English Past and Present

by Richard Chenevix Trench

Notice another example of this willingness to dispense with inflection, of this endeavour on the part of the speakers of a language to reduce its forms to the fewest possible, consistent with the accurate communication of thought. Of our adjectives in ‘en’, formed on substantives, and expressing the material or substance of a thing, some have gone, others are going, out of use; while we content ourselves with the bare juxtaposition of the substantive itself, as sufficiently expressing our meaning. Thus instead of “golden pin” we say “gold pin”; instead of “earthen works” we say “earth works”. ‘Golden’ and ‘earthen’, it is true, still belong to our living speech, though mainly as part of our poetic diction, or of the solemn and thus stereotyped language of Scripture; but a whole company of such words have nearly or quite disappeared; some lately, some long ago. ‘Steelen’ and ‘flowren’ belong only to the earliest period of the language; ‘rosen’ also went early. Chaucer is my latest authority for it (“rosen chapelet”). ‘Hairen’ is in Wiclif and in Chaucer; ‘stonen’ in the former (John iii. 6)[190]. ‘Silvern’ stood originally in Wiclif’s Bible (“silverne housis to Diane”, Acts xix. 24); but already in the second recension of this was exchanged for ‘silver’; ‘hornen’, still in provincial use, he also employs, and ‘clayen’ (Job iv. 19) no less. ‘Tinnen’ occurs in Sylvester’s Du Bartas; where also we meet with “Jove’s milken alley”, as a name for the Via Lactea, in Bacon also not “the Milky”, but “the Milken Way”. In the coarse polemics of the Reformation the phrase, “breaden god”, provoked by the Romish doctrine of transubstantiation, was of frequent employment, and occurs as late as in Oldham. “Mothen parchments” is in Fulke; “twiggen bottle” in Shakespeare; ‘yewen’, or, according to earlier spelling, “ewghen bow”, in Spenser; “cedarn alley”, and “azurn sheen” are both in Milton; “boxen leaves” in Dryden; “a treen cup” in Jeremy Taylor; “eldern popguns” in Sir Thomas Overbury; “a glassen breast”, in Whitlock; “a reeden hat” in Coryat; ‘yarnen’ occurs in Turberville; ‘furzen’ in Holland; ‘threaden’ in Shakespeare; and ‘bricken’, ‘papern’ appear in our provincial glossaries as still in use.

It is true that many of these adjectives still hold their ground; but it is curious to note how the roots which sustain even these are being gradually cut away from beneath them. Thus ‘brazen’ might at first sight seem as strongly established in the language as ever; it is far from so being; its supports are being cut from beneath it. Even now it only lives in a tropical and secondary sense, as ‘a brazen face’; or if in a literal, in poetic diction or in the consecrated language of Scripture, as ‘the brazen serpent’; otherwise we say ‘a brass farthing’, ‘a brass candlestick’. It is the same with ‘oaten’, ‘birchen’, ‘beechen’, ‘strawen’, and many more, whereof some are obsolescent, some obsolete, the language manifestly tending now, as it has tended for a long time past, to the getting quit of these, and to the satisfying of itself with an adjectival apposition of the substantive in their stead.

Weak and Strong Præterites

Let me illustrate by another example the way in which a language, as it travels onward, simplifies itself, approaches more and more to a grammatical and logical uniformity, seeks to do the same thing always in the same manner; where it has two or three ways of conducting a single operation, lets all of them go but one; and thus becomes, no doubt, easier to be mastered, more handy, more manageable; for its very riches were to many an embarrassment and a perplexity; but at the same time imposes limits and restraints on its own freedom of action, and is in danger of forfeiting elements of strength, variety and beauty, which it once possessed. I refer to the tendency of our verbs to let go their strong præterites, and to substitute weak ones in their room; or, where they have two or three præterites, to retain only one of them, and that invariably the weak one. Though many of us no doubt are familiar with the terms ‘strong’ and ‘weak’ præterites, which in all our better grammars have put out of use the wholly misleading terms, ‘irregular’ and ‘regular’, I may perhaps as well remind you of the exact meaning of the terms. A strong præterite is one formed by an internal vowel change; for instance the verb ‘to drive’ forms the præterite ‘drove’ by an internal change of the vowel ‘i’ into ‘o’. But why, it may be asked, called ‘strong’? In respect of the vigour and indwelling energy in the word, enabling it to form its past tense from its own resources, and with no calling in of help from without. On the other hand ‘lift’ forms its præterite ‘lifted’, not by any internal change, but by the addition of ‘ed’; ‘grieve’ in like manner has ‘grieved’. Here are weak tenses; as strength was ascribed to the other verbs, so weakness to these, which can form their præterites only by external aid and addition. You will see at once that these strong præterites, while they witness to a vital energy in the words which are able to put them forth, do also, as must be allowed by all, contribute much to the variety and charm of a language[191].

