Again, there was once a whole family of words whereof the greater number are now under ban; which seemed at one time to have been formed almost at pleasure, the only condition being that the combination should be a happy one—I mean all those singularly expressive words formed by a combination of verb and substantive, the former governing the latter; as ‘telltale’, ‘scapegrace’, ‘turncoat’, ‘turntail’, ‘skinflint’, ‘spendthrift’, ‘spitfire’, ‘lickspittle’, ‘daredevil’ (= wagehals), ‘makebate’ (= störenfried), ‘marplot’, ‘killjoy’. These with a certain number of others, have held their ground, and may be said to be still more or less in use; but what a number more are forgotten; and yet, though not always elegant, they constituted a very vigorous portion of our language, and preserved some of its most genuine idioms[161]. It could not well be otherwise; they are almost all words of abuse, and the abusive words of a language are always among the most picturesque and vigorous and imaginative which it possesses. The whole man speaks out in them, and often the man under the influence of passion and excitement, which always lend force and fire to his speech. Let me remind you of a few of them; ‘smellfeast’, if not a better, is yet a more graphic, word than our foreign parasite; as graphic indeed for us as τρεχέδειπνος to Greek ears; ‘clawback’ (Hackett) is a stronger, if not a more graceful, word than flatterer or sycophant; ‘tosspot’ (Fuller), or less frequently ‘reel-pot’ (Middleton), tells its own tale as well as drunkard; and ‘pinchpenny’ (Holland), or ‘nipfarthing’ (Drant), as well as or better than miser. And then what a multitude more there are in like kind; ‘spintext’, ‘lacklatin’, ‘mumblematins’, all applied to ignorant clerics; ‘bitesheep’ (a favourite word with Foxe) to such of these as were rather wolves tearing, than shepherds feeding, the flock; ‘slip-string’ = pendard (Beaumont and Fletcher), ‘slip-gibbet’, ‘scapegallows’; all names given to those who, however they might have escaped, were justly owed to the gallows, and might still “go upstairs to bed”.
Obsolete Compounds
How many of these words occur in Shakespeare. The following list makes no pretence to completeness; ‘martext’, ‘carrytale’, ‘pleaseman’, ‘sneakcup’, ‘mumblenews’, ‘wantwit’, ‘lackbrain’, ‘lackbeard’, ‘lacklove’, ‘ticklebrain’, ‘cutpurse’, ‘cutthroat’, ‘crackhemp’, ‘breedbate’, ‘swinge-buckler’, ‘pickpurse’, ‘pickthank’, ‘picklock’, ‘scarecrow’, ‘breakvow’, ‘breakpromise’, ‘makepeace’—this last and ‘telltruth’ (Fuller) being the only ones in the whole collection wherein reprobation or contempt is not implied. Nor is the list exhausted yet; there are further ‘dingthrift’ = prodigal (Herrick), ‘wastegood’ (Cotgrave), ‘stroygood’ (Golding), ‘wastethrift’ (Beaumont and Fletcher), ‘scapethrift’, ‘swashbuckler’ (both in Holinshed), ‘shakebuckler’, ‘rinsepitcher’ (both in Bacon), ‘crackrope’ (Howell), ‘waghalter’, ‘wagfeather’ (both in Cotgrave), ‘blabtale’ (Racket), ‘getnothing’ (Adams), ‘findfault’ (Florio), ‘tearthroat’ (Gayton), ‘marprelate’, ‘spitvenom’, ‘nipcheese’, ‘nipscreed’, ‘killman’ (Chapman), ‘lackland’, ‘pickquarrel’, ‘pickfaults’, ‘pickpenny’ (Henry More), ‘makefray’ (Bishop Hall), ‘make-debate’ (Richardson’s Letters), ‘kindlecoal’ (attise feu), ‘kindlefire’ (both in Gurnall), ‘turntippet’ (Cranmer), ‘swillbowl’ (Stubbs), ‘smell-smock’, ‘cumberwold’ (Drayton), ‘curryfavor’, ‘pinchfist’, ‘suckfist’, ‘hatepeace’ (Sylvester), ‘hategood’ (Bunyan), ‘clutchfist’, ‘sharkgull’ (both in Middleton), ‘makesport’ (Fuller), ‘hangdog’ (“Herod’s hangdogs in the tapestry”, Pope), ‘catchpoll’, ‘makeshift’ (used not impersonally as now), ‘pickgoose’ (“the bookworm was never but a pickgoose”)[162], ‘killcow’ (these three last in Gabriel Harvey), ‘rakeshame’ (Milton, prose), with others which it will be convenient to omit. ‘Rakehell’, which used to be spelt ‘rakel’ or ‘rakle’ (Chaucer), a good English word, would be only through an error included in this list, although Cowper, when he writes ‘rakehell’ (“rake-hell baronet”) evidently regarded it as belonging to this group[163].
Words become Vulgar
Perhaps one of the most frequent causes which leads to the disuse of words is this: in some inexplicable way there comes to be attached something of ludicrous, or coarse, or vulgar to them, out of a feeling of which they are no longer used in earnest serious writing, and at the same time fall out of the discourse of those who desire to speak elegantly. Not indeed that this degradation which overtakes words is in all cases inexplicable. The unheroic character of most men’s minds, with their consequent intolerance of that heroic which they cannot understand, is constantly at work, too often with success, in taking down words of nobleness from their high pitch; and, as the most effectual way of doing this, in casting an air of mock-heroic about them. Thus ‘to dub’, a word resting on one of the noblest usages of chivalry, has now something of ludicrous about it; so too has ‘doughty’; they belong to that serio-comic, mock-heroic diction, the multiplication of which, as of all parodies on greatness, and the favour with which it is received, is always a sign of evil augury for a nation, is at present a sign of evil augury for our own.
