On the Study of Words

by Richard Chenevix Trench

This fact however, though sufficient to show how ineffectual the scheme of phonetic spelling would prove, even for the removing of those inconveniences which it proposes to remedy, is only the smallest objection to it. The far more serious charge which may be brought against it is, that in words out of number it would obliterate those clear marks of birth and parentage, which they bear now upon their fronts, or are ready, upon a very slight interrogation, to reveal. Words have now an ancestry; and the ancestry of words, as of men, is often a very noble possession, making them capable of great things, because those from whom they are descended have done great things before them; but this would deface their scutcheon, and bring them all to the same ignoble level. Words are now a nation, grouped into tribes and families, some smaller, some larger; this change would go far to reduce them to a promiscuous and barbarous horde. Now they are often translucent with their inner thought, lighted up by it; in how many cases would this inner light be then quenched! They have now a body and a soul, the soul quickening the body; then oftentimes nothing but a body, forsaken by the spirit of life, would remain. These objections were urged long ago by Bacon, who characterizes this so-called reformation, 'that writing should be consonant to speaking,' as 'a branch of unprofitable subtlety;' and especially urges that thereby 'the derivations of words, especially from foreign languages, are utterly defaced and extinguished.' [Footnote: The same attempt to introduce phonography has been several times made, once in the sixteenth century, and again some thirty years ago in France. What would be there the results? We may judge of these from the results of a partial application of the system. 'Temps' is now written 'tems,' the p having been ejected as superfluous. What is the consequence? at once its visible connexion with the Latin 'tempus,' with the Spanish 'tiempo,' with the Italian 'tempo,' with its own 'temporel' and 'temporaire,' is broken, and for many effaced. Or note the result from another point of view. Here are 'poids' a weight, 'poix' pitch, 'pois' peas. No one could mark in speaking the distinction between these; and thus to the ear there maybe confusion between them, but to the eye there is none; not to say that the d in poi_d_s' puts it for us in relation with 'pon_d_us,' the x in 'poi_x_' with 'pu_x_,' the s in 'poi_s_' with the Low Latin 'pi_s_um.' In each case the letter which these reformers would dismiss as useless, and worse than useless, keeps the secret of the word. On some other attempts in the same direction see in D'Israeli, Amenities of Literature, an article On Orthography and Orthoepy; and compare Diez, Romanische Sprache, vol. i. p. 52. [In the form poids we have a striking example of a wretchedly bad spelling which is due to an attempt to make the spelling etymological. Unfortunately the etymology is erroneous: the French word for weight has nothing in the world to do with Latin pondus; it is the phonetic representative of the Latin pensum, and should be spelt pois.]

From the results of various approximations to phonetic spelling, which at different times have been made, and the losses thereon ensuing, we may guess what the loss would be were the system fully carried out. Of those fairly acquainted with Latin, it would be curious to know how many have seen 'silva' in 'savage,' since it has been so written, and not 'salvage,' as of old? or have been reminded of the hindrances to a civilized and human society which the indomitable forest, more perhaps than any other obstacle, presents. When 'fancy' was spelt 'phant'sy,' as by Sylvester in his translation of Du Bartas, and other scholarly writers of the seventeenth century, no one could doubt of its identity with 'phantasy,' as no Greek scholar could miss its relation with phantasia. Spell 'analyse' as I have sometimes seen it, and as phonetically it ought to be, 'annalize,' and the tap-root of the word is cut. How many readers will recognize in it then the image of dissolving and resolving aught into its elements, and use it with a more or less conscious reference to this? It may be urged that few do so even now. The more need they should not be fewer; for these few do in fact retain the word in its place, from which else it might gradually drift; they preserve its vitality, and the propriety of its use, not merely for themselves, but also for the others that have not this knowledge. In phonetic spelling is, in fact, the proposal that the learned and the educated should of free choice place themselves under the disadvantages of the ignorant and uneducated, instead of seeking to elevate these last to their own more favoured condition.

