IV - The Century Vocabulary Builder - 11 - Garland Greever; Joseph M. Bachelor

IV

INDIVIDUAL WORDS: AS VERBAL CELIBATES

Thus far we have studied words as grouped together into phrases, sentences, paragraphs, whole compositions. We must now enter upon a new phase of our efforts to extend our vocabulary. We must study words as individual entities.

You may think the order of our study should be reversed. No great harm would result if it were. The learning of individual words and the combining of them into sentences are parallel rather than successive processes. In our babyhood we do not accumulate a large stock of terms before we frame phrases and clauses. And our attainment of the power of continuous iteration does not check our inroads among individual words. We do the two things simultaneously, each contributing to our success with the other. There are plenty of analogies for this procedure. A good baseball player, for instance, tirelessly studies both the minutiae of his technique (as how to hold a bat, how to stand at the plate) and the big combinations and possibilities of the game. A good musician keeps unremitting command over every possible touch of each key and at the same time seeks sweeping mastery over vast and complex harmonies. So we, if we would have the obedience of our vocabularies, dare not lag into desultory attention to either words when disjoined or words as potentially combined into the larger units of thought and feeling.

We might therefore consider either the individuals first or the groups first. But the majority of speakers and writers pay more heed to rough general substance than to separate instruments and items. Hence we have thought best to begin where most work is going on already—with words in combination.

As you turn from the groups to the individuals, you must understand that your labors will be onerous and detailed. You must not assume that by nature all words are much alike, any more than you assume that all men are much alike. Of course the similarities are many and striking, and the fundamental fact is that a word is a word as a man is a man. But you will be no adept in handling either the one or the other until your knowledge goes much farther than this. Let us glance first at the human variations. Each man has his own business, and conducts it in his own way—a way never absolutely matched with that of any other mortal being. All this you may see. But besides the man's visible employment, he may be connected in devious fashions with a score of enterprises the public knows nothing about. Furthermore he leads a private life (again not precisely corresponding to that of any other), has his hobbies and aversions, is stamped with a character, a temperament of his own. In short, though in thousands of respects he is like his fellows, he has after all no human counterpart; he is a distinct, individual self. To know him, to use him, to count upon his service in whatsoever contingency it might bestead you, you must deem him something more than a member of the great human family. You must cultivate him personally, cultivate him without weariness or stint, and undergo inconvenience in so doing.

Even so with a word. Commonplace enough it may seem. But it has its peculiar characteristics, its activities undisclosed except to the curious, its subtle inclinations, its repugnances, its latent potentialities. There is no precise duplicate for it in all the wide domain of language. To know it intimately and thoroughly, to be on entirely free terms with it, to depend upon it just so far as dependence is safe, to have a sure understanding of what it can do and what it cannot, you must arduously cultivate it. Words, like people, yield themselves to the worthy. They hunger for friendship—and lack the last barrier of reserve which hedges all human communion. Thus, linguistically speaking, you must search out the individuals. You must step aside from your way for the sake of a new acquaintance; in conversations, in sermons, in addresses, in letters, in journalistic columns, in standard literature you must grasp the stranger by the hand and look him straight in the eye. Nor must you treat cavalierly the words you know already. You must study them afresh; you must learn them over and learn them better; you must come to understand them, not only for what they are, but for what they will do.

What, then, is your first task? Somebody has laid down the injunction— and, as always when anything is enjoined, others have given it currency— that each day you should learn two new words. So be it,—but which two? The first two in the dictionary, or hitherto left untouched in your systematic conquest of the dictionary? The first two you hear spoken? The first two that stare at you from casual, everyday print? The first two you can ferret from some technical jargon, some special department of human interest or endeavor? In any of these ways you may obey the behest of these mentors. But are not such ways arbitrary, haphazard? And suppose, after doing your daily stint, you should encounter a word it behooves you to know. What then? Are you to sulk, to withhold yourself from further exertion on the plea of a vocabulary-builder's eight-hour day?

To adopt any of the methods designated would be like resolving to invest in city lots and then buying properties as you encountered them, with no regard for expenditure, for value in general, or for special serviceability to you. Surely such procedure would be unbusinesslike. If you pay out good money, you meditate well whether that which you receive for it shall compensate you. Likewise if you devote time and effort to gaining ownership of words, you should exercise foresight in determining whether they will yield you commensurate returns.

What, then, is the principle upon which, at the outset, you should proceed? What better than to insure the possession of the words regarding which you know this already, that you need them and should make them yours?

The natural way, and the best, to begin is with an analysis of your own vocabulary. You are of course aware that of the enormous number of words contained in the dictionary relatively few are at your beck and bidding. But probably you have made no attempt to ascertain the nature and extent of your actual linguistic resources. You should make an inventory of the stock on hand before sending in your order for additional goods.

