9. a. Pale (Fr. pal, Lat. pāum). b. Pale (Fr. pâle, Lat. pallidum).
10. a. Elder, the tree (A.S. ellarn). b. Elder, ‘older.’
It would, of course, be possible to extend this list to almost any length; but this would be useless for our purpose, which is to investigate solely those cases in which similarity causes confusion. This happens where the difference in origin and meaning is lost sight of. It is naturally impossible to draw a hard and fast line of demarcation between the case just discussed and that which we are about to exemplify, as one speaker may keep distinct what another may confuse or treat as identical. Still, no one, we may fairly say, unless he be a student of language, or unless he has been expressly informed, is aware that in a phrase like The ship is bound for London, the word bound employed by him has absolutely no connection with the past participle of the verb to bind. In the first case, bound is of Scandinavian origin, and meant originally ready, prepared; cf. the Icelandic verb búa, perf. part, búinn, ‘to prepare.’ Similarly, few ordinary speakers can explain, or indeed realise, the existence of the distinction in meaning between shed, ‘a hut’ (a doublet of shade), and shed in water-shed, when derived from the A.S. scéadan; or that between sheer, allied to Icelandic skærr, ‘bright,’ and sheer, akin to Dutch scheren, ‘to shave.’ Thus, again, many might suppose that some etymological connection existed between hide, ‘a skin’ (A.S. hýd, akin to Ger. haut), and hide, ‘to conceal’ (A.S. hídan); while others, when told that hide also served as the name for a certain measure of land, might naturally even suspect some allusion to the famous legend of the foundation of Byrsa or Carthage. The A.S. noun setl (a seat) and the verb settan survive both in the word settle and in to settle. In employing, however, the word in ‘to settle a dispute,’ we have a word of very different origin: the A.S. sacu, ‘a quarrel,’ ‘dispute,’ ‘lawsuit’ (surviving in ‘for my sake’, etc.), existed side by side with a verb sacan, ‘to strive,’ or ‘dispute:’ akin to this, we find saht, a substantive which owes its meaning, ‘reconciliation,’ to the development lawsuit, adjustment by lawsuit, etc. Again, derived from this we have the verb sahtlian, ‘to reconcile,’ which, at a later period, occurs in the forms saztlen and sattle.[97] When this verb ceased to be understood, confusion with the other verb to settle = to fix, to arrange, arose, and the two forms ‘flowed together, just as two drops of rain running down a window-pane are very likely to run into one.’[98] Another instance of this nature is discussed by Professor Skeat, s.v.; viz., sound = A.S. sund, akin to the Ger. (ge)sund; sound, ‘a strait of the sea,’ and sound’ M.E. soun, Anglo-Fr. soun or sun, Lat. sonum.
ii. Such forms, where phonetic development brought about merely a close resemblance without producing perfect similarity, and where, as a next step, one or other of the set of words underwent some change more or less violent in consequence of its supposed connection with the rest, are peculiarly instructive, proving as they do the confusion which arose in the minds of the speakers who thus combined what was distinct and unconnected. In these cases we have entered upon the domain of ‘popular etymology,’ to which we have already incidentally alluded.
It does not, however, always follow that the supposed connection in meaning—in other words, the coalescence of elements of different origin into a single material group, brings about the further change in form; at this period nothing but the linguistic consciousness of the speaker can decide whether the ‘popular etymology’ is or has been at work. Of course, as long as the etymology of the different words in the set is clearly understood by the speaker, there can be no question as to the connection, but when one or more of the members of the set is no longer understood in its historical bearings, it is possible for a new grouping to arise.
Let us take, as an instance, the word carousal. This bore originally the sense which it bears in the Parisian name of the Place du Carrousel, viz. a tournament or festival. It was confused with the word carouse (Ger. gar-aus = properly ‘quite out,’ i.e. ‘empty your glasses’); and at present our word carousal represents both. The Anglo-Saxon word bonda meant a boor, or householder. His tenure appears expressed in Low Latin by the word bondagium, and it is only to a supposed, but wholly erroneous connection with bond and the verb to bind, that our present word bondage owes its sense of servitude.
The Fr. sursis gave us, before its final s had ceased to be pronounced, our verb surcease, which most speakers now look on as a compound of cease (Fr. cesser).[99] Wiseacre, really derived through the Dutch from the Ger. wízago (A.S. witega, ‘a prophet’), was already, while on its way to England, misunderstood in Holland, and taken to be a compound of wise. In Dutch, a verb wys-seggen and a noun wys-segger (‘to speak wisely’ and ‘a wise sayer’) were formed, and modern German as well possesses the word weissagen, ‘to prophesy.’ This wys-segger, when it reached England, could no longer be understood as a derivative from the verb secgan, which in English had already lost its guttural and had become (to) say; and thus popular etymology altered the second part of the supposed compound into the meaningless acre. The Fr. surlonge, the piece of meat ‘upon the loin’ (Lat. super, Fr. sur, and Lat. *lumbea, from lumbus, Fr. longe), became in English the surloyn in the time of Henry VI. This was no longer understood; the word was accepted as a compound with the word sir, and thus the fable was invented of the ‘merry monarch’ knighting the loin.[100] The berfroit or belefreit of Old French is of German origin, and signifies a watchtower. The word had ceased to be understood, and its origin was forgotten; but, as many towers contained a bell or a peal of bells, a supposed connection with these bells caused the word to be changed into belfry. The spelling is affected in sovereign, where the g is due to a supposed connection with to reign (régner, regnare); the real derivation being from soverain (superaneum), and the word being correctly spelt sovran by Milton. Further instances are lance-knight (= lanz-knecht = landes knecht = ‘the knight, i.e. the man-of the land,’ ‘the servant of his country’); cray-fish (= écrévisse); shamefaced (really shamefast, like steadfast), etc.
In other cases of rarer occurrence than those which we have discussed, a significant part of a compound assumes the form of a mere derivative. This has occurred in the case of the word righteous, taken to be a derivative from some French adjective in -eux, Lat. -osus, though really due to right-wise, a compound like otherwise. It is natural that Proper nouns, where there is no connection or only a fanciful one between the word and its meaning, should be more liable to such transformations than others; so the Rose des quatre saisons appears as the quarter-sessions rose, the asparagus appears as sparrow grass, the ship Bellerophon becomes the Billy ruffan,[101] the Pteroessa, the tearing hisser. We may perhaps add here a word like liquorice, which, though the name, rightly understood, is descriptive, has become a mere proper noun. Originally from liquiritia, itself a corrupt form of glykyrrhiza = ‘a sweet root,’ it has, as its spelling shows, become connected with liquor,[102] while those who deemed this impossible preferred to explain the word as connected with to lick.[103]
II. Important, then, as the part played by phonetic development is in bringing about the formation of new material-groups, it has made its influence felt more widely still in the modal grouping of the various systems of inflection.
Here, again, two cases should be distinguished: (1) when forms which have had identical functions come to coincide: (2) when such coincidence occurs in the case of forms that have had different functions.