste by expert treatment of offending
words if members would supply their pet abominations. There was a good
letter on the use of _morale_ in the _Times Literary Supplement_ on
February 19. The writer, a member of our Society, permits us to reprint it
here as a sample of sound treatment.
"MORAL(E)
'Tis the sport to have the engineer hoist with his own petard, and the
purizing (so to speak) of the purist has been a tempting game since Lucian
baited Lexiphanes; may I yield to the temptation? During the war our
amateur and other strategists have suppressed the English word _morale_
and combined to force upon us in its stead the French (or Franco-German?)
_moral_. We have submitted, as to Dora, but with the secret hope, as about
Dora, that when the war's tyranny was overpast we might be allowed our
liberty again. Here are two specimens, from your own columns, of the
disciplinary measures to which we have been subject: 'He persistently
spells _moral_ (state of mind of the troops, not their morality) with a
final _e_, a sign of ignorance of French which is unfortunately so often
the mark of the classical scholar'; and again, 'The purist in language
might quarrel with Mr. ----'s title for this book on the psychology of
war, for he means by _morale_ not "ethics" or "moral philosophy", but "the
temper of a people expressing itself in action". But no doubt there is
authority for the perversion of the French word.'
To such discipline we have all been laudably amenable, and _morale_ has
seldom been seen in the London papers since 1914; but it, and not _moral_,
is the English word; we once all wrote it without thinking twice about the
matter; even in war-time one met it in the local newspapers that had not
time to keep up with London's latest tricks, and in those parts of the
London Press itself that had to use a tongue understanded of the people.
It is very refreshing to see that _morale_ is now beginning to show itself
again, timidly and occasionally, even in select quarters. The fact is,
these literary drill-sergeants have made a mistake; the English _morale_
is not a 'perversion of _the_ French word'; it is a phonetic respelling,
and a most useful one, of _a_ French word. We have never had anything to
do with the French word _morale_ (ethics, morality, a moral, &c.); but we
found the French word _moral_ (state of discipline and spirit in armies,
&c.) suited to our needs, and put an _e_ on to it to keep its sound
distinct from that of our own word _moral_, just as we have done with the
French _local_ (English _locale_) and the German _Choral_ (English
_chorale_), and as, using contrary means for the same end of fixing a
sound, we have turned French _diplomate_ into English _diplomat_. Our
English _forte_ ('Geniality is not his _forte_,' &c.) is altered from the
French _fort_ without even the advantage of either keeping the French
sound or distinguishing the spoken word from our _fort_; but who proposes
to sacrifice the reader's convenience by correcting the 'ignorant'
spelling? In the light of these parallels is it not the patrons of _moral_
who deserve the imputation of ignorance rather than we common folk? We do
not indeed profess to know what _moral_ and _morale_ mean in French, but
then that knowledge is irrelevant. They do not know the true English
method of dealing with borrowings from French; and that knowledge is
highly relevant.
A fair summary of the matter is perhaps this. The case for the spelling
_moral_ is that (1) the French use the word _moral_ for what we used to
call _morale_, and therefore we ought to do the same; and (2) the French
use _morale_ to mean something different from what we mean by it. The case
against _moral_ is (1) that it is a new word, less comprehensible to
ordinary people, even now, after its war-time currency, than the old
_morale_; (2) that it badly needs to be dressed in italics owing to the
occasional danger of confusion with the English word _moral_, and that
such artificial precautions are never kept up; (3) that half of us do not
know whether to call it m[)o]´ral, mor[)a]´l, or morah´l, and that it is a
recognized English custom to resolve such doubts by the addition of _-e_
or other change of spelling. And the right choice is surely to make the
English word _morale_, use ordinary type, call it morah´l, and ignore or
abstain from the French word _morale_, of which we have no need.
The risk of confusion, merely mentioned above, perhaps deserves a
paragraph to itself. If we reinstate the once almost universal _morale_,
we need no italics, and there is no fear of confusion; if we adopt
_moral_, we need italics, and there is no hope of getting them; it is at
present printed oftener without than with them. The following five
extracts, in some of which the English adjective _moral_, and in some the
French noun _moral_, is meant, are printed here exactly as they originally
appeared, that is, with _moral_ in the same type as the rest, and they are
enough to suggest how easy it is for real doubts to arise about which word
is being used--'An astounding increase in the moral discipline and
patriotism of German soldiers.' Has, or has not, a comma dropped out after
_moral_? 'It is, indeed, a new proof of the failing moral and internal
troubles of the German people.' Moral and internal? or moral and troubles?
'A true arbitrator, a man really impartial between two contendants and
even indifferent to their opposing morals.' 'The Russian army will recover
its moral and fighting power.' 'The need of Poland, not only for moral,
but for the material support of the Allies.'