On this subject one observation more. The multitude of difficulties of every sort and size which would beset the period of transition, and that no brief period, from our present spelling to the very easiest form of phonetic, seem to me to be almost wholly overlooked by those who are the most eager to press forward this scheme: while yet it is very noticeable that so soon as ever the 'Spelling Reform' approaches, however remotely, a practical shape, the Reformers, who up to this time were at issue with all the rest of the world, are at once at issue among themselves. At once the question comes to the front, Shall the labour-pangs of this immense new-birth or transformation of English be encountered all at once? or shall they be spread over years, and little by little the necessary changes introduced? It would not be easy to bring together two scholars who have bestowed more thought and the results of more laborious study on the whole subject of phonetic spelling than Mr. Ellis and Dr. Murray have done, while yet at the last annual meeting of the Philological Society (May 20, 1881) these two distinguished scholars, with mutual respect undiminished, had no choice but to acknowledge that, while they were seeking the same objects, the means by which they sought to attain them were altogether different, and that, in the judgment of each, all which the other was doing in setting forward results equally dear to both was only tending to put hindrances in the way, and to make the attainment of those results remoter than ever. [Footnote: [For arguments in defence of phonetic spelling the student is referred to Sweet's Handbook of Phonetics (Appendix); Skeat's Principles of English Etymology, p. 294; Max Muller's Lectures on the Science of Language, ii. 108.]

But to return. Even now the relationships of words, so important for our right understanding of them, are continually overlooked; a very little matter serving to conceal from us the family to which they pertain. Thus how many of our nouns are indeed unsuspected participles, or are otherwise most closely connected with verbs, with which we probably never think of putting them in relation. And yet with how lively an interest shall we discover those to be of closest kin, which we had never considered but as entire strangers to one another; what increased mastery over our mother tongue shall we through such discoveries obtain. Thus 'wrong' is the perfect participle of 'to wring' that which has been 'wrung' or wrested from the right; as in French 'tort,' from 'torqueo,' is the twisted. The 'brunt' of the battle is its heat, where it 'burns' the most fiercely; [Footnote: The word brunt is a somewhat difficult form to explain. It is probably of Scandinavian origin; compare Danish brynde, heat. For the dental suffix -t, see Douse, Gothic, p. 101. The suffix is not participial.] the 'haft' of a knife, that whereby you 'have' or hold it.

This exercise of putting words in their true relation and connexion with one another might be carried much further. Of whole groups of words, which may seem to acknowledge no kinship with one another, it will not be difficult to show that they had the same parentage, or, if not this, a cousinship in common. For instance, here are 'shore,' 'share,' 'shears'; 'shred,' 'sherd'; all most closely connected with the verb 'to sheer.' 'Share' is a portion of anything divided off; 'shears' are instruments effecting this process of separation; the 'shore' is the place where the continuity of the land is interrupted by the sea; a 'shred' is that which is shorn from the main piece; a 'sherd,' as a pot-'sherd,' (also 'pot-share,' Spenser,) that which is broken off and thus divided from the vessel; these not all exhausting this group or family of words, though it would occupy more time than we can spare to put some other words in their relation with it.

But this analysing of groups of words for the detecting of the bond of relationship between them, and their common root, may require more etymological knowledge than you possess, and more helps from books than you can always command. There is another process, and one which may prove no less useful to yourselves and to others, which will lie more certainly within your reach. You will meet in books, sometimes in the same book, and perhaps in the same page of this book, a word used in senses so far apart from one another that at first it will seem to you absurd to suppose any bond of connexion between them. Now when you thus fall in with a word employed in these two or more senses so far removed from one another, accustom yourselves to seek out the bond which there certainly is between these several uses. This tracing of that which is common to and connects all its meanings can only be done by getting to its centre and heart, to the seminal meaning, from which, as from a fruitful seed, all the others unfold themselves; to the first link in the chain, from which every later one, in a direct line or a lateral, depends. We may proceed in this investigation, certain that we shall find such, or at least that such there is to be found. For nothing can be more certain than this (and the non-recognition of it is a serious blemish in Johnson's Dictionary), that a word has originally but one meaning, that all other uses, however widely they may diverge from one another and recede from this one, may yet be affiliated to it, brought back to the one central meaning, which grasps and knits them all together; just as the several races of men, black, white, and yellow and red, despite of all their present diversity and dispersion, have a central point of unity in that one pair from which they all have descended.

