As a help to those who may wish to attain a somewhat more than common correctness of style and language, Archbishop Whately has recently published a small work on English Synonyms;[4] and the rapidity with which the first edition has been disposed of leads us to infer that the public is to some extent prepared to take an interest in the subject. The second edition, 'revised and enlarged,' is now before us, and it is thought that a brief glance at its contents may not be unacceptable to some of our present readers.
The word 'synonym,' as the archbishop observes, is, in strict reality, a misnomer. 'Literally, it implies an exact coincidence of meaning in two or more words, in which case there would be no room for discussion; but it is generally applied to words which would be more correctly termed pseudo-synonyms—that is, words having a shade of difference, yet with a sufficient resemblance of meaning to make them liable to be confounded. And it is in the number and variety of these that, as the Abbé Girard well remarks, the richness of a language consists. To have two or more words with exactly the same sense, is no proof of copiousness, but simply an inconvenience. A house would not be called well furnished from its having a larger number of chairs and tables of one kind than were needed, but from its having a separate article for each distinct use. The more power we have of discriminating the nicer shades of meaning, the greater facility we possess of giving force and precision to our expressions. Our own language possesses great advantages in this respect; for being partly derived from the Teutonic, and partly from the Latin, we have a large number of duplicates from the two sources, which are, for the most part, though not universally, slightly varied in their meaning.
'These slight variations of meaning,' he proceeds, add to the copiousness of the English language, by affording words of more or less familiarity, and of greater and less force. This may easily be understood, if we consider that the branch of the Teutonic, spoken in England during the Anglo-Saxon period, never became extinct, but that three-fourths of the English language at present consist of words altered or derived from that ancient dialect; that these words usually express the most familiar ideas—such as man, house, land, &c.; and that the French terms gradually introduced, being those of a more highly civilised people, were adapted to express the more refined ideas. This is true even of physical objects; thus, for instance, most of the names of the animals used for food are still Teutonic—such as ox, sheep, swine, &c. The Anglo-Saxons, like the modern Germans, had no objection to say ox-flesh, sheep-flesh, swine's-flesh; but the Norman conquerors, introducing a more refined cookery, introduced with it French words for the flesh of the animal; hence we have beef, mutton, pork, &c.'
It has not been the author's design to notice all the synonyms in the language—that, as he remarks, would be an almost endless undertaking; 'but merely, after excluding technical terms, and words which do exactly coincide, to select a few of those groups of words which are in most frequent use, and are most liable to be confounded.' His purpose, perhaps, will be more distinctly shewn, if we add a few more sentences from the preface.
'Many persons,' says he, 'imagine that two words must either coincide precisely in their meaning, so as to be, in the primary and strict sense of the word, "synonymous," or else stand for two (more or less) distinct things. Indeed, it would often be regarded as almost a truism to assert this; but those who maintain such an opinion overlook the fact, that two words, without exactly coinciding in sense, may nevertheless relate to one and the same thing, regarded in two different points of view. An illustration of this is afforded in the relation which exists between the words, "inference" and "proof." Whoever justly infers, proves; and whoever proves, infers; but the word "inference" leads the mind from the premises which have been assumed, to the conclusion which follows from them; while the word "proof" follows a reverse process, and leads the mind from the conclusion to the premises. We say: "What do you infer from this?" and "How do you prove that?"[5] Another illustration may be quoted in the synonyms, "expense" and "cost." The same article may be expensive and costly; but we speak of expense in reference to the means of the purchaser; of cost, in reference to the actual value of the article.'
This work does not profess to deal much with etymologies; the author thinking that any very strict attention to the derivation of words, in connection with synonyms, would only tend to confuse the subject. The history of the origin and growth of words must undoubtedly throw light upon their meanings; but he, nevertheless, holds the two questions to be completely distinct and separable; and thinks that, in an inquiry into the actual and present meaning of a word, the consideration of what it originally meant may frequently lead us into error. A few suggestive remarks are given upon this matter.
'Our question is, not what ought to be, or formerly was, the meaning of a word, but what it now is; nor can we be completely guided by quotations from Shakspeare or Milton, or even from Addison or Johnson. Language has undergone such changes, even within the last sixty or seventy years, that many words, at that time considered pure, are now obsolete; while others—of which the word "mob" is a specimen—formerly slang, are now used by our best writers, and received, like pardoned outlaws, into the body of respectable citizens.' The standard, accordingly, to which the author refers in the work before us, is the sense in which a word is used by the purest writers and most correct speakers of our own days.
The synonyms are arranged or classed according to the parts of speech to which they belong—namely, into particles, nouns, adjectives, and verbs. The uses of all the words are well defined, and sufficiently illustrated by examples; a table of contents and a complete index are also added, rendering reference to any word as easy as looking for it in a dictionary. The table of contents, indeed, will be found to serve most of the purposes of a vocabulary of synonyms: a glance at it will frequently give you all the words of similar signification to the particular one for which you may happen to require an equivalent. From the part of the book relating to verbs, we take the following; the words under notice being, To teach, instruct, inform, educate:—
'Of these words, the first two are often used synonymously, but they have also a distinct meaning. "Teaching," strictly speaking, when distinguished from instruction, is applied to the practice of an art or branch of knowledge: instruction, to the theory. A child is, correctly speaking, instructed in the grammar of a language, and taught to speak the language. Thus, teaching may be merely mechanical; while "instruction" implies a degree of understanding in the pupil, as well as in the master. A child who has been taught to learn lessons by rote, without understanding them, will find difficulty in comprehending instruction in the principles of what he has learned: hence, we speak of teaching a brute, but never of instructing it.
'Information,[6] again, is distinguished from instruction, in relation to the truths conveyed by it. Matters of fact, made known to one who could not have known them before, are called information: instruction elicits new truths out of subject-matter already existing in the mind—(see Whately's Logic, book iv. § 1.)