Let me mention another real loss, where in like manner there remains in the present language something to remind us of that which is gone. The comparative ‘rather’ stands alone, having dropped on one side its positive ‘rathe’[155], and on the other its superlative ‘rathest’. ‘Rathe’, having the sense of early, though a graceful word, and not fallen quite out of popular remembrance, inasmuch as it is embalmed in the Lycidas of Milton,
“And the rathe primrose, which forsaken dies”,
might still be suffered without remark to share the common lot of so many words which have perished, though worthy to have lived; but the disuse of ‘rathest’ has left a real gap in the language, and the more so, seeing that ‘liefest’ is gone too. ‘Rather’ expresses the Latin ‘potius’; but ‘rathest’ being out of use, we have no word, unless ‘soonest’ may be accepted as such, to express ‘potissimum’, or the preference not of one way over another or over certain others, but of one over all; which we therefore effect by aid of various circumlocutions. Nor has ‘rathest’ been so long out of use, that it would be playing the antic to attempt to revive it. It occurs in the Sermons of Bishop Sanderson, who in the opening of that beautiful sermon from the text, “When my father and my mother forsake me, the Lord taketh me up”, puts the consideration, “why these”, that is, father and mother, “are named the rathest, and the rest to be included in them”[156].
It is sometimes easy enough, but indeed oftener hard, and not seldom quite impossible, to trace the causes which have been at work to bring about that certain words, little by little, drop out of the language of men, come to be heard more and more rarely, and finally are not heard any more at all—to trace the motives which have induced a whole people thus to arrive at a tacit consent not to employ them any longer; for without this tacit consent they could never have thus become obsolete. That it is not accident, that there is a law here at work, however hidden it may be from us, is plain from the fact that certain families of words, words formed on certain patterns, have a tendency thus to fall into desuetude.
Words in ‘-some’
Thus, I think, we may trace a tendency in words ending in ‘some’, the Anglo-Saxon and early English ‘sum’, the German ‘sam’ (‘friedsam’, ‘seltsam’) to fall out of use. It is true that a vast number of these survive, as ‘gladsome’, ‘handsome’, ‘wearisome’, ‘buxom’ (this last spelt better ‘bucksome’, by our earlier writers, for its present spelling altogether disguises its true character, and the family to which it belongs); being the same word as the German ‘beugsam’ or ‘biegsam’, bendable, compliant[157]; but a larger number of these words than can be ascribed to accident, many more than the due proportion of them, are either quite or nearly extinct. Thus in Wiclif’s Bible alone you might note the following, ‘lovesum’, ‘hatesum’, ‘lustsum’, ‘gilsum’ (guilesome), ‘wealsum’, ‘heavysum’, ‘lightsum’, ‘delightsum’; of these ‘lightsome’ long survived, and indeed still survives in provincial dialects; but of the others all save ‘delightsome’ are gone; and that, although used in our Authorized Version (Mal. iii, 12), is now only employed in poetry. So too ‘mightsome’ (see Coleridge’s Glossary), ‘brightsome’ (Marlowe), ‘wieldsome’, and ‘unwieldsome’ (Golding), ‘unlightsome’ (Milton), ‘healthsome’ (Homilies), ‘ugsome’ and ‘ugglesome’ (both in Foxe), ‘laboursome’ (Shakespeare), ‘friendsome’, ‘longsome’ (Bacon), ‘quietsome’, ‘mirksome’ (both in Spenser), ‘toothsome’ (Beaumont and Fletcher), ‘gleesome’, ‘joysome’ (both in Browne’s Pastorals), ‘gaysome’ (Mirror for Magistrates), ‘roomsome’, ‘bigsome’, ‘awesome’, ‘timersome’, ‘winsome’, ‘viewsome’, ‘dosome’ (= prosperous), ‘flaysome’ (= fearful), ‘auntersome’ (= adventurous), ‘clamorsome’ (all these still surviving in the North), ‘playsome’ (employed by the historian Hume), ‘lissome’[158], have nearly or quite disappeared from our English speech. They seem to have held their ground in Scotland in considerably larger numbers than in the south of the Island[159].
Words in ‘-ard’
Neither can I esteem it a mere accident that of a group of depreciatory and contemptuous words ending in ‘ard’, at least one half should have dropped out of use; I refer to that group of which ‘dotard’, ‘laggard’, ‘braggard’, now spelt ‘braggart’, ‘sluggard’, ‘buzzard’, ‘bastard’, ‘wizard’, may be taken as surviving specimens; ‘blinkard’ (Homilies), ‘dizzard’ (Burton), ‘dullard’ (Udal), ‘musard’ (Chaucer), ‘trichard’ (Political Songs), ‘shreward’ (Robert of Gloucester), ‘ballard’ (a bald-headed man, Wiclif); ‘puggard’, ‘stinkard’ (Ben Jonson), ‘haggard’, a worthless hawk, as extinct.
Thus too there is a very curious province of our language, in which we were once so rich, that extensive losses here have failed to make us poor; so many of its words still surviving, even after as many or more have disappeared. I refer to those double words which either contain within themselves a strong rhyming modulation, such for example as ‘willy-nilly’, ‘hocus-pocus’, ‘helter-skelter’, ‘tag-rag’, ‘namby-pamby’, ‘pell-mell’, ‘hodge-podge’; or with a slight difference from this, though belonging to the same group, those of which the characteristic feature is not this internal likeness with initial unlikeness, but initial likeness with internal unlikeness; not rhyming, but strongly alliterative, and in every case with a change of the interior vowel from a weak into a strong, generally from i into a or o; as ‘shilly-shally’, ‘mingle-mangle’, ‘tittle-tattle’, ‘prittle-prattle’, ‘riff-raff’, ‘see-saw’, ‘slip-slop’. No one who is not quite out of love with the homelier yet more vigorous portions of the language, but will acknowledge the life and strength which there is often in these and in others still current among us. But of the same sort what vast numbers have fallen out of use, some so fallen out of all remembrance that it may be difficult almost to find credence for them. Thus take of rhyming the following: ‘hugger-mugger’, ‘hurly-burly’, ‘kicksy-wicksy’ (all in Shakespeare); ‘hibber-gibber’, ‘rusty-dusty’, ‘horrel-lorrel’, ‘slaump paump’ (all in Gabriel Harvey), ‘royster-doyster’ (Old Play), ‘hoddy-doddy’ (Ben Jonson); while of alliterative might be instanced these: ‘skimble-skamble’, ‘bibble-babble’ (both in Shakespeare), ‘twittle-twattle’, ‘kim-kam’ (both in Holland), ‘hab-nab’ (Lilly), ‘trim-tram’, ‘trish-trash’, ‘swish-swash’ (all in Gabriel Harvey), ‘whim-wham’ (Beaumont and Fletcher), ‘mizz-mazz’ (Locke), ‘snip-snap’ (Pope), ‘flim-flam’ (Swift), ‘tric-trac’, and others[160].
Words under Ban