ROMANCE OF WORDS

Greymouth Evening Star, 18 December 1934, Page 11

ROMANCE OF WORDS

VICISSITUDES OF “NICE.” “As language is the creation of erring mortals,” writes Bernard Groom in his “Short History of English Words,” “it is natural that many words should betray the results of carelessness or ignorance. It is, however, a law of language that when all men err they cease to err; a general change is a legitimate one. “Words which can be labelled as out-and-out mistakes are uncommon and occur only in somewhat peculiar circumstances. One of the few examples of a sheer blunder is the word ‘helpmeet,’ which arose out of a popular misapprehension. The sentence from. Genesis 2: 18, ‘I will make him an help meet for him,’ gave rise to the notion that the two words ‘help meet’ were a synonym for ‘wife,’ and in this way a new word—usually employed in perfect good faith—was added to the language. “ ‘Scapegoat’ is another Biblical word formed in error; the immediate source is the translation of Tindale, who misunderstood the Hebrew word Azazel (Leviticus 16: 8): the Revised Version has restored Azazel to the text, explaining it in the margin as ‘dismissal.’ “Imperfect knowledge is responsible for most of the words which may be fairly described as erroneous or corrupt in form. False etymology is a cause of various mistakes. One of the most amusing instances is the spelling of posthumous, in which the ‘h’ is due to the faulty derivation of postumus (Latin for ‘last’) from post and humus. The spelling shamefaced is due to a similar error, the correct form being ‘shamefast,’ i.e., ‘modest,’ ‘rooted in shame.’

“ADMIRAL” ALSO. “The spelling of admiral is another instance, this word being really derived from the Arabic ‘amir al,’ i.e., ‘the commander/ not from Latin ‘admirari.’ Misapprehension also accounts fox' the word saltcellar, of which the second element was originally ‘saler,’ i.e., a ‘vessel for salt,’ so that the addition of ‘salt’ is superfluous. The spelling of hiccup as hiccough is due to the supposed connection of this imitative word with ‘cough.’ “Very often names are extended by some form of association,” writes Mr Groom in a later chapter.

“Thu,s the name of Derrick, a Tyburn hangman who flourished about 1600, was extended not to other persons of his profession, but to a contrivance for hoisting heavy weights. Also, by r association, a one-horse closed carriage in vogue about 1850 was called a brougham from the name of a well-known peer. “The verb to burke originates in the name of a murderer who suffocated or strangled . his victiins. The noun mackintosh commemorates, in slightly altered form, the name of its inventor, Charles Macintosh. Sandwich preserves the memory of an eighteenth century earl who once spent twentyfour hours at the gaming table, sustained only by light refreshment. “Pinchbeck, originally the name of a watchmaker, was afterwards applied, to an alloy of copper and zinc designed to resemble gold, and was later employed as an adjective meaning ‘sham’ or ‘spurious.’ The word greengage is a composition of ‘green’ and the surname of a certain Sir William Gage, an early cultivator of the fruit. Place-names have entered our vocabulary in large numbers, often in an altered form. Meander, both noun and verb, is originally derived from the name of a winding river in Phrygia.

A GOOD EXAMPLE. “Cdnary has given birth at various . times to three different names: That . of a Spanish dance, of a sweet wine, i and of a yellow bird. A good instance i of the effect of association is given by ■ the development of the word Atlas into a common noun. The change is due to a representation of Atlas supporting the heavens which appeared as a frontispiece in early atlases. Calico is derived ultimately from : ‘Calicut’; cambric from ‘Cambray’; copper from ‘Cyprus’; cravat from . ‘Croatia’; damask from ‘Damascus’; florin from ‘Florence’; gipsy from ‘Egypt.’ . . In a chapter on words which have changed their meaning, Mr Groom states that the “adjective nice, for example, which is derived through French from the Latin ‘nescius’ (ignorant’), developed several new meanings during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. “It could mean ‘foolish,’ ‘wanton,’ ‘rare,’ ‘coy,’ ‘over-refined.’ Only the last of these meanings survived into the eightenth century, and for about fifty years the prevailing sense was ‘difficult to please or satisfy.’ Anyone Using the words ‘he is not nice’ about 1750 would certainly have meant ‘he is not fastidious.’ But during the reign of George 111. manners were becoming more refined and ‘particular,’ hence the word nice becomes a term of praise. “In the year 1769 occurs the first recorded use of the adjectaive in the sense ‘agreeable,’ ‘delightful.’ Since that time the word has been general-

ised into an almost meaningless term of praise or approval, and its older sense survives only in rare use and in a few such phrases as ‘a, nice distinction.’ ”