The Romance of Words Part 14

_signor_, Span. _senor_, with their compounds _monsieur_, _messer_, etc., all representing either _senior_ or _seniorem_. Ger. _Eltern_, parents, is the plural comparative of _alt_, old, and the first element of _seneschal_ (see _marshal_, p. 90) is cognate with Lat. _senex_. From Fr. _sire_ comes Eng. _sir_, and from this was formed the adjective _sirly_,[70] now spelt _surly_, which in Shakespeare still means haughty, arrogant--

"See how the _surly_ Warwick mans the wall."

(3 _Henry VI._, v. 1.)

[Page Heading: LIST--MATELOT]

A _list_, in the sense of enumeration, is a "strip." The cognate German word is _Leiste_, border. We have the original meaning in "_list_ slippers." Fr. _bordereau_, a list, which became very familiar in connection with the Dreyfus case, is a diminutive of _bord_, edge.

_Label_ is the same word as Old Fr. _lambel_ (_lambeau_), rag. _Scroll_ is an alteration, perhaps due to _roll_, of Mid. Eng. _scrow_ or _escrow_, from Old Fr. _escroue_,[71] rag, shred. _Docket_, earlier _dogget_, is from an old Italian diminutive of _doga_, cask-stave, which meant a bendlet in heraldry. _Schedule_ is a diminutive of Lat.

_scheda_, "a scrowe" (Cooper), properly a strip of papyrus. Ger.

_Zettel_, bill, ticket, is the same word. Thus all these words, more or less kindred in meaning, can be reduced to the primitive notion of strip or sc.r.a.p.

_Farce_, from French, means stuffing. The verb to _farce_, which represents Lat. _farcire_, survives in the perverted _force_-meat. A parallel is _satire_, from Lat. _satura_ (_lanx_), a full dish, hence a medley. Somewhat similar is the modern meaning of _magazine_, a "store-house" of amus.e.m.e.nt or information.

The closest form of intimacy is represented by community of board and lodging, or, in older phraseology, "bed and board." _Companion_, with its related words, belongs to Vulgar Lat. _*companio_, _companion-_, bread-sharer. The same idea is represented by the pleonastic Eng.

_messmate_, the second part of which, _mate_, is related to _meat_.

_Mess_, food, Old Fr. _mes_ (_mets_), Lat. _missum_, is in modern English only military or naval, but was once the usual name for a dish of food--

"Herbs and other country _messes_ Which the neat-handed Phillis dresses."

(_Allegro_, l. 85.)

With _mate_ we may compare Fr. _matelot_, earlier _matenot_, representing Du. _maat_, meat, and _genoot_, a companion. The latter word is cognate with Ger. _Genosse_, a companion, from _geniessen_, to enjoy or use together. In early Dutch we find also _mattegenoet_, through popular a.s.sociation with _matte_, hammock, one hammock serving, by a Box and c.o.x arrangement, for two sailors.

_Comrade_ is from Fr. _camarade_, and this from Span. _camarada_, originally a "room-full," called in the French army _une chambree_. This corresponds to Ger. _Geselle_, comrade, from _Saal_, room. The reduction of the collective to the individual is paralleled by Ger. _Bursche_, fellow, from Mid. High Ger. _burse_, college hostel; cf. _Frauenzimmer_, wench, lit. women's room. It can hardly be doubted that _chum_ is a corrupted clip from _chamber-fellow_.[72] It is thus explained in a _Dictionary of the Canting Crew_ (1690), within a few years of its earliest recorded occurrence, and the reader will remember Mr Pickwick's introduction to the _chummage_ system in the Fleet (Ch. 42).

[Page Heading: c.u.mMER--GREENHORN]

English _gossip_, earlier _G.o.d-sib_, related in G.o.d, a sponsor, soon developed the subsidiary meanings of boon companion, crony, tippler, babbler, etc., all of which are represented in Shakespeare. The case of Fr. _compere_ and _commere_, G.o.dfather and G.o.dmother, is similar.

Cotgrave explains _commerage_ as "gossiping; the acquaintance, affinity, or league that growes betweene women by christning a child together, or one for another." Ger. _Gevatter_, G.o.dfather, has also acquired the sense of Fr. _bonhomme_ (p. 80), Eng. _daddy_. From _commere_ comes Scot. _c.u.mmer_ or _kimmer_--

"A canty quean was Kate, and a special _c.u.mmer_ of my ain."