‘Pate’ in the sense of head is now comic or ignoble; it was not so once; as is plain from its occurrence in the Prayer Book Version of the Psalms (Ps. vii. 17); as little was ‘noddle’, which occurs in one of the few poetical passages in Hawes. The same may be said of ‘sconce’, in this sense at least; of ‘nowl’ or ‘noll’, which Wiclif uses; of ‘slops’ for trousers (Marlowe’s Lucan); of ‘cocksure’ (Rogers), of ‘smug’, which once meant no more than adorned (“the smug bridegroom”, Shakespeare). ‘To nap’ is now a word without dignity; while yet in Wiclif’s Bible it is said, “Lo he schall not nappe, nether slepe that kepeth Israel” (Ps. cxxi. 4). ‘To punch’, ‘to thump’, both of which, and in serious writing, occur in Spenser, could not now obtain the same use, nor yet ‘to wag’, or ‘to buss’. Neither would any one now say that at Lystra Barnabas and Paul “rent their clothes and skipped out among the people” (Acts xiv. 14), which is the language that Wiclif employs; nor yet that “the Lord trounced Sisera and all his host” as it stands in the Bible of 1551. “A sight of angels”, for which phrase see Cranmer’s Bible (Heb. xii. 22), would be felt as a vulgarism now. We should scarcely call now a delusion of Satan a “flam of the devil” (Henry More). It is not otherwise in regard of phrases. “Through thick and thin”, occurring in Spenser, “cheek by jowl” in Dubartas[164], do not now belong to serious poetry. In the glorious ballad of Chevy Chase, a noble warrior whose legs are hewn off, is described as being “in doleful dumps”; just as, in Holland’s Livy, the Romans are set forth as being “in the dumps” as a consequence of their disastrous defeat at Cannæ. In Golding’s Ovid, one fears that he will “go to pot”. In one of the beautiful letters of John Careless, preserved in Foxe’s Martyrs, a persecutor, who expects a recantation from him, is described as “in the wrong box”. And in the sermons of Barrow, who certainly intended to write an elevated style, and did not seek familiar, still less vulgar, expressions, we constantly meet such terms as ‘to rate’, ‘to snub’, ‘to gull’, ‘to pudder’, ‘dumpish’, and the like; which we may confidently affirm were not vulgar when he used them.
Then too the advance of refinement causes words to be forgone, which are felt to speak too plainly. It is not here merely that one age has more delicate ears than another; and that matters are freely spoken of at one time which at another are withdrawn from conversation. This is something; but besides this, and even if this delicacy were at a standstill, there would still be a continual process going on, by which the words, which for a certain while have been employed to designate coarse or disagreeable facts or things, would be disallowed, or at all events relinquished to the lower class of society, and others adopted in their place. The former by long use being felt to have come into too direct and close relation with that which they designate, to summon it up too distinctly before the mind’s eye, they are thereupon exchanged for others, which, at first at least, indicate more lightly and allusively the offensive thing, rather hint and suggest than paint and describe it: although by and by these new will also in their turn be discarded, and for exactly the same reasons which brought about the dismissal of those which they themselves superseded. It lies in the necessity of things that I must leave this part of my subject, very curious as it is, without illustration[165]. But no one, even moderately acquainted with the early literature of the Reformation, can be ignorant of words freely used in it, which now are not merely coarse and as such under ban, but which no one would employ who did not mean to speak impurely and vilely.
Lost Powers of a Language
Thus much in respect of the words, and the character of the words, which we have lost or let go. Of these, indeed, if a language, as it travels onwards, loses some, it also acquires others, and probably many more than it loses; they are leaves on the tree of language, of which if some fall away, a new succession takes their place. But it is not so, as I already observed, with the forms or powers of a language, that is, with the various inflections, moods, duplicate or triplicate formation of tenses; which the speakers of a language come gradually to perceive that they can do without, and therefore cease to employ; seeking to suppress grammatical intricacies, and to obtain grammatical simplicity and so far as possible a pervading uniformity, sometimes even at the hazard of letting go what had real worth, and contributed to the more lively, if not to the clearer, setting forth of the inner thought or feeling of the mind. Here there is only loss, with no compensating gain; or, at all events, diminution only, and never addition. In regard of these inner forces and potencies of a language, there is no creative energy at work in its later periods, in any, indeed, but quite the earliest. They are not as the leaves, but may be likened to the stem and leading branches of a tree, whose shape, mould and direction are determined at a very early stage of its growth; and which age, or accident, or violence may diminish, but which can never be multiplied. I have already slightly referred to a notable example of this, namely, to the dropping of the dual number in the Greek language. Thus in all the New Testament it does not once occur, having quite fallen out of the common dialect in which that is composed. Elsewhere too it has been felt that the dual was not worth preserving, or at any rate, that no serious inconvenience would follow on its loss. There is no such number in the modern German, Danish or Swedish; in the old German and Norse there was.