The point, however, which I am urging now is this,—that these are becoming fewer every day; multitudes of them having disappeared, while others are in the act of disappearing. Nor is the balance redressed and compensation found in any new creations of the kind. The power of forming strong præterites is long ago extinct; probably no verb which has come into the language since the Conquest has asserted this power, while a whole legion have let it go. For example, ‘shape’ has now a weak præterite, ‘shaped’, it had once a strong one, ‘shope’; ‘bake’ has now a weak præterite, ‘baked’, it had once a strong one, ‘boke’; the præterite of ‘glide’ is now ‘glided’, it was once ‘glode’ or ‘glid’; ‘help’ makes now ‘helped’, it made once ‘halp’ and ‘holp’. ‘Creep’ made ‘crope’, still current in the north of England; ‘weep’ ‘wope’; ‘yell’ ‘yoll’ (both in Chaucer); ‘seethe’ ‘soth’ or ‘sod’ (Gen. xxv. 29); ‘sheer’ in like manner once made ‘shore’; as ‘leap’ made ‘lope’; ‘wash’ ‘wishe’ (Chaucer); ‘snow’ ‘snew’; ‘sow’ ‘sew’; ‘delve’ ‘dalf’ and ‘dolve’; ‘sweat’ ‘swat’; ‘yield’ ‘yold’ (both in Spenser); ‘mete’ ‘mat’ (Wiclif); ‘stretch’ ‘straught’; ‘melt’ ‘molt’; ‘wax’ ‘wex’ and ‘wox’; ‘laugh’ ‘leugh’; with others more than can be enumerated here[192].

Strong Præterites

Observe further that where verbs have not actually renounced their strong præterites, and contented themselves with weak in their room, yet, once possessing two, or, it might be three of these strong, they now retain only one. The others, on the principle of dismissing whatever can be dismissed, they have let go. Thus ‘chide’ had once ‘chid’ and ‘chode’, but though ‘chode’ is in our Bible (Gen. xxxi. 36), it has not maintained itself in our speech; ‘sling’ had ‘slung’ and ‘slang’ (1 Sam. xvii. 49); only ‘slung’ remains; ‘fling’ had once ‘flung’ and ‘flang’; ‘strive’ had ‘strove’ and ‘strave’; ‘stick’ had ‘stuck’ and ‘stack’; ‘hang’ had ‘hung’ and ‘hing’ (Golding); ‘tread’ had ‘trod’ and ‘trad’; ‘choose’ had ‘chose’ and ‘chase’; ‘give’ had ‘gave’ and ‘gove’; ‘lead’ had ‘led’ ‘lad’ and ‘lode’; ‘write’ had ‘wrote’ ‘writ’ and ‘wrate’. In all these cases, and more might easily be cited, only [of] the præterites which I have named the first remains in use.

Observe too that in every instance where a conflict is now going on between weak and strong forms, which shall continue, the battle is not to the strong; on the contrary the weak is carrying the day, is getting the better of its stronger competitor. Thus ‘climbed’ is gaining the upper hand of ‘clomb’, ‘swelled’ of ‘swoll’, ‘hanged’ of ‘hung’. It is not too much to anticipate that a time will come, although it may be still far off, when all English verbs will form their præterites weakly; not without serious damage to the fulness and force which in this respect the language even now displays, and once far more eminently displayed[193].

Comparatives and Superlatives

Take another proof of this tendency in our own language to drop its forms and renounce its own inherent powers; though here also the renunciation, threatening one day to be complete, is only partial at the present. I refer to the formation of our comparatives and superlatives; and I will ask you again to observe here that curious law of language, namely, that wherever there are two or more ways of attaining the same result, there is always a disposition to drop and dismiss all of these but one, so that the alternative or choice of ways once existing, shall not exist any more. If only it can attain a greater simplicity, it seems to grudge no self-impoverishment by which this result may be brought about. We have two ways of forming our comparatives and superlatives, one dwelling in the word itself, which we have inherited from our old Gothic stock, as ‘bright’, ‘brighter’, ‘brightest’, the other supplementary to this, by prefixing the auxiliaries ‘more’ and ‘most’. The first, organic we might call it, the indwelling power of the word to mark its own degrees, must needs be esteemed the more excellent way; which yet, already disallowed in almost all adjectives of more than two syllables in length, is daily becoming of narrower and more restrained application. Compare in this matter our present with our past. Wiclif for example forms such comparatives as ‘grievouser’, ‘gloriouser’, ‘patienter’, ‘profitabler’, such superlatives as ‘grievousest’, ‘famousest’; this last occurring also in Bacon. We meet in Tyndale, ‘excellenter’, ‘miserablest’; in Shakespeare, ‘violentest’; in Gabriel Harvey, ‘vendiblest’, ‘substantialest’, ‘insolentest’; in Rogers, ‘insufficienter’, ‘goldener’; in Beaumont and Fletcher, ‘valiantest’. Milton uses ‘virtuosest’, and in prose ‘vitiosest’, ‘elegantest’, ‘artificialest’, ‘servilest’, ‘sheepishest’, ‘resolutest’, ‘sensualest’; Fuller has ‘fertilest’; Baxter ‘tediousest’; Butler ‘preciousest’, ‘intolerablest’; Burnet ‘copiousest’, Gray ‘impudentest’. Of these forms, and it would be easy to adduce almost any number, we should hardly employ any now. In participles and adverbs in ‘ly’, these organic comparatives and superlatives hardly survive at all. We do not say ‘willinger’ or ‘lovinger’, and still less ‘flourishingest’, or ‘shiningest’, or ‘surmountingest’, all which Gabriel Harvey, a foremost master of the English of his time, employs; ‘plenteouslyer’, ‘fulliest’ (Wiclif), ‘easiliest’ (Fuller), ‘plainliest’ (Dryden), would be all inadmissible at present.