The Romance of Words Part 16

CHAPTER VIII

METAPHOR

Every expression that we employ, apart from those that are connected with the most rudimentary objects and actions, is a metaphor, though the original meaning is dulled by constant use. Thus, in the above sentence, _expression_ means what is "squeezed out," to _employ_ is to "twine in"

like a basket maker, to _connect_ is to "weave together," _rudimentary_ means "in the rough state," and an _object_ is something "thrown in our way." A cla.s.sification of the metaphors in use in the European languages would show that a large number of the most _obvious_ kind, _i.e._ of those which "come to meet" one, are common property, while others would reflect the most striking habits and pursuits of the various races. It would probably be found that in the common stock of simple metaphor the most important contribution would come from agriculture, while in English the nautical element would occur to an extent quite unparalleled in other European languages.[81] A curious agricultural metaphor which, though of Old French origin, now appears to be peculiar to English, is to _rehea.r.s.e_, lit. to harrow over again (see _hea.r.s.e_, p. 75).

Some metaphors are easy to track. It does not require much philological knowledge to see that _astonish_, _astound_, and _stun_ all contain the idea of "thunder-striking," Vulgar Lat. _*ex-tonare_. To _embarra.s.s_ is obviously connected with _bar_, and to _interfere_ is to "strike between," Old Fr. _entreferir_. This word was especially used in the 16th century of a horse knocking its legs together in trotting, "to _interfeere_, as a horse" (Cotgrave). When we speak of a _prentice-hand_, sound _journeyman_ work, and a _masterpiece_, we revive the medieval cla.s.sification of artisans into learners, qualified workmen, and those who, by the presentation to their guild of a finished piece of work, were recognised as past (pa.s.sed) masters.

But many of our metaphors are drawn from pursuits with which we are no longer familiar, or from arts and sciences no longer practised.

_Disaster_, _ill-starred_, and such adjectives as _jovial_, _mercurial_, are reminiscent of astrology. To bring a thing to the _test_ is to put it in the alchemist's or metallurgist's _test_ or trying-pot (cf.

_test_-tube), Old Fr. _test_ (_tet_). This is related to Old Fr. _teste_ (_tete_) head, from Lat. _testa_, tile, pot, etc., used in Roman slang for _caput_. Shakespeare has the complete metaphor--

"Let there be some more _test_ made of my metal,[82]

Before so n.o.ble and so great a figure Be stamp'd upon it."

(_Measure for Measure_, i. 1.)

[Page Heading: SHAMBLES--SPICK AND SPAN]

The old butchers' shops which adjoin Nottingham Market Place are still called the _Shambles_. The word is similarly used at Carlisle, and probably elsewhere; but to most people it is familiar only in the metaphorical sense of place of slaughter, generally regarded as a singular. Thus Denys of Burgundy says--

"The beasts are in the _shambles_."

(_Cloister and Hearth_, Ch. 33.)

etymologically misusing the word, which does not mean slaughter-house, but the bench on which meat is exposed for sale. It is a very early loan from Lat. _scamnum_, a bench or form, also explained by Cooper as "a step or grice (see p. 118) to get up to bedde." The same diminutive form occurs in Fr. _escabeau_, an office stool, and Ger. _Schemel_, a stool.

_Fusty_, earlier _foisty_, is no longer used in its proper sense. It comes from Old Fr. _fuste_, "_fusty_; tasting of the caske, smelling of the vessell wherein it hath been kept" (Cotgrave), a derivative of Old Fr. _fust_ (_fut_) a cask.[83]

The smith's art has given us _brand-new_, often corrupted into _bran-new_. Shakespeare uses _fire-new_--

"You should then have accosted her; and with some excellent jests, _fire-new_ from the mint, you should have banged the youth into dumbness."

(_Twelfth Night_, iii. 2.)

Modern German has _funkelnagelneu_, spark nail new; but in older German we find also _spanneu_, _splinterneu_, chip new, splinter new; which shows the origin of our _spick and span_ (new), _i.e._, spike and chip new. French has _tout battant neuf_, beating new, _i.e._, fresh from the anvil.

