Without being what the Germans would call a _purist_, I cannot deem it
an object of secondary importance to defend the principles of the law
and constitution of the English language. For the adoption of words we
have no rule; and we act just as our convenience or necessity dictates:
but in their formation we must strictly conform to the laws we find
established. Your correspondents C.B. and A.E.B. (Vol. ii., p. 23.) seem
to me strangely to misconceive the real point at issue between us. To a
question by the latter, why I should attempt to derive "News" indirectly
from a German adjective, I answer, because in its transformation into a
German noun declined as an adjective, it gives the form which I contend
no English process will give. The rule your correspondents deduce from
this, neither of them, it appears, can understand. As I am not certain
that their deduction is a correct one, I beg to express it in my own
words as follows:--There is no such process known to the English
language as the formation of a noun-singular out of an adjective by the
addition of "_s_": neither is there any process known by which a
noun-plural can be formed from an adjective, without the previous
formation of the singular in the same sense; except in such cases as
"the rich, the poor, the noble," &c., where the singular form is used in
a plural sense. C.B. instances "goods, the shallows, blacks, for
mourning, greens." To the first of these I have already referred;
"shallow" is unquestionably a noun-singular; and to the remaining
instances the following remarks will apply.
As it should be understood that my argument applies solely to the
_English_ language, I think I might fairly take exception to a string of
instances with which A.E.B. endeavours to refute me from a vocabulary of
a language very expressive, no doubt, yet commonly called "slang". The
words in question are not English: I never use them myself, nor do I
recognise the right or necessity for any one else to do so; and I might,
indeed, deem this a sufficient answer. But the fact is that the language
in some degree is losing its instincts, and liberties are taken with it
now that it would not have allowed in its younger days. Have we not seen
participial adjectives made from nouns? I shall therefore waive my
objection, and answer by saying that there is no analogy between the
instances given and the case in point. They are, one and all, elliptical
expressions signifying "black clothes, green vegetables, tight
pantaloons, heavy dragoons, odd chances," &c. "Blacks" and "whites" are
not in point, the singular of either being quite as admissible as the
plural. The rule, if it be worth while to lay down a rule for the
formation of such vulgarisms, appears to be {82} that characteristic
adjective, in constant conjunction with a noun in common use, may be
used alone, the noun being understood. Custom has limited in some
measure the use of these abridged titles to classes or collective
bodies, and the adjective takes the same form that the noun itself would
have had; but, in point of fact, it would be just as good English to say
"a heavy" as "the heavies" and they all become unintelligible when we
lose sight of the noun to which they belong. If A.E.B. should assert
that a glass of "cold without," _because_, by those accustomed to
indulge in such potations, it was understood to mean "brandy and _cold_
water, _without_ sugar," was really a draught from some "well of purest
English undefil'd," the confusion of ideas could not be more complete.
Indeed, I very much doubt whether our word "News" contains the idea of
"new" at all. It is used with us to mean intelligence and the phrases,
"Is there any thing new?" and "Is there any news?" present, in my
opinion, two totally distinct ideas to the English mind in its ordinary
mechanical action. "Intelligence" is not necessarily "new", nor indeed
is "News:" in the oldest dictionary I possess, Baret's _Alvearie_, 1573,
I find "Olde newes or stale newes." A.E.B. is very positive that "news"
is plural, and he cites the "Cardinal of York" to prove it. All that I
can say is, that I think the Cardinal of York was wrong: and A.E.B.
thought so too, when his object was not to confound me, as may be seen
by his own practice in bloc concluding paragraph of his
communication:--"The _newes_ WAS of the victory," &c. The word "means,"
on the other hand, is beyond all dispute plural. What says Shakspeare?
"Yet nature is made letter by no mean
But nature makes that mean."
The plural was formed by the addition of "_s_:" yet from the infrequent
use of the word except in the plural, the singular form has become
obsolete, and the same form applies now to both numbers. Those who would
apply this reasoning to "News," forget that there is the slight
difficulty of the absence of the _noun_ "new" to start from.
I do not feel bound to furnish proof of so obvious a fact, that many of
the most striking similarities in language are mere coincidences. Words
derived from the same root, and retaining the same meaning, frequently
present the most dissimilar appearance, as "evêque" and "bishop;" and
the most distant roots frequently meet in the same word. When your
correspondents, therefore, remind me that there is a French word,
_noise_, I must remind them that it contains not one element of our
English word. Richardson gives the French word, but evidently discards
it, preferring the immediate derivation from "_noy_, that which noies or
annoys." I confess I do not understand his argument; but it was
referring to this that I said that our only known process would make a
plural noun of it. I have an impression that I have met with "annoys"
used by poetical license for "annoyances."
"Noise" has never been used in the sense of the French word in this
country. If derived immediately from the French, it is hardly probable
that it should so entirely have lost every particle of its original
meaning. With us it is either _a loud sound_, or _fame, report, rumour_,
being in this sense rendered in the Latin by the same two words, _fama,
rumor_, as News. The former sense is strictly consequential to the
latter, which I believe to be the original signification, as shown in
its use in the following passages:--
"At the same time it was noised abroad in the realme"
_Holinshed_.
Cleopatra, catching but the least noise of this, dies
instantly.
_Ant. and Cleo._, Act i. Sc. 2.
_Cre_. What was his cause of anger?
_Ser_. The noise goes, this.
_Troil. and Cres._, Act. i. Sc. 2.
Whether I or your correspondents be right, will remain perhaps for ever
doubtful; but the flight that can discover a relationship between this
word and another pronounced[1] as nearly the same as the two languages
will admit of, and which gives at all events one sense, if not, as I
think, the primary one, is scarcely so eccentric as that which finds the
origin of a word signifying a loud sound, and fame, or rumor, in
"nisus"; not even _struggle_, in the sense of _contention_, an endeavour
an effort, a strain.