getting him invested with the symbols of ability, with dignity, worship (worthship), royalty, kinghood, or whatever we call it, so that he may actually have room to guide according to his faculty of doing it, is the business, well or ill accomplished, of all social procedure whatsoever in this world!"1— Lowell thus constructs a felicitous definition on the basis of a derivation: "A superstition, as its name imports, is something that has been left to stand over, like unfinished business, from one session of the world's witenagemot to the next." 2. History. Gibbon thus deduces the history of a people from the history of a word: "The unquestionable evidence of language attests the descent of the Bulgarians from the original stock of the Sclavonian, or more properly Slavonian, race; and the kindred bands of Servians, Bosnians, Rascians, Croatians, Walachians, etc., followed either the standard or the example of the leading tribe. From the Euxine to the Adriatic, in the state of captives, or subjects, or allies, or enemies, of the Greek empire, they overspread the land; and the national appellation of the SLAVES has been degraded by chance or malice from the signification of glory to that of servitude." 4. Enlarge your vocabulary by diligent study of usage in the best writers. Dictionaries and books of synonyms are indispensable in their way, but they cannot impart the inner life and delicacy of words. Words are the vehicle not only of thought but of sentiment and emotion; but this they can be only as interwoven with other words. Thus alone can they get beyond the merely intellectual side of language, and from its defined meanings provide for "its often far more vital undefined associations." No fineness of usage can be acquired from the dictionary alone; the grace and power, the subtilities and flexibilities of words, are seen fully only as they are fitted together, in actual literature, by the masters of expression. EXAMPLES. "My dear sir,' exclaimed General Vayne, with a certain rotund emphasis, 'I am happy to see you!"" We feel the meaning of "rotund" here; but how much of it have we obtained from the dictionary definition — "round, circular, spherical, hence complete, entire " ? In the following passage from Tennyson, consider how much more significant the word "large" is, than any dictionary could make it: 1 This is quoted, not as justifying Carlyle's derivation of the word, which as matter of fact is incorrect, but as illustrating how suggestive a derivation may be made. "But when he spake and cheer'd his Table Round A momentary likeness of the King." II. PRESENT USE. Under this head come the considerations that should influence the writer on account of the age of words: he should admit only words in good standard present usage. Language shows its life as do all living things; it is continually sloughing off old locutions for which there is no further use, and continually assimilating new expressions, as growing thought or discovery or invention demands them. In language as in life, also, there are fashions and affectations. There come every year into current speech ephemeral terms, colloquialisms, slang, flash and cant expressions, which serve a brief purpose and then die, unless, as happens in rare cases, a real need exists for them. These cannot find place in standard literature; nor can any newly coined word be accepted until it has been well tried, and adopted by general consent. The following four rules include the chief cautions to be observed regarding present use. 5. Beware of words too new to have a recognized place in the language. The word beware, in its old sense be wary, is perhaps the best indication of the writer's proper attitude toward such new terms. Such words may, in a given case, subserve a real need and be destined to become standard; but at least, watch them. "Be not the first by whom the new are tried," is Pope's maxim. If they are to live, there is abundant time to use them; if not, they are better left alone. EXAMPLES.-The wretched word "enthuse" seems to be fighting for a place in standard usage, and as yet no one can tell what the sequel will be; at present it is a word to be shunned. A few years ago the word "telegram was new and much talked of; but it supplied a need in the language and soon came to be freely used by all. The invention of the telephone brought with it the suggestion of a corresponding word "telephem"; but it is doubtful whether this will ever become current. 6. Be sure of ample justification before coining new formations or compounds. It is to be remembered that, though language is a sacred heritage, to be cherished and guarded with all solicitude, yet after all it was made for man, not man for language. There is therefore both a freedom and a caution to be observed with regard to new formations. Because language is a living organism, and thought is living, there must be flexibility, adaptation, liberty; and so, not infrequently a juncture of thought occurs where the masterful writer has to make his word, from materials already existing, and where such a new coinage, though serving only the present occasion, may be precisely the most effective word possible. EXAMPLES.