Where our ancestors wanted words, they made them, or imported them ready
made. But we are become so particular about the etymological force of
newly coined words, that we can never please ourselves, but rather
choose to do without than to tolerate anything exceptionable. We have to
learn again that a word cannot be like Burleigh's nod, but must be
content to indicate the whole by the expression of some prominent part,
or of some convenient part, prominent or not.
Among the uses to which the "NOTES AND QUERIES" might be put, is the
suggestion of words. It very often happens that one who is apt at
finding the want is not equally good for the remedy, and _vice versâ_.
By the aid of this journal the blade might find a handle, or the handle
a blade, as wanted, with the advantage of criticism at the formation;
while an author who coins a word, must commit himself before he can have
much advice.
The above remarks were immediately suggested by my happening to think of
a word for a thing which gives much trouble, and requires more attention
than it has received, but not more than it may receive if it can be
fitly designated by a single word. A _clause_ of a sentence, both by
etymology and usage, means any part of it of which the component words
cannot be separated, but must all go together, or all remain together:
it is then a component of the sentence which has a finished meaning in
itself. The proper mode of indicating the clauses takes its name from
the means, and not from the end: we say _punctuation_, not
_clausification_. This may have been a misfortune, for it is possible
that punctuation might have been better studied, if its name had
imported its object. But there is another and a greater misfortune,
arising from the total want of a name. In a sentence, not only do
collections of words form minor sentences, but they also form compound
words: sometimes eight or ten words are really only one. When two words
are thus compounded, we use a hyphen: but those who have attempted to
use more than one hyphen have been laughed out of the field; though
perspicuity, logic, and algebra were all on their side. The _Morning
Post_ adopted this practice in former days; and Horace Smith (or James,
as the case may be,) ridiculed them in a parody which speaks of "the
not-a-bit-the-less-on-that-account-to-be-universally-detested monster
Buonaparte." It is, I think, much to be regretted that the use of the
hyphen is so restricted: for though, like the comma, it might be
abused, yet the abuse would rather tend to clearness.
But, without introducing a further use of the hyphen, it
would be desirable to have a distinct name for a combination
of words; which, without being such a recognised and permanent
compound as _apple-tree_ or _man in the moon_, is nevertheless
one word in the particular sentence in hand. And the name is
easily found. The word hyphen being Greek ([Greek: hyph' hen]),
and being made a substantive, we might join Greek suffixes to it,
and speak of _hyphenisms_ and _hyphenic_ phrases. For example,
the following I should call a hyphenic error. When the British
Museum recently published _A Short Guide to that Portion of
the Library of printed Books now open to the Public_, a review
pronounced the title a misnomer; because the _books_ are not
open to the public, but are in locked glass cases. The reviewer
read it "library of printed-books-now-open-to-the-public," instead
of "library-of-printed-books now open to the public." And though in
this case the reviewer was very palpably wrong, yet there are many
cases in which a real ambiguity exists.
A neglect of mental hyphenization often leads to mistake as to an
author's meaning, particularly in this age of morbid implication. For
instance, a person writes something about "a Sunday or other
day-for-which-there-is-a-special-service;" and is taken as meaning "a
Sunday-or-other-day for which," &c. The odds are that some readers will
suppose him, by speak of Sundays _with_ special service, to imply that
some are _without_.