But not only the names of parts of the body; also those of many articles of domestic use are employed in a similar way. We have to chair a member; we hear that people are boarded, and that the earth is carpeted with green. ‘Curtained’ sleep, and ‘imbedded’ in the earth, belong to the same class. One man is said to floor another in argument. To ‘picture to yourself;’ to table the contents of a book; to be closeted with a friend, to book a debt; to pen a letter; to ink a dress; to paper a room, and to shelve a subject are all common and daily expressions. They are, in every sense of the term, household words.
In English, names of domestic animals are all Saxon; whereas wild beasts for the most part retain their Latin or French names. Thus ‘cat,’ ‘hound,’ ‘horse,’ ‘sheep,’ ‘cow,’ ‘swine,’ &c., are of Germanic origin; whilst ‘lion,’ ‘tiger,’ ‘elephant,’ ‘leopard,’ ‘panther,’ &c., come to us from Greek through Latin. The power we have to use these names of animals as verbs is another instance of the elasticity of our language. This can be done with some of the above Saxon names, though not with those of wild beasts. The noun ‘horse’ is often used as a verb: a stable-keeper is said to horse a coach; i.e. to supply it with horses. We have also to dodge; i.e. to follow a scent in and out like a dog. A man is hounded on to do such and such work; while to rat is to desert your party. Every one knows that to duck is to dive in the water like a duck. People are also said to be gulled when they are easily deceived; and to drone when they read or speak monotonously.
It is remarkable how often, colloquially, we use the names of animals as types of temper or character. True, this is not peculiar to the English language: though the practice is perhaps here more extended. People continually employ the word ‘ass’ or ‘donkey’ in the sense of a stupid loutish fellow. They also often stigmatise a cunning man as a ‘fox;’ or a scolding shrew as a ‘vixen.’ A proud little strut is called ‘a cock of the walk;’ and a reckless spendthrift is a ‘sad dog;’ or sometimes a ‘jolly dog.’ ‘Puppy’ is suggestive of conceit and self-sufficiency; and a slothful, indolent man is spoken of as a lazy ‘hound.’ A ‘hog’ is sometimes used as a metaphor for a glutton; and a ‘pig’ for a dirty fellow. ‘Pig-headed’ is also applied to one of stubborn temper; a ‘mule’ is a type of obstinacy; and a ‘horse,’ in the sense of a beast of burden, is found in ‘towel-horse,’ or ‘clothes-horse.’ Men of rude manners are spoken of as ‘bears,’ and the weak or timid in disposition are called ‘chicken’-hearted. A fond mother speaks of her child as her pet ‘lamb,’ or little ‘duck.’ Silliness is typified by ‘goose,’ and mischief by ‘monkey,’ &c. Here it will be found that these words are, with one or two exceptions, used in a disparaging, and not in a favourable, sense. They are, most of them, terms of reproach, not of praise.
Words have not only degenerated in sense; their outward form has also suffered. One principle—contraction—has affected both the pronunciation and spelling of many words. It may be taken as a general rule that words, as they grow older, become softer and shorter. They seldom expand, but almost always contract. This probably originated in a loose careless way of speaking, which afterwards affected the written language. Contractions appear in a great variety of forms. 1st. They are made by cutting off an initial syllable, as ‘‘prentice,’ for ‘apprentice;’ ‘‘peach,’ for ‘impeach;’ ‘‘gin,’ for ‘engine;’ ‘‘suage,’ for ‘assuage;’ ‘‘cyclopædia,’ for ‘encyclopædia;’ &c. Among the words which have lost their initial letters, three are to be especially noticed: viz. ‘luck,’ ‘irksome,’ and ‘orchard.’ The first of these was originally ‘Glück,’ and is still so spelled in German, whence it comes. ‘Irksome’ was in Anglo-Saxon written ‘(w)eorcsam,’ i.e. full of work, and therefore troublesome; and ‘orchard’ is a corruption of ‘(w)ort-yard,’ that is, a yard in which (worts) plants or vegetables were grown. 2nd. By cutting off a final syllable; as in ‘pro and con,’ for ‘contra;’ ‘cit,’ for ‘citizen;’ ‘without,’ formerly ‘withouten;’ ‘incog,’ for ‘incognito;’ ‘hyp,’ for ‘hypochondria;’ ‘consols,’ for ‘consolidated annuities,’ &c. 3rd. By taking a letter, or letters, from the middle of a word; as ‘else,’ for ‘elles;’ ‘lark,’ for ‘laverock;’ ‘last,’ for ‘latest;’ ‘lord,’ for ‘hlaford;’ ‘since,’ for ‘sithence;’ ‘parrot,’ for ‘perroquet;’ and ‘fortnight,’ for ‘fourteen nights;’ ‘cheer up’ is contracted into ‘chirrup,’ and then into ‘chirp;’ ‘speak’ comes from ‘sprecan;’ and the Anglo-Saxon ‘wifman’ appears as ‘woman.’ By the same law are formed many proper names. ‘Twell,’ for ‘at the well;’ ‘Thill,’ for ‘at the hill;’ ‘Oxford,’ for ‘Oxenford;’ ‘Cambridge,’ for ‘Cantebrigge,’ &c.
Many other cases may be cited as examples of this law. The word ‘(E)piscop(us)’ has suffered a mutilation at both the beginning and the end; and appears in English as ‘Bishop.’ The prefix ‘ge,’ commonly used in Saxon, and still retained in German participles, lingered for some time in English in the softened form of y; as in ‘yclept,’ ‘yclothed,’ &c.; but it has now vanished from the language. Another instance of the same tendency may be seen in the present pronunciation of participles ending in ‘ed.’ Formerly, the word ‘used’ was always pronounced as a dissyllable—‘usèd;’ now it is universally pronounced as a monosyllable. Indeed, this final ‘ed,’ as a distinct syllable though still occasionally heard in the pulpit, is fast disappearing from our language.
Contraction was the main principle on which the ancient Latin was transformed into French. It is curious to observe that though this contracting power did operate in Italian, it was not there carried out to the same degree as in French; that is, though Italian words are, in most cases, shorter than their Latin equivalents, they are not so contracted as the French words of the same meaning. This may be easily shown by comparison:—
| Latin. | Italian. | French. |
| apotheca | bottega | boutique |
| male-aptus | malatto | malade |
| quisque unus | ciascuno | chacun |
| ad hanc horam | ancora | encore |
| ad illam horam | allora | alors |
| ad satis | assai | assez |
| in simul | insieme | ensemble |
| semetipsissimus | medesimo | même |
| de retro | dietro | derrière |
| de illo | dello | du |
| homo | uomo | on |
| gaudium | giojo | joie |
and many others.