Let me illustrate this by two or three familiar examples. How various are the senses in which 'post' is used; as 'post'-office; 'post'-haste; a 'post' standing in the ground; a military 'post'; an official 'post'; 'to post' a ledger. Is it possible to find anything which is common to all these uses of 'post'? When once we are on the right track, nothing is easier. 'Post' is the Latin 'positus,' that which is placed; the piece of timber is 'placed' in the ground, and so a 'post'; a military station is a 'post,' for a man is 'placed' in it, and must not quit it without orders; to travel 'post,' is to have certain relays of horses ''placed' at intervals, that so no delay on the road may occur; the 'post '-office avails itself of this mode of communication; to 'post' a ledger is to 'place' or register its several items.

Once more, in what an almost infinite number of senses 'stock' is employed; we have live 'stock,' 'stock' in trade or on the farm, the village 'stocks,' the 'stock' of a gun, the 'stock'-dove, the 'stocks,' on which ships are built, the 'stock' which goes round the neck, the family 'stock,' the 'stocks,' or public funds, in which money is invested, with other 'stocks' besides these. What point in common can we find between them all? This, that being all derived from one verb, they cohere in the idea of fixedness which is common to them all. Thus, the 'stock' of a gun is that in which the barrel is fixed; the village 'stocks' are those in which the feet are fastened; the 'stock' in trade is the fixed capital; and so too, the 'stock' on the farm, although the fixed capital has there taken the shape of horses and cattle; in the 'stocks' or public funds, money sticks fast, inasmuch as those who place it there cannot withdraw or demand the capital, but receive only the interest; the 'stock' of a tree is fast set in the ground; and from this use of the word it is transferred to a family; the 'stock' is that from which it grows, and out of which it unfolds itself. And here we may bring in the 'stock'-dove, as being the 'stock' or stirps of the domestic kinds. I might group with these, 'stake' in both its spellings; a 'stake' is stuck in the hedge and there remains; the 'stakes' which men wager against the issue of a race are paid down, and thus fixed or deposited to answer the event; a beef-'steak' is a portion so small that it can be stuck on the point of a fork; and so forward. [Footnote: See the Instructions for Parish Priests, p. 69, published by the Early English Texts Society.] When we thus affirm that the divergent meanings of a word can all be brought back to some one point from which, immediately or mediately, they every one proceed, that none has primarily more than one meaning, it must be remembered that there may very well be two words, or, as it will sometimes happen, more, spelt as well as pronounced alike, which yet are wholly different in their derivation and primary usage; and that, of course, between such homonyms or homographs as these no bond of union on the score of this identity is to be sought. Neither does this fact in the least invalidate our assertion. We have in them, as Cobbett expresses it well, the same combination of letters, but not the same word. Thus we have 'page,' the side of a leaf, from 'pagina,' and 'page,' a small boy; 'league,' a treaty (F. ligue), from 'ligare,' to bind, and 'league' (O. F. legue), from leuca, a Celtic measure of distance; 'host' (hostis), an army, 'host' (O. F. hoste), from the Latin hospitem, and 'host' (hostia), in the Roman Catholic sacrifice of the mass. We have two 'ounces' (uncia and Pers. yuz); two 'seals' (sigillum and seolh); two 'moods' (modus and mod); two 'sacks' (saccus and sec); two 'sounds' (sonus and sund); two 'lakes' (lacus and lacca); two 'kennels' (canalis