—The following, used by Professor Henry Drummond, is a word that the author himself would perhaps never have occasion to use again, nor would it ever be put into a dictionary; yet it fits its idea as no other word could do: "No one point is assailed. It is the whole system which when compared with the other and weighed in its balance is found wanting. An eye which has looked at the first cannot look upon this. To do that, and rest in the contemplation, it has first to uncentury itself." The following, from Howells, gives a shade of meaning that no existing word was adequate to express: "But for the time being Penelope was as nearly crazed as might be by the complications of her position, and received her visitors with a piteous distraction which could not fail of touching Bromfield Corey's Italian sympatheticism.” On the other hand, such license of coinage is very precarious. The passion for new forms may become a mannerism; and the writer, supposing that his thought is too original for existing forms, may easily develop a fondness for vagaries in language for the sake of smartness and pungency. Unless, then, the need of a new form is imperative, and the writer knows well his own power and the poverty of the present vocabulary, he will do better to hold the purity of his mother-tongue sacred against innovations. EXAMPLES. -The following may stand as illustrations of over-hasty coinage: From W. Clark Russell: "This, coupled with the fast-spreading gloom, and the wild tumblefication, and the fierce cracking of flapping noises, frightened her."- From Mrs. Whitney: "The summer joy distincted from the year, like a glowing jewel, by its very setting between the bleaker changes." —The following, from a review article, exemplifies a somewhat pedantic custom of coining adjectives: "There is no end to this chapter of authorial misfortune." To new formations and compounds made in a humorous spirit more liberty must be allowed; though it may be remarked that such devices are the first to lose flavor and sound cheap and artificial. It is only the abounding freedom of a conversational style that can justify them. EXAMPLES.-The following, from Dickens, will serve to illustrate humorous formations: "Her spirits rose considerably, on beholding these goodly preparations, and from the nothingness of good works, she passed to the some thingness of ham and toast with great cheerfulness.". -"Amidst the general hum of mirth and conversation that ensued, there was a little man with a puffy say-nothing-to-me-or-I'll-contradict-you sort of countenance, who remained very quiet." 7. Be suspicious regarding current newspaper and colloquial terms. In the discussion of public and political questions, as also in the shifting phases of the people's life, expressions are frequently used for which there is only transient occasion; and for a while they may enter every one's speech, or be bandied about by the newspapers, and then be cast aside and forgotten. Some of these may be mere slang; others, at least while they are in the vogue, may seem spirited and felicitous; and others again may involve curious etymological analogies and crudenesses. The writer's universal caution regarding such ephemeral terms is, be suspicious; do not fall into the use of them unadvisedly. EXAMPLES. -The following newspaper terms may, some of them, be passing into standard usage, but they will at least illustrate the freedom of journalism: "Last night the Third National Bank was burglarized." "Mr. Blank, the well-known educationalist, suicided yesterday morning." "The man has been extradited." "All attempts at bulldozing failed." "Last week a party of resurrectionists were operating in the Old North burying-ground." The following colloquialisms are from De Quincey, who was sometimes careless: "Poor Aroar cannot live, and cannot die-so that he is in an almighty fix." "Really Aroar is too Tom-Painish, and seems up to a little treason." "But all this we men of sense know to be gammon." A word may here be said to students, from the writer's point of view, about current slang. That it is spirited, spicy, extremely convenient, is conceded. That the use of it is reprehensible as a sin against the purity of the language, the user of it himself is not slow to acknowledge. But the most deplorable feature of slang, not often realized, is that, being used on every admissible occasion, and so not as a vehicle of definite thought but as a substitute for it, such unconsidered language causes an appalling poverty of vocabulary. Standing for so many things, it means nothing; while it occupies the place of what should be definite and significant. The student should consider whether he can afford, out of mere fun or mental indolence, so to starve his resources. 8. Do not, out of mere affectation, indulge a fancy for quaint or archaic terms. There is little tendency to use words too old to be current, or that have a quaint effect, except from affectation; but from this cause, in some stages of the writer's culture, the tendency is considerable. NOTE.-The affectation of old terms is perhaps most noticeable now-a-days in the case of old connectives and adverbs; as, perchance, peradventure, furthermore, eke, verily, in sooth, haply. Owing to the influence of Biblical diction, religious literature often takes an archaic tinge, which with lack of taste may easily degenerate into cant. The "holy tone" is not much respected now, in literature that seeks power. Sometimes also such words as hight, yclept, swain, wight, quoth, ye (for the), yt (for that), are used for smartness or humorous effect. Charles Lamb was much given to such quaintnesses, partly from his peculiar turn of humor, partly from the influence of old writers. |