You will speedily discover that your vocabulary embraces several distinct classes of words. Of these the first consists of those words which you have at your tongue's end—which you can summon without effort and use in your daily speech. They are old verbal friends. Numbered with them, to be sure, there may be a few with senses and connotations you are ignorant of— friends of yours, let us say, with a reservation. Even these you may woo with a little care into uncurbed fraternal abandon. With the exception of these few, you know the words of the first class so well that without thinking about it at all you may rely upon their giving you, the moment you need them, their untempered, uttermost service. You need be at no further pains about them. They are yours already.

A second class of words is made up of those you speak on occasions either special or formal—occasions when you are trying, perhaps not to show off, but at least to put your best linguistic foot foremost. Some of them have a meaning you are not quite sure of; some of them seem too ostentatious for workaday purposes; some of them you might have been using but somehow have not. Words of this class are not your bosom friends. They are your speaking acquaintance, or perhaps a little better than that. You must convert them into friends, into prompt and staunch supporters in time of need. That is to say, you must put them into class one. In bringing about this change of footing, you yourself must make the advances. You must say, Go to, I will bear them in mind as I would a person I wished to cultivate. When occasion rises, you must introduce them into your talk. You will feel a bit shy about it, for introductions are difficult to accomplish gracefully; you will steal a furtive glance at your hearer perchance, and another at the word itself, as you would when first labeling a man "my friend Mr. Blank." But the embarrassment is momentary, and there is no other way. Assume a friendship if you have it not, and presently the friendship will be real. You must be steadfast in intention; for the words that have held aloof from you are many, and to unloose all at once on a single victim would well-nigh brand you criminal. But you will make sure headway, and will be conscious besides that no other class of words in the language will so well repay the mastering. For these are words you do use, and need to use more, and more freely—words your own experience stamps as valuable, if not indeed vital, to you.

The third class of words is made up of those you do not speak at all, but sometimes write. They are acquaintance one degree farther removed than those of the second class. Your task is to bring them into class two and thence into class one—that is, to introduce them into your more formal speech, and from this gradually into your everyday speech.

The fourth class of words is made up of those you recognize when you hear or read them, but yourself never employ. They are acquaintance of a very distant kind. You nod to them, let us say, and they to you; but there the intercourse ends. Obviously, they are not to be brought without considerable effort into a position of tried and trusted friendship. And shall we be absolutely honest?—some of them may not justify such assiduous care as their complete subjugation would call for. But even these you should make your feudal retainers. You should constrain them to membership in class three, and at your discretion in class two.

Apart from the words in class four, you will not to this point have made actual additions to your vocabulary. But you will have made your vocabulary infinitely more serviceable. You will be like a man with a host of friends where before, when his necessities were sorest, he found (along with some friends) many distant and timid acquaintance.

Outside the bounds of your present vocabulary altogether are the words you encounter but do not recognize, except (it may be) dimly and uncertainly. Some counselors would have you look up all such words in a dictionary. But the task would be irksome. Moreover those who prescribe it are loath to perform it themselves. Your own candid judgment in the matter is the safest guide. If the word is incidental rather than vital to the meaning of the passage that contains it, and if it gives promise of but rarely crossing your vision again, you should deign it no more than a civil glance. Plenty of ways will be left you to expend time wisely in the service of your vocabulary.

EXERCISE - Analysis

1. Make a list of the words in class two of your own vocabulary, and similar lists for classes three and four. (To make a list for class one would be but a waste of time.) Procure if you can for this purpose a loose-leaf notebook, and in the several lists reserve a full page for each letter of the alphabet as used initially. Do not scamp the lists, though their proper preparation consume many days, many weeks. Try to make them really exhaustive. Their value will be in proportion to their accuracy and fulness.

2. Con the words in each list carefully and repeatedly. Your task is to transfer these words into a more intimate list—those in class four into class three, those in three into two, those in two into one. You are then to promote again the words in the lower classes, except that (if your judgment so dictates) you may leave the new class three wholly or partially intact. To carry out this exercise properly you must keep these words in mind, make them part and parcel of your daily life. (For a special device for bringing them under subjection, see the next exercise.)

3. To write a word down helps you to remember it. That is why the normal way to transfer a word from class four into class two is to put it temporarily into the intermediary class, three; you first see or hear the word, next write it, afterwards speak it. The mere writing down of your lists has probably done much to bring the words written into the circuit of your memory, where you can more readily lay hold of them. Also it has fortified your confidence in using them; for to write a word out, letter by letter, makes you surer that you have its right form. With many of your words you will likely have no more trouble; they will be at hand, anxious for employment, and you may use them according to your need. But some of your words will still stubbornly withhold themselves from memory. Weed these out from your lists, make a special list of them, copy it frequently, construct short sentences into which the troublesome words fit. By dint of writing the words so often you will soon make them more tractable.

4. Make a fifth list of words—those you hear or see printed, do not understand the meaning of, but yet feel you should know. Obtain and confirm a grasp of them by the successive processes used with words in the preceding lists.