Many old hunting terms survive as metaphors. To be _at bay_, Fr. _aux abois_, is to be facing the baying hounds. The fundamental meaning of Old Fr. _abaier_ (_aboyer_), of obscure origin, is perhaps to gape at.[84] Thus a right or estate which is in _abeyance_ is one regarded with open-mouthed expectancy. The _toils_ are Fr. _toiles_, lit. cloths, Lat. _tela_, the nets put round a thicket to prevent the game from escaping. To "beat about the bush" seems to be a mixture of two metaphors which are quite unlike in meaning. To "beat the bush" was the office of the beaters, who started the game for others, hence an old proverb, "I will not beat the bush that another may have the birds." To "go about the bush" would seem to have been used originally of a hesitating hound. The two expressions have coalesced to express the idea for which French says "y aller par quatre chemins." _Crestfallen_ and _white feather_ belong to the old sport of c.o.c.k-fighting. _Jeopardy_ is Old Fr. _jeu parti_, a divided game, hence an equal encounter. To run full _tilt_ is a jousting phrase. To _pounce_ upon is to seize in the _pounces_, the old word for a hawk's claws. The ultimate source is Lat.

_pungere_, to p.r.i.c.k, pierce. A goldsmith's _punch_ was also called a _pounce_, hence the verb to _pounce_, to make patterns on metal. The northern past participle _pouncet_[85] occurs in _pouncet-box_, a metal perforated globe for scents--

"And 'twixt his finger and his thumb he held A _pouncet-box_, which ever and anon He gave his nose, and took't away again."

(1 _Henry IV._, i. 3.)

To the language of hawking belongs also _haggard_. Cotgrave defines _faulcon (faucon) hagard_, as "a faulcon that preyed for her selfe long before she was taken." Hence the sense of wild, untameable. The original meaning is hedge-hawk, the first syllable representing Old High Ger.

_hag_, hedge. _Hag_, a witch, is of cognate origin.

[Page Heading: SPORTING METAPHORS]

The antiquity of dicing appears in the history of Ger. _gefallen_, to please, originally used of the "fall" of the dice. In Mid. High German it is always used with _wohl_, well, or _ubel_, ill; e.g., _es gefallt mir wohl_, it "falls out" well for me. There can be no reasonable doubt that the _deuce!_ is a dicer's exclamation at making the lowest throw, two, Fr. _deux_. We still use _deuce_ for the two in cards, and German has _Daus_ in both senses. Tennis has given us _bandy_, Fr. _bander_, "to _bandie_, at tennis" (Cotgrave). We now only bandy words or reproaches, but Juliet understood the word in its literal sense--

"Had she affections and warm youthful blood, She'd be as swift in motion as a ball; My words would _bandy_ her to my sweet love, And his to me."

(_Romeo and Juliet_, ii. 5.)

Fowling has given us _cajole_, _decoy_, and _trepan_. Fr. _cajoler_, which formerly meant to chatter like a jay in a cage, has in modern French a.s.sumed the meaning of _enjoler_, earlier _engeoler_, "to incage, or ingaole" (Cotgrave), hence to entice. Fr. _geole_, gaol, represents Vulgar Lat. _*caveola_. _Decoy_, earlier also _coy_, is Du. _kooi_, cage. The later form is perhaps due to _duck-coy_. Du. _kooi_ is also of Latin origin. It comes, like Fr. _cage_, from Vulgar Lat. _*cavea_, and has a doublet _kevie_, whence Scot. _cavie_, a hen-coop. _Trepan_ was formerly _trapan_, and belongs to _trap_--

"Some by the nose with fumes _trapan_ 'em, As Dunstan did the devil's grannam."

(_Hudibras_, ii. 3.)

It is now equivalent to _kidnap_, _i.e._ to _nab kids_ (children), once a lucrative pursuit. The surgical _trepan_ is a different word altogether, and belongs to Greco-Lat. _trypanon_, an auger, piercer. To _allure_ is to bring to the _lure_, or bait. To the same group of metaphors belongs _inveigle_, which corresponds, with altered prefix, to Fr. _aveugler_, to blind, Vulgar Lat. _*ab-oculare_.[86] A distant relative of this word is _ogle_, which is of Low German origin; _cf._ Ger. _liebaugeln_ "to _ogle_, to smicker, to look amorously, to cast sheeps-eyes, to cast amorous looks" (Ludwig).

