Twenty-one words in all, besides the proper names and date, and eighteen
of them monosyllables.
During the life of John Bright the _Pall Mall Gazette_ said, “An admirer
of Mr. Bright writes to a Manchester paper that he discovered the secret
of the power this great speaker possessed of riveting the attention of
his audience. This he believes to lie in the fact that he used
monosyllables very largely. The grand passage in Mr. Bright’s speech on
the Burials bill describing a Quaker funeral begins, ‘I will take the
case of my own sect,’ and on counting the words of that remarkable
oration it will be found that out of one hundred and ninety words one
hundred and forty-nine, more than seventy-five per cent., were
monosyllables. On this it is urged that those in charge of youth should
teach them the use of monosyllables. An American journal lately
mentioned a school where such pains had been taken to instruct the boys
in the art of public speaking that if they had learned nothing else they
had acquired the greatest contempt for all the devices of stump oratory.
The prescribed course of study leaves much to the imagination, but
doubtless includes the translation into monosyllables of the ponderous
verbiage which passes current in most political assemblies as genuine
eloquence. It would, however, be cruel to insist on the introduction of
such teaching into any of the ‘standards.’ Many are obliged to speak who
have less to say than Mr. Bright, and to them the _sesquipedalia verba_
are indispensable.”
_Legal Verbosity_
An old Missouri deed for forty acres of land is a good illustration of
legal verbiage. It conveys “all and singular—appurtenances, appendages,
advowsons, benefits, commons, curtilages, cow-houses, corncribs,
dairies, dovecotes, easements, emoluments, freeholds, features,
furniture, fixtures, gardens, homestalls, improvements, immunities,
limekilns, meadows, marshes, mines, minerals, orchards, parks, pleasure
grounds, pigeon houses, pigstyes, quarries, remainders, reversions,
rents, rights, ways, water courses, windmills, together with every other
necessary right, immunity, privilege and advantage of whatsoever name,
nature or description.”
_Prayers Constructed with Elaborate Skill_
Dean Goulburn points out that the words employed in the Collects in the
Book of Common Prayer are the purest and best English known,
“representing to us our language when it was in full vigor and just
about reaching its prime;” and that in the arrangement of the words, the
balancing of clauses, and the giving unity to the whole composition, the
composers and translators have been as happy as in their choice of
words. “Let any one,” he adds, “try to write (say) an epitaph with as
much unity of design, as much point, as much elegance, and as much
brevity as the Collects are written with, and in proportion to the
difficulty which he finds in achieving such a task will the elaborate
skill with which these prayers have been constructed rise in his
estimation.” Dean Goulburn has not exaggerated the rhythmical movement
and the singular felicity of expression which mark the Collects; indeed,
one has only to compare them with the prayers published on special
occasions by modern archbishops, or with any modern forms of prayer, to
see their superiority, not only in choice of language, but in
compression of thought.
_Its_
The word ITS, the possessive case of the neuter pronoun _it_, originally
written _his_, appears neither in Cruden’s nor in Young’s Concordance.
It was not known to the translators of King James’ version of the Bible,
who had to resort to circumlocution for want of that little pronoun. It
has been assumed, therefore, that it is not to be found in the Sacred
Scriptures. Nevertheless, it occurs in the fifth verse of the
twenty-fifth chapter of Leviticus, as follows:
“That which groweth of its own accord of thy harvest thou shalt not
reap.”
_Rough_
Dickens, in “All the Year Round,” objects to the “softening of ruffian
into _rough_, which has lately become popular.” Yet the use of the noun
rough as applied to a coarse, violent, riotous fellow, a bully, instead
of being a recent creation, dates back to the Elizabethan period. In
Motley’s “History of the United Netherlands” in the description of the
death of Queen Elizabeth (iv. 183), we are told:
“The great queen, moody, despairing, dying, wrapt in profoundest
thought, with eyes fixed upon the ground or already gazing into
infinity, was besought by the counsellors around her to name the man to
whom she chose that the crown should devolve. ‘Not to a Rough,’ said
Elizabeth, sententiously and grimly.”