(_Monastery_, Ch. 8.)

While christenings led to cheerful garrulity, the wilder fun of weddings has given the Fr. _faire la noce_, to go on the spree. In Ger.

_Hochzeit_, wedding, lit. high time, we have a converse development of meaning.

Parallel sense development in different languages sometimes gives us a glimpse of the life of our ancestors. Our verb to _curry_ (leather) comes from Old Fr. _correer_[73] (_courroyer_), to make ready, put in order, which represents a theoretical _*con-red-are_, the root syllable of which is Germanic and cognate with our _ready_. Ger. _gerben_, to tan, Old High Ger. _garawen_, to make ready, is a derivative of _gar_, ready, complete, now used only as an adverb meaning "quite," but cognate with our _yare_--

"Our s.h.i.+p-- Which, but three gla.s.ses since, we gave out split-- Is tight, and _yare_, and bravely rigg'd."

(_Tempest_, v. 1.)

Both _curry_ and _gerben_ must have acquired their restricted meaning at a time when there was literally nothing like leather.

Even in slang we find the same parallelism exemplified. We call an old-fas.h.i.+oned watch a _turnip_. In German it is called _Zwiebel_, onion, and in French _oignon_. Eng. _greenhorn_ likens an inexperienced person to an animal whose horns have just begun to sprout. In Ger.

_Gelbschnabel_, yellow-bill, and Fr. _bec-jaune_, we have the metaphor of the fledgling. Ludwig explains _Gelbschnabel_ by "chitty-face,"

_chit_, cognate with _kit_-ten, being a general term in Mid. English for a young animal. From _bec-jaune_ we have archaic Scot. _beejam_, university freshman. Cotgrave spells the French word _bejaune_, and gives, as he usually does for such words,[74] a very full gloss, which happens, by exception, to be quotable--

"A novice; a late prentice to, or young beginner in, a trade, or art; also, a simple, ignorant, unexperienced, a.s.se; a rude, unfas.h.i.+oned, home-bred hoydon; a sot, ninny, doult, noddy; one that's blankt, and hath nought to say, when he hath most need to speake."

The Englishman intimates that a thing has ceased to please by saying that he is "fed up" with it. The Frenchman says, "J'en ai soupe." Both these metaphors are quite modern, but they express in flippant form the same figure of physical satiety which is as old as language. _Padding_ is a comparatively new word in connection with literary composition, but it reproduces, with a slightly different meaning, the figure expressed by _bombast_, lit. wadding, a derivative of Greco-Lat. _bombyx_, originally "silk-worm," whence also _bombasine_. We may compare also "_fustian_ eloquence"--

"And he, whose _fustian_'s so sublimely bad, It is not poetry, but prose run mad."

(POPE, _Prologue to the Satires_, l. 187.)

And a very similar image is found in the Latin poet Ausonius--

"At nos illepidum, rudem libellum, _Burras_, quisquilias ineptiasque Credemus gremio cui fovendum?"

(_Drepanio Filio._)

Even to "take the cake" is paralleled by the Gk. ?ae?? t?? p??a???ta, to be awarded the cake of roasted wheat and honey which was originally the prize of him who best kept awake during a night-watch.

In the proverbial expressions which contain the concentrated wisdom of the ages we sometimes find exact correspondences. Thus "to look a gift-horse in the mouth" is literally reproduced in French and German.

Sometimes the symbols vary, _e.g._, the risk one is exposed to in acquiring goods without examination is called by us "buying a pig in a poke."[75] French and German subst.i.tute the cat. We say that "a cat may look at a king." The French _dramatis personae_ are a dog and a bishop.

The "bird in hand" which we regard as the equivalent of two in the bush is in German compared advantageously with ten on the roof.

[Page Heading: NAUTICAL METAPHOR]

Every language has an immense number of metaphors to describe the various stages of intoxication. We, as a seafaring nation, have naturally a set of such metaphors taken from nautical English. In French and German the state of being "half-seas over" or "three sheets in the wind," and the practice of "splicing the main-brace" are expressed by various land metaphors. But the more obvious nautical figures are common property. We speak of being _stranded_; French says "_echouer_ (to run ash.o.r.e) dans une entreprise," and German uses _scheitern_, to strand, split on a rock, in the same way.