The archaic verb to _cozen_ is a metaphor of quite another kind. Every young n.o.ble who did the grand tour in the 16th and 17th centuries spent some time at Naples, "where he may improve his knowledge in horsemans.h.i.+p" (Howell, _Instructions for Forreine Travell_, 1642). Now the Italian horse-dealers were so notorious that Dekker, writing about 1600, describes a swindling "horse-courser" as a "meere jadish Non-politane," a play on Neapolitan. The Italian name is _cozzone_, "a horse-courser, a horse-breaker, a craftie knave" (Florio), whence the verb _cozzonare_, "to have perfect skill in all _cosenages_" (Torriano).

The essential idea of to _cozen_ in the Elizabethans is that of selling faulty goods in a bad light, a device said to be practised by some horse-dealers. At any rate the words for horse-dealer in all languages, from the Lat. _mango_ to the Amer. _horse-swapper_, mean swindler and worse things. _Cozen_ is a favourite word with the Elizabethan dramatists, because it enables them to bring off one of those stock puns that make one feel "The less Shakespeare he"--

"_Cousins_, indeed; and by their uncle _cozen'd_ Of comfort, kingdom, kindred, freedom, life."

(_Richard III._, iv. 4.)

In the _Merry Wives of Windsor_ (iv. 5) there is a lot of word-play on "cousins-german" and "German cozeners." An exact parallel to the history of _cozen_ is furnished by the verb to _jockey_, from _jockey_, in its older sense of horse-dealer.

[Page Heading: HORTICULTURE]

_Scion_ is a metaphor from the garden. It is Fr. _scion_, "a scion; a young and tender plant; a shoot, sprig, or twig" (Cotgrave). Ger.

_Sprossling_, sproutling, is also used of an "offshoot" from a "stock."

We have a similar metaphor in the word _imp_. We now _graft_ trees, a misspelling of older _graffe_, Fr. _greffe_, Greco-Lat. _graphium_, a pencil, from the shape of the slip. But the older word was _imp_, which we find also used of inserting a new feather into the wing or tail of a hawk, or fitting a small bell-rope to a larger one. The art of grafting was learnt from the Romans, who had a post-cla.s.sical verb _imputare_,[87] to graft, which has given Eng. _imp_, Ger. _impfen_, Fr.

_enter_, and is represented in most other European languages. _Imp_ was used like _scion_, but degenerated in meaning. In Shakespeare it has already the somewhat contemptuous shade of meaning which we find in Ger.

_Sprossling_, and is only used by comic characters. Thus Pistol addresses Prince Hal--

"The heavens thee guard and keep, most royal _imp_ of fame."

(2 _Henry IV._, v. 5.)

But Thomas Cromwell, in his last letter to Henry VIII., speaks of--

"That most n.o.ble _imp_, the prince's grace, your most dear son."

The special sense of "young devil" appears to be due to the frequent occurrence of such phrases as "_imps_ (children) of Satan," "the devil and his _imps_," etc. Ger. _impfen_ also means to vaccinate. Our earlier term _inoculate_[88] originally meant to graft, and, in fact, _engraft_ was also used in this sense.

_Zest_ is quite obsolete in its original meaning of a piece of orange peel used to give piquancy to wine. It is a French word of unknown origin, properly applied to the inner skin of fruit and nuts. Cotgrave explains it as "the thick skinne, or filme whereby the kernell of a wallnut is divided."

FOOTNOTES:

[81] It would be interesting to trace the rise and spread of nautical metaphor in English. We have a good example of the transition from the bucolic to the nautical in the expression "To lose the _s.h.i.+p_ for a ha'porth of tar." Few people who use this metaphor know that _s.h.i.+p_ is here the dialect p.r.o.nunciation of _sheep_; cf. _s.h.i.+p Street_, at Oxford (and elsewhere), for _Sheep Street_. Tar was, and is, used as a medicine for sheep, but in this particular case the allusion seems to be rather to the marking of sheep with tar; _cf._ "tarred with the same brush,"

_i.e._, members of the same flock.

[82] See _mettle_, p. 144.

[83] Lat. _fustis_, a staff, cudgel, gave also Old Fr. _fust_, a kind of boat, whence obsolete Eng. _foist_ in the same sense. Both meanings seem to go back to a time when casks and boats were "dug out" instead of being built up.

[84] Related are _bouche beante_, or _bee_, mouth agape; _bailler_, to yawn; and _badaud_, "a gaping hoydon" (Cotgrave, _badault_).

[85] _Cf._ the _Stickit_ Minister.