A Book About Words

by G. F. Graham

But it sometimes happens that the same root will produce two different meanings; and of this the word ‘court’ will furnish an example. In the Middle Ages, the yard or court attached to every castle (so called from the French ‘cour’) was used for two purposes: 1st, as a place for games or amusements; and, 2nd, where criminals were tried and sentenced. This is why a king’s palace is still called ‘a Court.’ We say ‘the Court of St. James,’ or ‘the Court of the Tuileries,’ &c.; and this is also why buildings where law proceedings are carried on have the same name; as in ‘the Court of Queen’s Bench,’ ‘the Court of Exchequer,’ &c.

The adjective ‘fine,’ in the sense of handsome or beautiful, is from the Saxon ‘fein,’ where it had the same meaning; but, in the expression ‘in fine,’ it is from the French ‘enfin,’ and the Latin ‘finis,’ an end or boundary. Again, the noun ‘fine,’ meaning a sum of money paid as a compensation for a misdemeanour, is from the same source, ‘finis;’ for here it means the limit or end to which the law confines the magistrate in determining that sum—‘Not more than forty shillings,’ &c.

Another of this class is the noun ‘sack.’ In its ordinary acceptation it means a large bag, and is derived from the Anglo-Saxon ‘sacc’ and the Latin ‘saccus.’ Hence comes the verb. To ‘sack’ a city is to carry off the plunder in a ‘bag.’ But another meaning of this word is found in ‘sack,’ a sort of wine. Here it is a corruption of the French ‘sec’ (originally the Latin ‘siccus’), dry. ‘Un vin sec’ is what we should call ‘a dry wine.’

These double meanings have probably in all nations given rise to various perversions and corruptions of the language. One of these—viz. punning—has been particularly prominent in modern times, and has, in some degree, infected the great majority of writers. Though the nations of antiquity seem to have been comparatively free from this literary vice, there are not wanting examples of it in the ancient classics. There is a collection of so-called jokes, or silly sayings of pedants, attributed to Hierocles, though it is now believed to have been the work of another hand. Most of these would be now considered intolerably stupid; and the only one among them that has the least approach to wit is the story of the father who writes to his son urging him to study hard, as he would have to live by his books. To this the son replies, that he had been already living by his books for some time, as he had been obliged to sell them. In Latin a softened expression for ‘a thief’ was ‘homo trium literarum,’ a man of three letters (f. u. r.); and Disraeli the elder mentions in his ‘Curiosities of Literature’ two puns attributed to Cicero.

But the true source of modern punning must be looked for in Italy, where it took rise after the revival of learning in the fifteenth century, and whence this practice afterwards spread into all the languages of Europe. In English, the vice of playing on words infected all the writers of the Elizabethan period. Puns are sown broadcast in Shakspere’s plays—even Milton is by no means free from them; and it is hardly necessary to state that they form a prominent feature in the drama and light literature of the present day.

Addison defines a pun, in the sixty-first number of the ‘Spectator,’ as ‘a conceit arising from the use of two words that agree in the sound, but differ in the sense.’ Now the punster deals in these equivocal words; and his whole art consists in using them in one sense where we should naturally expect another. There are in English several classes of equivocal words:—

I. Where the same form has several meanings, as 1. ‘Fair’ (beautiful, or light-coloured). 2. ‘Fair’ (just, or equitable). 3. ‘Fair’ (a market-place).

II. Where two words of different meaning are pronounced alike, though spelled differently; as ‘son’ and ‘sun,’ ‘some’ and ‘sum,’ ‘sole’ and ‘soul,’ ‘peer’ and ‘pier,’ &c.

III. A third class is of those which are spelled differently, and pronounced nearly, though not quite, alike; such as ‘baron’ and ‘barren,’ ‘season’ and ‘seizing,’ &c.; though these more frequently produce Malaprops than puns.