Finally, we observe the same principle in euphemism, or that form of speech which avoids calling things by their names. Euphemism is the result of various human instincts which range from religious reverence down to common decency. There is, however, a special type of euphemism which may be described as the delicacy of the partially educated. It is a matter of common observation that for educated people a spade is a spade, while the more outspoken cla.s.s prefers to call it a decorated shovel. Between these two cla.s.ses come those delicate beings whose work in life is--

"le retranchement de ces syllabes sales Qui dans les plus beaux mots produisent des scandales; Ces jouets eternels des sots de tous les temps; Ces fades lieux-communs de nos mechants plaisants; Ces sources d'un amas d'equivoques infames, Dont on vient faire insulte a la pudeur des femmes."

(MOLIeRE, _Les Femmes savantes_, iii. 2.)

In the United States refined society has succeeded in banning as improper the word _leg_, which must now be replaced by _limb_, even when the possessor is a boiled fowl, and this refinement is not unknown in England. The coloured ladies of Barbados appear to have been equally sensitive--

"Fate had placed me opposite to a fine turkey. I asked my partner if I should have the pleasure of helping her to a piece of the breast.

She looked at me indignantly, and said, 'Curse your impudence, sar; I wonder where you larn manners. Sar, I take a lilly turkey _bosom_, if you please.'"

(_Peter Simple_, Ch. 31.)

This tendency shows itself especially in connection with the more intimate garments and articles intended for personal use. We have the absurd name _pocket handkerchief_, _i.e._, pocket hand-cover-head, for a comparatively modern convenience, the earlier names of which have more of the directness of the Artful Dodger's "wipe." Ben Jonson calls it a _muckinder_. In 1829 the use of the word _mouchoir_ in a French adaptation of _Oth.e.l.lo_ caused a riot at the Comedie Francaise. History repeats itself, for, in 1907, a play by J. M. Synge was produced in Dublin, but--

"The audience broke up in disorder at the word _s.h.i.+ft_."

(_Academy_, 14th Oct. 1911.)

This is all the more ludicrous when we reflect that _s.h.i.+ft_, _i.e._ change of raiment, is itself an early euphemism for _smock_; _cf._ Ital.

_mutande_, "thinne under-breeches" (Florio), from a country and century not usually regarded as prudish. The fact is that, just as the low word, when once accepted, loses its primitive vigour (see _pluck_, p. 83), the euphemism is, by inevitable a.s.sociation, doomed from its very birth.

[Page Heading: SEMANTIC ETYMOLOGY]

I will now give a few examples of the way in which the study of semantics helps the etymologist. The _antlers_ of a deer are properly the lowest branches of the horns, what we now call brow-antlers. The word comes from Old Fr. _antoilliers_, which answers phonetically to a conjectured Lat. _*ante-oculares_, from _oculus_, eye. This conjecture is confirmed by the Ger. _Augensprosse_, brow-antler, lit. eye-sprout.

Eng. _plover_, from Fr. _pluvier_, could come from a Vulgar Lat.

_*pluviarius_, belonging to rain. The German name _Regenpfeifer_, lit.

rain-piper, shows this to be correct. It does not matter, etymologically, whether the bird really has any connection with rain, for rustic observation, interesting as it is, is essentially unscientific. The _honey_suckle is useless to the bee. The _slow-worm_, which appears to be for _slay-worm_, strike-serpent,[76] is perfectly harmless, and the toad, though ugly, is not venomous, nor does he bear a jewel in his head.

_Kestrel_, a kind of hawk, represents Old Fr. _quercerelle_ (_crecerelle_), "a kastrell" (Cotgrave). _Crecerelle_ is a diminutive of _crecelle_, a rattle, used in Old French especially of the leper's rattle or clapper, with which he warned people away from his neighbourhood. It is connected with Lat. _crepare_, to resound. The Latin name for the kestrel is _tinnunculus_, lit. a little ringer, derived from the verb _tinnire_, to clink, jingle, "tintinnabulate."

Cooper tells us that "they use to set them (kestrels) in pigeon houses, to make doves to love the place, bicause they feare away other haukes with their ringing voyce." This information is obtained from the Latin agriculturist Columella. This parallel makes it clear that Fr.

_crecerelle_, kestrel, is a metaphorical application of the same word, meaning a leper's "clicket."