He’s gentle and not fearful.’
So obsolete, however, is now the word in the sense in which it is employed by the poet, that in most editions of Shakspeare, a footnote is appended to it, giving the definition as ‘timorous.’ In America, the expression, ‘He is a fearful man,’ or, ‘She is a fearful woman,’ is frequently applied to an individual of timid disposition, the meaning intended to be conveyed being precisely the opposite to that which in this country would attach to the phrase.
Some common English words have in the United States completely lost their original signification, wherefore, it would not be easy to say. Ugly, for instance, means ill-natured; smart, clever; clever, of an amiable disposition; and lovely—although this last locution is not perhaps so common as the others—lovable.
I was, when resident in New York, present during a conversation in the course of which a rather curious equivoque occurred, owing to the peculiar sense in which the words in question are used on the other side of the Atlantic. On the occasion referred to, an American lady and an Englishwoman—who had only been a short time in the United States—were speaking of an old gentleman with whom they both were acquainted. The former was warm in his praises.
‘Mr R——,’ she declared, ‘is quite lovely.’
‘Why,’ was the surprised reply, ‘how can you think so? I consider him decidedly ugly.’
‘Ugly!’ indignantly retorted the first speaker. ‘He is not at all ugly. On the contrary, he is real clever.’
‘That Mr R—— is a man of talent, I admit,’ was the response; ‘but he is certainly anything but good-looking.’
‘Well, I do not deny that he is homely, and I never said that he was not,’ rejoined the other lady.
‘But,’ exclaimed the puzzled Englishwoman, ‘you have just asserted that he was not ugly.’