Another means of buttressing your command of your present vocabulary is to define words you use or are familiar with.

Do not bewilder yourself with words (like and, the) which call for ingenuity in handling somewhat technical terms, or with words (like thing, affair, condition) which loosely cover a multitude of meanings. (You may, however, concentrate your efforts upon some one meaning of words in the latter group.) Select words with a fairly definite signification, and express this as precisely as you can. You may afterwards consult a dictionary for means of checking up on what you have done. But in consulting it think only of idea, not of form. You are not training yourself in dictionary definitions, but in the sharpness and clarity of your understanding of meanings.

About the only rule to be laid down regarding the definition of verbs, adjectives, and adverbs is that you must not define a word in terms of itself. Thus if you define grudgingly as "in a grudging manner," you do not dissipate your hearer's uncertainty as to what the word means. If you define it as "unwillingly" or "in a manner that shows reluctance to yield possession," you give your hearer a clear-cut idea in no wise dependent upon his ability to understand the word that puzzled him in the first place.

Normally, in defining a noun you should assign the thing named to a general class, and to its special limits within that class; in other words, you should designate its genus and species. You must take care to differentiate the species from all others comprised within the genus. You will, in most instances, first indicate the genus and then the species, but at your convenience you may indicate the species first. Thus if you affirm, "A cigar is smoking-tobacco in the form of a roll of tobacco-leaves," you name the genus first and later the characteristics of the species. You have given a satisfactory definition. If on the other hand you affirm, "A cigar is a roll of tobacco-leaves meant for smoking," you first designate the species and then merely imply the genus. Again you have given a satisfactory definition; for you have permitted no doubt that the genus is smoking-tobacco, and have prescribed such limits for the species as exclude tobacco intended for a pipe or a cigarette.

In defining nouns by the genus-and-species method, restrict the genus to the narrowest possible bounds. You will thus save the need for exclusions later. Had you in your first definition of a cigar begun by saying that it is tobacco, rather than smoking-tobacco, you would have violated this principle; and you would have had to amplify the rest of your definition in order to exclude chewing-tobacco, snuff, and the like.

EXERCISE - Definition

1. Define words of your own choosing in accordance with the principles laid down in the preceding section of the text.

2. Define the following adjectives, adverbs, and verbs:

Miserable Rebuke Wise
Angrily Rapidly Boundless
Swim Paint Whiten
Haughtily Surly Causelessly

3. So define the following nouns as to prevent any possible confusion with the nouns following them in parentheses:

Wages (salary) Ride (drive)
Planet (star) Truck (automobile)
Watch (clock) Reins (lines)
Jail (penitentiary) Iron (steel)
Vegetable (fruit) Timber (lumber)
Flower (weed) Rope (string)
Hail (sleet, snow) Stock (bond)
Newspaper (magazine) Street car (railway coach)
Cloud (fog) Revolver (rifle, pistol, etc.)
Mountain (hill) Creek (river)
Letter (postal card)

4. While remembering that the following words are of broad signification and mean different things to different people, define them according to their meaning to you:

Gentleman Courage
Honesty Beauty
Honor Good manners
Generosity A good while
Charity A little distance
Modesty Long ago

So much for the words which are already yours, or which you can make yours through your own unaided efforts. For convenience we have grouped with them some words of a nature more baffling—words of which you know perhaps but a single aspect rather than the totality, or upon which you can obtain but a feeble and precarious grip. These slightly known words belong more to the class now to be considered than to that just disposed of. For we have now to deal with words over which you can establish no genuine rulership unless you have outside help.

You must own a dictionary, have it by you, consult it carefully and often. Do not select one for purchasing upon the basis of either mere bigness or cheapness. If you do, you may make yourself the owner of an out-of-date reprint from stereotyped plates. What to choose depends partly upon personal preference, partly upon whether your need is for comprehensiveness or compression.

If you are a scholar, Murray's many-volumed New English Dictionary may be the publication for you; but if you are an ordinary person, you will probably content yourself with something less expensive and exhaustive. You will find the Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia, in twelve volumes, or Webster's New International Dictionary an admirable compilation. The New Standard Dictionary will also prove useful. All in all, if you can afford it, you should provide yourself with one or the other of these three large and authoritative, but not too inclusive, works. Of the smaller lexicons Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Webster's Secondary School Dictionary, the Practical Standard Dictionary, and the Desk Standard Dictionary answer most purposes well.

A dictionary is not for show. You must learn to use it. What ordinarily passes for use is in fact abuse. Wherein? Let us say that you turn to your lexicon for the meaning of a word. Of the various definitions given, you disregard all save the one which enables the word to make sense in its present context, or which fits your preconception of what the word should stand for. Having engaged in this solemn mummery, you mentally record the fact that you have been squandering your time, and enter into a compact with yourself that no more will you so do. At best you have tided over a transitory need, or have verified a surmise. You have not truly learned the word, brought it into a vassal's relationship with you, so fixed it in memory that henceforth, night or day, you can take it up like a familiar tool.

