OUR CHANGING LANGUAGE

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 126, 30 May 1934, Page 12

OUR CHANGING LANGUAGE

In a Government circular respecting the drought appeared the term, "Water Undertakers." The phrase, writes an "Observer" contributor, strikes oddly on oars accustomed to employ the word "undertaker" in a different sense, but it is only a reversion to a former and more literal usage. The original undertaker was simply one who undertook— it might he a war, an enterprise, the publication of a book, or the production of a play. "Austria," wrote Clarendon, j "was a great undertaker," meaning that she was an energetic and enterprising country. The word has even been used with theological significance, as in "The Two Noble Kinsmen," "Christ their undertaker to bring them to glory." "Nay," says Sir Toby Belch, "if you be an undertaker, I am for yon"; meaning a fighting man, a man who means business. A precisely similar case is that the word "executioner." which, originally as vague a.s "undertaker," has also specialise l in it- most lt'<rubriovi% meanin-r. As late as 1827 we find S?ott maintaining that "the people had a right to be tie executioner of their own wilL" i