Swine. Americans still use the word pig in its original sense of the young of the hog and sow; though they will say chickens for poultry. In England we talk of pigs and chickens when we mean swine and poultry. Chaucer has
His swyn his hors his stoor and his pultreye.
The verb to pig has kept to its meaning, though it has developed another: the substantive probably got loose through its generic employment in composite words, e.g. guinea-pig, sea-pig, &c.; and having acquired a generic use cannot lose it again. But it might perhaps be worth while to distinguish strictly between the generic and the special use of the word pig, and not call a sow a pig, nor a hen a chicken. So hog and sow might still have their pigs and be all of them swine.
Swift. Perhaps it is going too far to say that ‘swift’ is colloquial only in metaphorical applications, we might speak of ‘a swift bowler’ without exciting surprise; but it is expedient to restore this word to general use, and avoid the use of fast for denotation of speed. ‘To stand fast’ is very well, but ‘to run fast’ is thoroughly objectionable. Such a use destroys the sense of firmness which the word is needed and well qualified to denote.
Chide. This word probably needs its past tense and participle to be securely fixed before it will be used. It is perhaps wholly the uncertainty of these that has made the word to be avoided. Chid and chidden should be taught, and chode and chided condemned as illiterate.
NOTE ON ‘DYING WORDS’
Diderot in his Lettre sur les Sourds et Muets deplores the loss of good old terms in the French of his day; he writes:
‘Je blâme cette noblesse prétendue qui nous a fait exclure de notre langue un grand nombre d’expressions énergiques. Les Grecs, les Latins qui ne connoissoient gueres cette fausse délicatesse, disoient en leur langue ce qu’ils vouloient, et comme ils le vouloient. Pour nous, à force de rafiner, nous avons appauvri la nôtre, & n’ayant souvent qu’un terme propre à rendre une idée, nous aimons mieux affoiblir l’idée que de ne pas employer un terme noble.[[3]] Quelle perte pour ceux d’entre nos Écrivains qui ont l’imagination forte, que celle de tant de mots que nous revoyons avec plaisir dans Amyot & dans Montagne. Ils ont commencé par être rejettés du beau style, parce qu’ils avoient passé dans le peuple; & ensuite rebutés par le peuple même, qui à la longue est toujours le singe des Grands, ils sont devenus tout-à-fait inusités.’... [ED.]
[!-- Note Anchor 1 --][Footnote 1: Shakespeare would have assisted the Hyena in her attempt to naturalize herself in England:
‘I will laugh like a Hyen, and that when thou art inclined to sleep.’ A.Y.L., IV. i. 156. [ED.]