This procedure is blundering, farcical, futile, incorrect. To suppose you have learned a word by so cursory a glance at its resources is like supposing you have learned a man through having had him render you some temporary and trivial service, as lending you a match or telling you the time of day. To acquaint yourself thoroughly with a word—or a man— involves effort, application. You must go about the work seriously, intelligently.

One secret of consulting a dictionary properly lies in finding the primary, the original meaning of the word. You must go to the source. If the word is of recent formation, and is native rather than naturalized English, you have only to look through the definitions given. Such a word will not cause you much trouble. But if the word is derived from primitive English or from a foreign language, you must seek its origin, not in one of the numbered subheads of the definition, but in an etymological record you will perceive within brackets or parentheses. Here you will find the Anglo-Saxon (Old English), Latin, Greek, French, German, Italian, Scandinavian, or other word from which sprang the word you are studying, and along with this authentic original you may find cognate words in other languages. These you may examine if you care to observe their resemblance to your word, but the examination is not necessary. It could teach you only the earlier or other forms of your word, whereas what you are after is the original meaning. This too is set down within the brackets; if your search is in earnest, you cannot possible miss it. And having discovered this original meaning, you must get it in mind; it is one of the really significant things about the word. Your next step is to find the present import of the word. Look, therefore, through the modern definitions. Of these there may be too many, with too delicate shadings in thought between them, for you to keep all clearly in mind. In fact you need not try. Consider them of course, but out of them seek mainly the drift, the central meaning. After a little practice you will be able to disengage it from the others.

You now know the original sense of the word and its central signification today. The two may be identical; they may be widely different; but through reflection or study of the entire definition you will establish some sort of connection between them. When you have done this, you have mastered the word. From the two meanings you can surmise the others, wherever and whenever encountered; for the others are but outgrowths and applications of them.

One warning will not be amiss. You must not suppose that the terms used in defining a word are its absolute synonyms, or may be substituted for it indiscriminately. You must develop a feeling for the limits of the word, so that you may perceive where its likeness to the other terms leaves off and its unlikeness begins. Thus if one of the terms employed in defining command is control, you must not assume that the two words are interchangeable; you must not say, for instance, that the captain controlled his men to present arms.

Such, abstractly stated, is the way to look up a word in the dictionary. Let us now take a concrete illustration. Starting with the word tension, let us ascertain what we can about it in the Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia. Our first quest is the original meaning. For this we consult the bracketed matter. There we meet the French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian kinsmen of the word, and learn that they are traceable to a common ancestor, the Latin tensio(n), which comes from the Latin verb tendere. The meaning of tensio(n) is given as "stretching," that of tendere as "stretch," "extend." Thus we know of the original word that in form it closely resembles the modern word, and that in meaning it involves the idea of stretching.

What is the central meaning of the word today? To acquaint ourselves with this we must run through the definitions listed. Here (in condensed form) they are. (1) The act of stretching. (2) In mechanics, stress or the force by which something is pulled. (3) In physics, a constrained condition of the particles of bodies. (4) In statical electricity, surface-density. (5) Mental strain, stress, or application. (6) A strained state of any kind, as political or social. (7) An attachment to a sewing-machine for regulating the strain of the thread. Now of these definitions (2), (3), (4), and (7) are too highly specialized to conduct us, of themselves, into the highway of the word's meaning. They bear out, however, the evidence of (1), (5), and (6), which have as their core the idea of stretching, or of the strain which stretching produces.

We must now lay the original meaning alongside the central meaning today, in order to draw our conclusions. We perceive that the two meanings correspond. Yet by prying into them we make out one marked difference between them. The original meaning is literal, the modern largely figurative. To be sure, the figure has been so long used that it is now scarcely felt as a figure; its force and definiteness have departed. Consequently we may speak of being on a tension without having in mind at all a comparison of our nervous system with a stretched garment, or with an outreaching arm, or with a tightly strung musical instrument, or with a taut rope.

What, then, is the net result of our investigation? Simply this, that tension means stretching, and that the stretching may be conceived either literally or figuratively. With these two facts in mind, we need not (unless we are experts in mechanics, physics, statical electricity, or the sewing-machine) go to the trouble of committing the special senses of tension; for should occasion bid, we can—from our position at the heart of the word—easily grasp their rough purport. And from other persons than specialists no more would be required.

EXERCISE - Dictionary

For each of the following words find (a) the original meaning, (b) the central meaning today. (Other words are given in the exercises at the end of this chapter.)