and canile); two 'partisans' (partisan and partegiana); two 'quires' (choeur and cahier); two 'corns' (corn and cornu); two 'ears' (ohr and ähre); two 'doles' (deuil and theil); two 'perches' (pertica and perca); two 'races' (raes and the French race); two 'rocks,' two 'rooks,' two 'sprays,' two 'saws,' two 'strains,' two 'trunks,' two 'burrows,' two 'helms,' two 'quarries'; three 'moles,' three 'rapes' (as the 'rape' of Proserpine, the 'rape' of Bramber, 'rape'-seed); four 'ports,' three 'vans,' three 'smacks.' Other homonyms in the language are the following: 'ash,' 'barb,' 'bark,' 'barnacle,' 'bat,' 'beam,' 'beetle,' 'bill,' 'bottle,' 'bound,' 'breeze,' 'bugle,' 'bull,' 'cape,' 'caper,' 'chap,' 'cleave,' 'club,' 'cob,' 'crab,' 'cricket,' 'crop,' 'crowd,' 'culver,' 'dam,' 'elder,' 'flag,' 'fog,' 'fold,' 'font,' 'fount,' 'gin,' 'gore,' 'grain,' 'grin,' 'gulf,' 'gum,' 'gust,' 'herd,' 'hind,' 'hip,' 'jade,' 'jar,' 'jet,' 'junk,' 'lawn,' 'lime,' 'link,' 'mace,' 'main,' 'mass,' 'mast,' 'match,' 'meal,' 'mint,' 'moor,' 'paddock,' 'painter,' 'pernicious,' 'plot,' 'pulse,' 'punch,' 'rush,' 'scale,' 'scrip,' 'shingle,' 'shock,' 'shrub,' 'smack,' 'soil,' 'stud,' 'swallow,' 'tap,' 'tent,' 'toil,' 'trinket,' 'turtle.' You will find it profitable to follow these up at home, to trace out the two or more words which have clothed themselves in exactly the same outward garb, and on what etymologies they severally repose; so too, as often as you suspect the existence of homonyms, to make proof of the matter for yourselves, gradually forming as complete a list of these as you can. [Footnote: For a nearly complete list of homonyms in English see List of Homonyms at the end of Skeat's Etym. Dict.; Kock's Historical Grammar of the English Language, vol. i. p. 223; Mätzner's Engl. Grammatik, vol. i. pp. 187-204; and compare Dwight's Modern Philology, vol. ii. p. 311.] You may usefully do the same in any other language which you study, for they exist in all. In them the identity is merely on the surface and in sound, and it would, of course, be lost labour to seek for a point of contact between meanings which have no closer connexion with one another in reality than they have in appearance.

Let me suggest some further exercises in this region of words. There are some which at once provoke and promise to reward inquiry, by the evident readiness with which they will yield up the secret, if duly interrogated by us. Many, as we have seen, have defied, and will probably defy to the end, all efforts to dissipate the mystery which hangs over them; and these we must be content to leave; but many announce that their explanations cannot be very far to seek. Let me instance 'candidate.' Does it not argue an incurious spirit to be content that this word should be given and received by us a hundred times, as at a contested election it is, and we never ask ourselves, What does it mean? why is one offering himself to the choice of his fellows called a 'candidate'? If the word lay evidently beyond our horizon, we might acquiesce in our ignorance; but resting, as manifestly it does, upon the Latin 'candidus,' it challenges inquiry, and a very little of this would at once put us in possession of the Roman custom for which it witnesses—namely, that such as intended to claim the suffrages of the people for any of the chief offices of the State, presented themselves beforehand to them in a white toga, being therefore called 'candidati.' And as it so often happens that in seeking information upon one subject we obtain it upon another, so will it probably be here; for in fully learning what this custom was, you will hardly fail to learn how we obtained 'ambition,' what originally it meant, and how Milton should have written—

'To reign is worth ambition, though in hell.