The term INTERJECTION is applied to those _inarticulate_ sounds
employed both by men and brutes, not to express distinct ideas, but
emotions, passions, or feelings. The sounds employed by human beings
in groaning, sighing, crying, screaming, shrieking, and laughing, by
the dog in barking, growling, and whining, by the horse in snorting
and neighing, by the sheep in bleating, by the cat in mewing, by the
dove in cooing, by the duck in quacking, and by the goose in
hissing, we sometimes attempt to represent by words; but, as
_written_ words are the ocular representatives of _articulate_
sounds, they cannot be made clearly to denote _inarticulate_ or
_indistinct noises_. Such indistinct utterances belong to natural
language; but they fall below the bounds of regulated speech. Hence,
_real_ interjections are not a part of written language.
The meaning of those words commonly called interjections, is easily
shown by tracing them to their roots.
_Pish_ and _pshaw_ are the Anglo-Saxon _paec, paeca_; and are
equivalent to _trumpery_! i.e. _tromperie_, from _tromper_.
_Fy_ or _fie_ is the imperative, _foe_, the past tense, and _foh_ or
_faugh_, the past part. of the Saxon verb _fian_, to hate.
_Lo_ is the imperative of _look. Halt_ is the imperative of
_healden_, to hold. _Farewell--fare-well_, is a compound of _faran_,
to go, and the adverb _well_. It means, to _go well.
Welcome--well-come_, signifies, it is _well_ that you are _come.
Adieu_ comes from the French _a Dieu_, to God; meaning, I commend
you _to God_.
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