Bias Supersede Sly
Aversion Capital Meerschaum
Extravagant Travel Alley
Concur Travail Fee
Attention Apprehend Superb
Magnanimity Lewd Adroit
Altruism Instigation Quite
Benevolence Complexion Urchin
Charity Bishop Thoroughfare
Unction Starve Naughty
Speed Cunning Moral
Success Decent Antic
Crafty Handsome Savage
Usury Solemn Uncouth
Costume Parlor Window
Presumption Bombastic Colleague
Petty Vixen Alderman
Queen Doctor Engage

To thread with minute fidelity the mazes of a word's former history is the task of the linguistic scholar; our province is the practical and the present-day. But words, like men, are largely what they are because of what they have been; and to turn a gossip's eye upon their past is to procure for ourselves, often, not only enlightenment but also entertainment. This fact, though brought out in some part already, deserves separate and fuller discussion.

In the first place, curiosity as to words' past experience enables us to read with keener understanding the literature of preceding ages. Of course we should not, even so, go farther back than about three centuries. To read anything earlier than Shakespeare would require us to delve too deeply into linguistic bygones. And to read Shakespeare himself requires effort—but rewards it. Let us see how an insight into words will help us to interpret the Seven Ages of Man (Appendix 4).

In line 2 of this passage appears the word merely. In Shakespeare's time it frequently meant "altogether" or "that and nothing else." As here used, it may be taken to mean this, or to have its modern meaning, or to stand in meaning midway between the two and to be suggestive of both; there is no way of determining precisely. In line 12 the word pard means leopard. In line 18 saws means "sayings" (compare the phrase "an old saw"); modern means "moderate," "commonplace"; instances means what we mean by it today, "examples," "illustrations." (Line 18 as a whole gives us a vivid sense of the justice's readiness to speak sapiently, after the manner of justices, and to trot out his trite illustrations on the slightest provocation.) The word pantaloon in line 20 is interesting. The patron saint of Venice was St. Pantaleon (the term is from Greek, means "all-lion," and possibly refers to the lion of St. Mark's Cathedral). Pantaloon came therefore to signify (1) a Venetian, (2) a garment worn by Venetians and consisting of breeches and stockings in one. The second sense is preserved, substantially, in our term pantaloons. The first sense led to the use of the word (in the mouths of the Venetians' enemies) for "buffoon" and then (in early Italian comedy) for "a lean and foolish old man." It is this stock figure of the stage that Shakespeare evokes. In line 22 hose means the covering for a man's body from his waist to his nether-stock. (Compare the present meaning: a covering for the feet and the lower part of the legs.) In line 27 mere means "absolute." In line 28 sans means "without."

Of the words we have examined, only sans is obsolete, though pard, saws, and pantaloon are perhaps not entirely familiar. That is, only one word in the passage, so far as its outward form goes, is completely alien to our knowledge. But how different the matter stands when we consider meanings! The words are words of today, but the meanings are the meanings of Shakespeare. We should be baffled and misled as to the dramatist's thought if we had made no inquiries into the vehicle therefor.

In the second place, to look beyond the present into the more remote signification of words will put us on our guard against the reappearance of submerged or half-forgotten meanings. We have seen that the word tension may be used without conscious connection with the idea of stretching. But if we incautiously place the word in the wrong environment, the idea will be resurrected to our undoing. We associate ardor with strong and eager desire. For ordinary purposes this conception of the word suffices. But ardor is one of the children of fire; its primary sense is "burning" (compare arson). Therefore to pronounce the three vocables "overflowing with ardor" is to mix figures of speech absurdly. We should fall into a similar mistake if we said "brilliant fluency," and into a mistake of another kind (that of tautology or repetition of an idea) if we said "heart-felt cordiality," for cordiality means "feelings of the heart." Appreciate means "set a (due) value on." We may perhaps say "really appreciate," but scrupulous writers and speakers do not say "appreciate very much." A humor (compare humid) was once a "moisture"; then one of the four moistures or liquids that entered into the human constitution and by the proportions of their admixture determined human temperament; next a man's outstanding temperamental quality (the thing itself rather than the cause of it); then oddity which people may laugh at; then the spirit of laughter and good nature in general. Normally we do not connect the idea of moisture with the word. We may even speak of "a dry humor." But we should not say "now and then a dry humor crops out," for then too many buried meanings lie in the same grave for the very dead to rest peacefully together.

Even apart from reading old literature and from having, when you use words, no ghosts of their pristine selves rise up to damn you, you may profit from a knowledge of how the meaning of a term has evolved. For example, you will meet many tokens and reminders of the customs and beliefs of our ancestors. Thus coxcomb carries you back to the days when every court was amused by a "fool" whose head was decked with a cock's comb; crestfallen takes you back to cockfighting; and lunatic ("moonstruck"), disaster ("evil star"), and "thank your lucky stars" plant you in the era of superstition when human fate was governed by heavenly bodies.

Further, you will perceive the poetry of words. Thus to wheedle is to wag the tail and to patter is to hurry through one's prayers (paternoster). What a picture of the frailty of men even in their holiness flashes on us from that word patter! Breakfast is the breaking of the fast of the night. Routine (the most humdrum of words) is travel along a way already broken. Goodby is an abridged form of "God be with you." Dilapidated is fallen stone from stone. Daisy is "the day's eye," nasturtium (from its spicy smell) "the nose-twister," dandelion "the tooth of the lion." A lord is a bread-guard.

