Under special circumstances one among all the properties or features of a person or thing may occupy the mind almost exclusively, as of Julius Cæsar the despotic power which he obtained, of Captain Boycott the ban which was placed upon him. In such cases, when the name is heard and pronounced, the special feature impresses itself upon the mind. The speaker thinks of little else than this. And when the necessity arises of expressing in a word that peculiarity in another place under different surroundings, the individual name offers itself, since its original meaning has already been modified, since it has already lost most of its individual significance. The part of its meaning which is retained is now generally applied. An expansion of the special meaning has taken place.
On the other hand, words which were originally applied to many things in many different situations come to signify a particular thing under particular circumstances. This change of meaning is illustrated by the names which the state or nation gives its officers. President, secretary, general, captain, had originally a very broad meaning, but when applied to the officers of the state have a very special meaning. It is easy to explain this. The word captain, meaning originally merely the chief of any aggregation of people, is naturally applied by the speaker most frequently to the chief of that company of men in which he is particularly interested. The chief of another company of men is then no longer called by this simple name, but additional names are used. The word when used without additional words comes to mean exclusively the chief of the special group which is of main interest to the speaker. Similarly, city assumes for the person living in the country the meaning of the city near by. Gas means for the man who is not a physicist only the ordinary illuminating gas.
Other changes of meaning resulting from associative connection and a transference of attention are the metaphors and metonymies. A metaphor is a figure of speech in which one object is spoken of as if it were another; for example, when St. Luke says, “Go ye, and tell that fox,” meaning Herod. A metonymy is the exchange of names between things related. Toilet meant originally a small cloth, a napkin, spread over a table. Then it came to mean the table itself, used in the process of dressing. Then it meant the process of dressing one’s hair, later the general process of dressing one’s self. It also assumed the meaning of a person’s actual dress, his costume; also the style of dress. More recently it has come to mean the toilet room, the lavatory.
Many changes in the meaning of words result from certain secondary purposes of the speaker. We usually address another person in order to obtain something from him. In order to succeed, we must keep or make him good humored, give him his proper honors and titles, flatter him rather than call attention to his faults. The consequence of this exaggeration of the person’s value is that all titles, all forms of appellation, especially those addressed to the female sex, tend to deteriorate, to lose their original value. Lady no longer means the wife of a nobleman, but is applied to a washerwoman. Sir is used in a letter addressed to any man, however low his rank.
Deterioration of the meaning of words is not restricted to those used for appellation. Whenever we desire to convey any thought to others, we must make it appear important enough to have people give attention to it. We therefore choose terms which mean more than we intend to say, rather than terms which mean exactly as much or less. We call things lovely or horrid when we mean only agreeable or disagreeable, we speak of heaven or hell when we mean only a good or a bad place. The inevitable result is, of course, that the impressive words become insipid. We call a student fair who is only mediocre, merely because of our good will towards him. Fair then comes to mean mediocre, and we call a student fair who is a poor student. Finally, a fair student comes to mean a poor student.
Those who are particularly anxious to use impressive language—young people, students, soldiers—often use the other extreme for the same purpose. They use words which signify low or bad things and relations (slang) in order to refer to the things and relations of ordinary life to which they want to call attention. “Grub” comes to mean human food. “Being plucked” takes the place of “being rejected at an honor examination.” Puritan and quaker are slang terms of the seventeenth century which have entirely lost their original meaning of contempt and ridicule. In the same way words of low meaning are all the time being raised into the realm of good language.
Speech depends as much on the totality of mental life as perception. A person’s choice of words, their forms and their connections, are determined by previous habits of using words, by experience concerning those qualities of things which are most important to his own interests, by his consciousness of his present needs and ends. The general purpose of communication between the members of society tends to obliterate differences between individuals and between generations. But it never does this perfectly. Individuality, circumstances, and special purpose give to the language of each person an individual stamp; and the succession of individuals, of historical conditions, of the varying needs of successive generations, brings about unavoidably alterations in the language. These alterations are retarded by the existence of a written language, of literature. They may also be retarded artificially by training and compelling the members of a community to use the same words and the same rules of grammar and syntax. Such artificial remedies, however, are not without serious disadvantages. They take the life out of language. Force, beauty, and particularly truthfulness in representation of thoughts are likely to be sacrificed unless we are willing to admit a certain amount of lawlessness, which, after all, is the outcome of the fundamental laws of the mind.
[4.] The Significance of Language
Aside from its social significance as the almost exclusive means of communication among the members of society, language has its significance for purely individual mental activity and mental growth. This has already been referred to above. Language makes possible an almost unlimited refinement of abstract thought, a complete analysis of the data of perceptual, ideational, and affective life into their elements, and the construction out of them of new concepts, first according to their similarities, then according to purposes. Such concepts as acceleration, pitch of tone, irrational number, atomic heat, justice, bliss, would be impossible without language. To the invention of such abstract concepts mankind owes its subjugation of nature. It is difficult to think of the exact manner in which bodies fall when they are dropped; some fall slowly, others with great velocity, some do not fall at all, but rise. But think of them as being in space from which the air has been exhausted, and apply the concept of acceleration. At once the matter is very simple, and it includes even the heavenly bodies with which we never come in direct contact: all bodies fall with constant acceleration.
This is but one of innumerable instances. Practically all laws of physics, chemistry, philology, psychology, and all the other sciences are stated in terms of highly abstract concepts. Imagine, for example, the sine or tangent of an angle, electromotor force, molecular weight, consonants and vowels, intensity of sensation. None of these abstract concepts and none of the laws in which they appear could have been invented without the aid of language. How restricted, further, would be our knowledge without language! How limited the exchange of opinions! Think of such a phrase as “the events of the last thirty years.” What a multitude of ideas is suggested by it in the most economical manner! Few of these ideas actually become conscious; but all of them are made ready to serve if their services should be needed.