_Either and Neither_
Richard Grant White, in his “Words and Their Uses,” says, “The
pronunciation of _either_ and _neither_ has been much disputed, but, it
would seem, needlessly. The best usage is even more controlling in
pronunciation than in other departments of language; but usage itself is
guided, although not constrained, by analogy. The analogically correct
pronunciation of these words is what is called the Irish one, _ayther_
and _nayther_; the diphthong having the sound it has in a large family
of words in which the diphthong _ei_ is the emphasized vowel
sound—_weight_, _freight_, _deign_, _vein_, _obeisance_, etc. This
sound, too, has come down from Anglo-Saxon times, the word in that
language being _aegper_; and there can be no doubt that in this, as in
some other respects, the language of the educated Irish Englishman is
analogically correct, and in conformity to ancient custom. His
pronunciation of certain syllables in _ei_ which have acquired in
English usage the sound of _e_ long, as, for example, _conceit_,
_receive_, and which he pronounces _consayt_, _resayve_, is analogically
and historically correct. _E_ had of old the sound of _a_ long and _i_
the sound of _e_, particularly in words which came to us from or through
the Norman French. But _ayther_ and _nayther_, being antiquated and
Irish, analogy and the best usage require the common pronunciation
_eether_ and _neether_. For the pronunciation _i-ther_ and _ni-ther_,
with the i long, which is sometimes heard, there is no authority either
of analogy or of the best speakers. It is an affectation, and in this
country, a copy of a second-rate British affectation. Persons of the
best education and the highest social position in England generally say
_eether_ and _neether_.”
_If_
When Philip of Macedon wrote to the Spartan ephors, “If I enter Laconia
I will level Lacedæmon to the ground,” he received for answer the single
but significant “If.” This is, perhaps, the finest example of laconic
utterance on record, and was, indeed, worthy of the people who gave not
only a local habitation but name to pithy and sententious speech.
_Words that will not be put Down_
Allusions to the introductions and changes of words meet us constantly
in our reading. Thus “banter,” “mob,” “bully,” “bubble,” “sham,”
“shuffling,” and “palming” were new words in the _Tatler’s_ day, who
writes: “I have done my utmost for some years past to stop the progress
of ‘mob’ and ‘banter,’ but have been plainly borne down by numbers, and
betrayed by those who promised to assist me.” _Reconnoitre_, and other
French terms of war, are ridiculed as innovations in the _Spectator_.
_Skate_ was a new word in Swift’s day. “_To skate_, if you know what
that means,” he writes to Stella. “There is a new word coined within a
few months,” says Fuller, “called _fanatics_.” Locke was accused of
affectation in using _idea_ instead of notion. “We have been obliged,”
says the _World_, “to adopt the word _police_ from the French.” We read
in another number, “I assisted at the birth of that most significant
word _flirtation_, which dropped from the most beautiful mouth in the
world, and which has since received the sanction of our most accurate
Laureate in one of his comedies.” _Ignore_ was once sacred to grand
juries. “In the _interest_ of” has been quoted in our time as a slang
phrase just coming into meaning. _Bore_ has wormed itself into polite
use within the memory of man. _Wrinkle_ is quietly growing into use in
its secondary slang sense. _Muff_ may be read from the pen of a grave
lady, writing on a grave subject, to express her serious scorn.
_Changes in Pronunciation_
Tea was pronounced _tay_. In Pope’s “Rape of the Lock,” we have:
“And thou, great Anna, whom three realms obey,
Dost sometimes counsel take and sometimes tea” (_tay_).
Also, in the same poem:
“Soft yielding minds to water glide away,
And sip, with myths, their elemental tea (_tay_);”
a rhyme which cannot be accounted for by negligence in Pope, for Pope
was never negligent in his rhymes.
A hundred and fifty years ago, _are_ was pronounced _air_. Note, for
example, the following couplet of George Withers:
“Shall my cheeks grow wan with care
’Cause another’s rosy are?” (_air_).
_Pronunciation of Proper Names_
The Mexican Indians pronounce the name of their country with the accent
on the second syllable (the penult), Mex-i´co. The Dakotas pronounce
their name Dak´o-ta. The accent on Wy-o´ming is on the second syllable,
though Campbell places it on the first:
“On Susquehanna’s side, fair Wy´oming.”
Goldsmith, in _The Traveller_, accents the penult in Niagara:
“Where wild Oswego spreads her swamps around,
And Niaga´ra stuns with thundering sound.”
Moore, in “The Fudge Family,” conforms to the modern pronunciation:
“Taking instead of rope, pistol, or dagger, a
Desperate dash down the Falls of Niagara.”
In Braham’s song, “The Death of Nelson,” the second syllable is
accented:
“’Twas in Trafalgar Bay
We saw the foemen lay.”
But Byron, in “Childe Harold,” lays stress on the last syllable:
“Alike the Armada’s pride and spoils of Trafalgar.”
Repeated in “Don Juan,” i. 4; also in the Prologue to Scott’s _Marmion_.
In the “Lay of the Last Minstrel,” Carlisle is accented on the first
syllable:
“The sun shines far on Carlisle wall.”