You will perceive, moreover, that many a dignified word once involved the same idea as some unassuming or even semi-disreputable word or expression involves now. Thus there is little or no difference in figure between understanding a thing and getting on to it; between averting something (turning it aside) and sidetracking it; between excluding (shutting out) and closing the door to; between degrading (putting down a step) and taking down a notch; between accumulating (heaping up) and making one's pile; between taking umbrage (the shadow) and being thrown in the shade; between ejaculating and throwing out a remark; between being on a tension and being highstrung; between being vapid and having lost steam; between insinuating (winding in) and worming in; between investigating and tracking; between instigating (goading on or into) and prodding up; between being incensed (compare incendiary) and burning with indignation; between recanting (unsinging) and singing another tune; between ruminating (chewing) and smoking in one's pipe. Nor is there much difference in figure between sarcasm (a tearing of the flesh) and taking the hide off; between sinister (left-handed) and backhanded; between preposterous (rear end foremost) and cart before the horse; between salary (salt-money, an allowance for soldiers) and pin-money; between pedigree (crane's foot, from the appearance of genealogical diagrams) and crowsfeet (about the eyes); between either precocious (early cooked), apricot (early cooked), crude (raw), or recrudescence (raw again) and half-baked. To ponder is literally to weigh; to apprehend an idea is to take hold of it; to deviate is to go out of one's way; to congregate is to flock together; to assail or insult a man is to jump on him; to be precipitate is to go head foremost; to be recalcitrant is to kick.

Again, you will perceive that many words once had more literal or more definitely concrete meanings than they have now. To corrode is to gnaw along with others, to differ is to carry apart, to refuse is to pour back. Polite is polished, absurd is very deaf, egregious is taken from the common herd, capricious is leaping about like a goat, cross (disagreeable) is shaped like a cross, wrong is wrung (or twisted). Crisscross is Christ's cross, attention is stretching toward, expression is pressed out, dexterity is right-handedness, circumstances are things standing around, an innuendo is nodding, a parlor is a room to talk in, a nostril is that which pierces the nose (thrill means pierce), vinegar is sharp wine, a stirrup is a rope to mount by, a pastor is a shepherd, a marshal is a caretaker of horses, a constable is a stable attendant, a companion is a sharer of one's bread.

On the other hand, you will find that many words were once more general in import than they have since become. Fond originally meant foolish, then foolishly devoted, then (becoming more general again) devoted. Nostrum meant our own, then a medicine not known by other physicians, then a quack remedy. Shamefast meant confirmed in modesty (shame); then through a confusion of fast with faced, a betrayal through the countenance of self-consciousness or guilt. Counterfeit meant a copy or a picture, then an unlawful duplication, especially of a coin. Lust meant pleasure of any sort, then inordinate sexual pleasure or desire. Virtue (to trace only a few of its varied activities) meant manliness, then the quality or attribute peculiar to true manhood (with the Romans this was valor), then any admirable quality, then female chastity. Pen meant a feather, then a quill to write with, then an instrument for writing used in the same way as a quill. A groom meant a man, then a stableman (in bridegroom, however, it preserves the old signification). Heathen (heath-dweller), pagan (peasant), and demon (a divinity) had in themselves no iniquitous savor until early Christians formed their opinion of the people inaccessible to them and the spirits incompatible with the unity of the Godhead. Words betokening future happenings or involving judgment tend to take a special cast from the fears and anxieties men feel when their fortune is affected or their destiny controlled by external forces. Thus omen (a prophetic utterance or sign) and portent (a stretching forward, a foreseeing, a foretelling) might originally be either benign or baleful; but nowadays, especially in the adjectival forms ominous and portentous, they wear a menacing hue. Similarly criticism, censure, and doom, all of them signifying at first mere judgment, have come—the first in popular, the other two in universal, usage—to stand for adverse judgment. The old sense of doom is perpetuated, however, in Doomsday, which means the day on which we are all to be, not necessarily sent to hell, but judged.

You will furthermore perceive that the exaggerated affirmations people are always indulging in have led to the weakening of many a word. Fret meant eat; formerly to say that a man was fretting was to use a vigorous comparison—to have the man devoured with care. Mortify meant to kill, then killed with embarrassment, then embarrassed. Qualm meant death, but our qualms of conscience have degenerated into mere twinges. Oaths are shorn of their might by overuse; confound, once a tremendous malinvocation, may now fall from the lips of respectable young ladies, and fie, in its time not a whit less dire, would be scarcely out of place in even a cloister. Words designating immediacy come to have no more strength than soup-meat seven times boiled. Presently meant in the present, soon and by and by meant forthwith. How they have lost their fundamental meaning will be intelligible to you if you have in ordering something been told that it would be delivered "right away," or in calling for a girl have been told that she would be down "in a minute."

