CURIOSITIES OF ENGLISH

Evening Star, Issue 19522, 1 April 1927, Page 3

CURIOSITIES OF ENGLISH

HOW WORDS CHANGE THEIR MEANINGS [By H.0.A., in the ‘Argus.’] Treacle ami vipers, one would suppose, could have uo, possible affinity one with the other. Treacle, as everyone knows, is a fonmof molasses, dark, sticky, and of cloying sweetness. _ A viper suggests treachery and creeping venom. Yet so many surprises does this queer, composite language of ours contain, that philologists have discovered that the wordtreacle is very intimately connected with vipers, so strangely docs a nation's tongue develop. The two words became associated, it seems, through a very ancient superstition prevailing among the Greeks, that a preparation or confection of the viper’s flesh was the most potent antidote against the viper’s bite. Treacle, or triacle, was once, in fact, a Greek word expressing or indicating such a conviction. This old meaning of the word was recognised as lately as the seventeenth century, Tor Milton speaks of “ the sovran treacle of sound doctrine,” and “Venice treacle,” or “viper wine,” as it was sometimes called, was a common name for a supposed antidote against all poisons. Later, from moaning specifically an antidote against the venom of a vipei, the word came to mean any sort of antidote; later still, any sweet medicinal syrup; and finally the sweet syrup of molasses, to which meaning alone it is now restricted. When it is remembered that of the 38,000 or 39,000 words in our English dictionaries about CO per cent, are of Anglo-Saxon origin, about 30 per cent. Latin, about 5 per cent, Greek, and that the remaining words have either been “evolved” or adopted fromforeign languages such as Scandinavian, Celtic, Ficnch, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, German, Arabic, Persian, Hindu, Chinese, Malay, Turkish, Hebrew, American (Indian), Russian, and many native dialects besides, it becomes easily comprehensible that the original meanings of the words are frequently obscure. Add to tliis polyglot mixture of roots, derivations, and 'Thole words tho manifold mutations through which tho English tongue has passed by reason of the many conquests and invasions to which the Anglo-Saxon race has been subject, or in which it has participated, and there remains only wonder not that the language should have retained 60 per cent, of its purity, but that the proportion should have remained so great-. HOW “BLACKGUARD” ORIGINATED. Apart from philologists ami other students of out language, how many people to-day know the real origin of our familiar term of reprobation “blackguard”? What is, or what was, a blackguard that the term should convoy such utter condemnation? The word frequently occurs in the works of the early dramatists or other writers down to tho time of Dryden, who gives in one of his plays the stage direction, “ Enter the captain of the rabble with the black guard.” Alluding to the rabble gnob of fugitive slaves, thieves, and murderers who helped to niake up tho army of the Crusaders, Fuller, in his ‘Holy War,’ exclaims: “A lamentable case that the devil’s black guard should be God’s soldiers!” Though the connection between these references and our modern term may not be apparent, the exact force of the phrase may be traced by examining the household customs of our early forefathers. In olden times the residences of kings and nobles, said Dean Trench, of Westminster, were not nearly so well furnished as they are to-day, and it was the custom, when a royal progress was made, or when a nobleman exchanged one residence for another, for all kitchen utensils, pots ami pans, and even coals, to be carried with the family wherever they went. Moving days, therefore, meant busy times for the household staff, and those who escorted the paraphernalia of tho kitchen and ■raillery regions—the lowest, meanest, and dirtiest of tho retainers—were called tho “black guard.” By a broadening process associated with the meanings or so many of our English words, the term, which originally implied contempt, perhaps, but little or no insult unless used especially as invective, came to be applied to any company of “ wastrels and ragamuffins.” Eventually, when the origin of the. phrase had become lost, blackguard (now one word instead of two) came to be used in reference to a single person and no longer to a mob or rabble. Moreover, so progressive is the language,'- the verb “to blackguard” has found its-way into our dictionaries.

A remarkable number of the words that we use to-day have changed in meaning very considerably during the last century or two. ft seems to us almost incredible that the word “ girl” was at one time used to denote a young person of either sex, and was not, as at present, confined to the feminine gender. Similarly, all fond was once called meat,' though now it is restricted to food which consists of flash. Any little book or writing was once a libel, whether it was scurrilous or injurious or not; any leader was a duke, and any journey was a voyage; and a corpse had not necessarily to he dead. Weeds were whatever covered the earth or person, though now the moaning of the term in its application to vegetation has become restricted to plants which are undesirable or noxious; and,' in its application to apparel, to the clothes worn by widows. Although to “starve” now means to suffer or die of hunger, its original meaning was to suffer death by any means. Nor was it until comparatively recent times that such words as acre, yard, furlong, and gallon came to have more than a vague purport. Every field was once an acre, a generous meaning which still survives in our “ God’s acre ” for a churchyard or cemetery. A furlong; or furrowlong, was the length of a furrow, which might, presumably, have been almost any distance up to half a mile or so. “COURT” CARDS AND CURRANTS. - The changes which, time has brought about in. the spelling of many of our words has tended t° obscure tbeir origin and former ; meaning. Few card players, for instance, would suspect that trio ’name. “ court cards” was not intended in the_ first place to indicate their relationship to a royal court, but that the term was onto “ coat cards,” a reference to the long, splendid coat in which-the royal chnr--acters were arrayed. * -No definite conclusion seems to have been reached

concerning the reason for the change, but it is considered probable that the substitution was brought about by reason of some altered meaning of the word coat, or of a change in the stylo of tho cards themselves. “ Bran new” was originally “brand new,” signifying that which was bright and fresh, and but recently come from the forgo or fire. Another word that is interesting for its altered form is our modern word "currants,” in so far as it relates to small dried raisins. In early limes little raisins brought from Greece were known as corinths, either because they were, for the most part, shipped from Corinth or because they grew abundantly in the vicinity ol 'hat citv. Ignorance, and the similarity which they bore to the ordinary currants, resulted in a confusion of terms, which has lasted to this day, when currants are not properly currants at all, but dried grapes of diminutive size, lb is a common supposition that “ orange ” was derived from “or,” meaning gold, an assumption that was strengthened by the fact that tho orange was poetically referred to as the “golden fruit.” In reality, however, orange is a Persian word which has reached our language through the Arabic. A “country” dance is not one that is peculiar to rural districts; the term is merely a corruption of tho French. “ centre danse,” in which, the partners stand face to face. Although for many years it has been a familiar term to military men, “malingerer” was brought into general use by tho Great War. It is a common error to suppose that a malingerer is a man who “ lingers ” away from his job. Though that may bo true enough now, the two_ words have nothing in common, a malingerer properlv being a soldier who, out of evil will (malm gre) _ to his work, shams or shirks and is not found in tho ranks. Silhouette preserves _ the name of an unpopular French Minister of Finance who sought to cut down , unnecessary expenses in the State. The term came to be applied to anything that was cheap or unduly economical, and has survived in tho black outline portrait. Tram is tho second syllable of Outram, tho inventor. Reynard, Chanticleer, and Bruin are the names of the fox, tho cock, and the. bear respectively in a famous German epic of the Middle _Ages._ Nugget, according to an English philologer of the last century, is not a corruption of ingot, but of an early form of the worth- niggot, meaning a lump of metal. '