You will detect in words of another class a deterioration, not in force, but in character; they have fallen into contemptuous or sinister usage. Many words for skill or wisdom have been thus debased. Cunning meant knowing, artful meant well acquainted with one's art, crafty meant proficient in one's craft or calling, wizard meant wise man. The present import of these words shows how men have assumed that mental superiority must be yoked with moral dereliction or diabolical aid. Words indicating the generality—indicating ordinary rank or popular affiliations—have in many instances suffered the same decline. Trivial meant three ways; it was what might be heard at the crossroads or on any route you chanced to be traveling, and its value was accordingly slight. Lewd meant belonging to the laity; it came to mean ignorant, and then morally reprehensible. Common may be used to signify ill-bred; vulgar may be and frequently is used to signify indecent. Sabotage, from a French term meaning wooden shoe, has come to be applied to the deliberate and systematic scamping of one's work in order to injure one's employer. Idiot (common soldier) crystallizes the exasperated ill opinion of officers for privates. (Infantry—an organization of military infants—has on the contrary sloughed its reproach and now enshrines the dignity of lowliness.) Somewhat akin to words of this type is knave, which first meant boy, then servant, then rogue. Terms for agricultural classes seldom remain flattering. Besides such epithets as hayseed and clodhopper, contemptuous in their very origin, villain (farm servant), churl (farm laborer), and boor (peasant) have all gathered unto themselves opprobrium; villain now involves a scoundrelly spirit, churl a contumelious manner, boor a bumptious ill-breeding; not one of these words is any longer confined in its application to a particular social rank. Terms for womankind are soon tainted. Wench meant at first nothing worse than girl or daughter, quean than woman, hussy than housewife; even woman is generally felt to be half-slighting. Terms affirming unacquaintance with sin, or abstention from it, tend to be quickly reft of what praise they are fraught with; none of us likes to be saluted as innocent, guileless, or unsophisticated, and to be dubbed silly no longer makes us feel blessed. Besides these and similar classes of words, there are innumerable individual terms that have sadly lost caste. An imp was erstwhile a scion; it then became a boy, and then a mischievous spirit. A noise might once be music; it has ceased to enjoy such possibilities. To live near a piano that is constantly banged is to know how noise as a synonym for music was outlawed.

A backward glance over the history of words repays you in showing you the words for what they are, and in having them live out their lives before you. Do you know what an umpire is? He is a non (or num) peer, a not equal man, an odd man—one therefore who can decide disputes. Do you know what a nickname is? It is an eke (also) name, a title bestowed upon one in addition to his proper designation. Do you know what a fellow, etymologically speaking, is? He is a fee-layer, a partner, a man who lays his fee (property) alongside yours. Do you know that matinée, though awarded to the afternoon, meant primarily a morning entertainment and has traveled so far from its original sense that we call an actual before-noon performance a morning matinée? Do you know the past of such words as bedlam, rival, parson, sandwich, pocket handkerchief? Bedlam, a corruption of Bethlehem, was a hospital for the insane in London; it came to be a general term for great confusion or discord. Rivals were formerly dwellers—that is, neighboring dwellers—on the bank of a stream; disputes over water-rights gave the word its present meaning. A person or parson, for the two were the same, was a mask (literally, that through which the sound came); then an actor representing a character in a play; then a representative of any sort; then the representative of the church in a parish. A sandwich was a stratification of bread and meat by the Earl of Sandwich, who was so loath to leave the gaming table that he saved time by having food brought him in this form. A kerchief was originally a cover for the head, and indeed sundry amiable, old-fashioned grandmothers still use it for this purpose. Afterward people carried it in their hands and called it a handkerchief; and when they transferred it to the pocket, they called it a pocket handkerchief or pocket hand head-cover. A scrutiny of such words should convince you that the reading of the dictionary, instead of being the dull occupation it is almost proverbially reputed to be, may become an occupation truly fascinating. For clustered about the words recorded in the dictionary are inexhaustible riches of knowledge and of interest for those who have eyes to see.

EXERCISE - Past

1. For each of the following words look up (a) the present meaning if you do not know it, (b) the original meaning, (c) any other past meanings you can find.

Exposition Corn Cattle
Influence Sanguine Turmoil
Sinecure Waist Shrew
Potential Spaniel Crazy
Character Candidate Indomitable
Infringe Rascal Amorphous
Expend Thermometer Charm
Rather Tall Stepchild
Wedlock Ghostly Haggard
Bridal Pioneer Pluck
Noon Neighbor Jimson weed
Courteous Wanton Rosemary
Cynical Street Plausible
Grocer Husband Allow
Worship Gipsy Insane
Encourage Clerk Disease
Astonish Clergyman Boulevard
Realize Hectoring Canary
Bombast Primrose Diamond
Benedict Walnut Abominate
Piazza Holiday Barbarous
Disgust Heavy Kind
Virtu Nightmare Devil
Gospel Comfort Whist
Mermaid Pearl Onion
Enthusiasm Domino Book
Fanatic Grotesque Cheat
Auction Economy Illegible
Quell Cheap Illegitimate
Sheriff Excelsior Emasculate
Danger Dunce Champion
Shibboleth Calico Adieu
Essay Pontiff Macadamize
Wages Copy Stentorian
Quarantine Puny Saturnine
Buxom Caper Derrick
Indifferent Boycott Mercurial
Gaudy Countenance Poniard
Majority Camera Chattel.

2. The following words are often used loosely today, some because their original meaning is lost sight of, some because they are confused with other words. Find for each word (a) what the meaning has been and (b) what the correct meaning is now.

Nice Awful Atrocious
Grand Horrible Pitiful
Beastly Transpire Claim
Weird Aggravate Uncanny
Demean Gorgeous Elegant
Fine Noisome Mutual (in "a mutual friend")
Lovely Cute Stunning
Liable Immense.

3. The following sentences from standard English literature illustrate the use of words still extant and even familiar, in senses now largely or wholly forgotten. The quotations from the Bible and Shakespeare (all the Biblical quotations are from the King James Version) date back a little more than three hundred years, those from Milton a little less than three hundred years, and those from Gray and Coleridge, respectively, about a hundred and seventy-five and a hundred and twenty-five years. Go carefully enough into the past meanings of the italicized words to make sure you grasp the author's thought.

And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.(1 Corinthians 13:13)

I prevented the dawning of the morning. (Psalms 119:147)

Our eyes wait upon the Lord our God. (Psalms 123:2)

The times of this ignorance God winked at. (Acts 17:30)

And Jesus said, Somebody hath touched me; for I perceive that virtue is gone out of me. (Luke 8:46)

To judge the quick and the dead. (1 Peter 4:5)

Be not wise in your own conceits. (Romans 12:16)

In maiden meditation, fancy-free. (Shakespeare: A Midsummer
Night's Dream)

Is it so nominated in the bond? (Shakespeare: The Merchant of Venice)

Would I had met my dearest foe in heaven. (Shakespeare: Hamlet)

The extravagant and erring spirit. (Said of a spirit wandering from the bounds of purgatory. Shakespeare: Hamlet)

The modesty of nature. (Shakespeare: Hamlet)

It is a nipping and an eager air. (Shakespeare: Hamlet)

Security Is mortals' chiefest enemy. (Shakespeare: Macbeth)

Most admired disorder. (Shakespeare: Macbeth)

Upon this hint I spake. (From the account of the wooing of
Desdemona. Shakespeare: Othello)

This Lodovico is a proper man. A very handsome man.
(Shakespeare: Othello)

Mice and rats and such small deer. (Shakespeare: King Lear)

This is no sound
That the earth owes. (Shakespeare: The Tempest)

Every shepherd tells his tale. (Milton: L'Allegro) Bring the rathe primrose that forsaken dies. (Rathe survives only in the comparative form rather. Milton: Lycidas)

Can honor's voice provoke the silent dust? (Gray: Elegy)

The silly buckets on the deck. (Coleridge: The Ancient
Mariner)

4. In technical usage or particular phrases a former sense of a word may
be embedded like a fossil. The italicized words in the following list
retain special senses of this kind. What do these words as thus used mean?
Can you add to the list?
To wit
Might and main
Time and tide
Christmas_tide_
Sad bread
A bank teller
To tell one's beads
Aid and abet
Meat and drink
Shop_lifter_
Fishing-tackle
Getting off scot-free
An earnest of future favors
A brave old hearthstone
Confusion to the enemy!
Giving aid and comfort to the enemy
Without let or hindrance
A let in tennis
_Quick_lime
Cut to the quick
Neat-foot oil
To sound in tort (Legal phrase)
To bid one God_speed_
I had as lief as not
The child favors its parents
On pain of death
Widow's weeds
I am bound for the Promised Land
To carry a girl to a party (Used only in the South)
To give a person so much to boot

5. Each of the subjoined phrases contradicts itself or repeats its idea clumsily. The key to the difficulty lies in the italicized words. What is their true meaning?

A weekly journal Ultimate end Final ultimatum Final completion Previous preconceptions Nauseating seasickness Join together Descend down Prefer better Argent silver Completely annihilate Unanimously by all Most unique of all The other alternative Endorse on the back Incredible to believe A criterion to go by An appetite to eat A panacea for all ills Popular with the people Biography of his life Autobiography of his own life Vitally alive A new, novel, and ingenious explanation Mutual dislike for each other Omniscient knowledge of all subjects A material growth in mental power Peculiar faults of his own Fly into an ebullient passion To saturate oneself with gold and silver Elected by acclamation on a secret ballot.