WHERE WORDS COME FROM.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18457, 21 July 1923, Page 1 (Supplement)

WHERE WORDS COME FROM.

ADDITIONS FROM BELOW.

BST KOTAUE.

">'., fl : Tho French ■ Academy Avaa'founded;: ; by Richelieu in 1655, ;. ; Some (seventy ■'; years later, Pope characterised the French people as a "nation born to servo, 1 ' and it was their readiness to- obey the socalled classical rules determining poetic diction and forA that drew : from their English admirer that left-handed compliment. Pope had no French Revolution before his eyes to reveal the basic impulses of French character; and he had : no knowledge of that Teutonic Kultur imposed from above upon a great people " bom to serve." France loves! order, predion, delifliteneiis £ Germany likes to: obey ;•■ France submits>i'to; regulation and control to achieve in end she considers above : all : others; durable; Germany wants to do what she is told and Butmits because, she find* pleasure ; in submitting. The Academy raveals how far a great freedom-loving •! people is "prepared to surrender its liberty to secure the correctness and exactness its essentially logical soul demands. And wo. too, go our own way, willing to make sacrifices of liberty for the) ends that appeal to us. Precision and order as such make no special appeal to us, however. We shall never tolerate an academy keeping close watch over every avenue into our literary language, rigidly excluding every intruder without an official weeding garment. Swift tried to establish an academy that would standardise English on the basis of Elizabethan usage; but he stood almost alone. If words prove themselves •worthv, we welcome them without uny close -investigation of their family-tree. If they do the work, that is all we as*. Rogues' Cant.

In Elizabethan times there « _a rogues' cant, just as there is to-cay in England and America. The vogue of the criminal play imd novel in America has made us familiar with such cant terms as yegg-man," whatever that may,be, and "soup —the mere secret cod? of the criimWi fraternity. -We can _ only hope these Abominations will stay in America. But many, words that held precisely the sams station in -society in the '- .spurious days of Threat Elizabeth " hava been a.dopted into literary English, " Qnee:? ' is one them, in its adjectival .use of course, though; in many cases it still forms part of siaig phrases, and asj.a vjjrb it is always flla% : " Prig "in another. " Munch," and " filch," come from the same source, though already in Shakespeare's time they had become part of the literary language. lago '■' finds himself poor indeed when anyone filches from him his good name, and the' munching of chestnuts arcusied the bitter angel' of one of Macbeth'* witches. • Many of these w Is of *'< •übmerced tenth iiav- died a • .i'-s-al ji \x There is prepitmibly no continuif - ,], the underworld .-|Vtt ."a period of <;t,£uuries. Its tear iibM ~ are ■;. rwV.'T flr on; •■ I"-"'*:" '.■"<?■s"'*,■ ":r -". .:■■!'!ln>in ,vhom itich'nf 'Sttiot, iiitlcc-,* A Cn draws irrcdflti'Wf to the lowest irvel. jfresuvVoly -lie 'vdr^isl^.-s.' \ of vagabonds, as Awdeley called them, depends on the constant supply frorf. outside. That means that their racy vocabulary must also be coined over and over again. The only ( words with a chance to survive are those that have reached the strata above. The few in standard English arm fully clad in respectability now, and have been these 200 years. But many have only risen to the isvel of current slang. Colloquial speech has ,\reor.ured them generation, after, generation; for even in its . slang, the English language shows the national conservatism that is Always cropping up in most unexpected places, and that often asserts itself quite illogically whyre th ? - actional habit adaptation seenu "Ma the ground. For example, "dud;:," (clothes) is still a r.lanpj word, not vers- hit'h in tho pcale, t.'i* . -romtnon enough for , ail; that. '- Tip,"' i* \ytl?J more and ia not confined '■->: • i students .of ; ion) OP.;, the ■ < e-traclc. , tW Elizabethan? asopteu «,t ! i.-j\L tho rogues' carflv; the ,;ru'J»-wjtjrse, took it c.p and made it almost a technical term; and common usage applies it to inside information on any matter whatever. " Tick," in the cense l of credit, comes from the boczing-keris of j&lisabethan. England; and " grub," as a handy word for food has the same lowly origin. ' .-..' It is probable in most cases that;; the 16th.' century usage simply marked the lowest depth to'; which a perfectly reputable old English word had : sunk. ; But the fact remains: that' the English language, a living, vital,-growing thing, took possession of them again,: gave »ho right of entry to respectable society, and as •we have seen, i;i some caties introduced them to the :: 3K,i&ty,' .. ( ' ■•.,-.■ Our Lava Scr Ecphemiwn.

"Booze" seems tc havemoved tsftong t-.b.ff elite? p.t the a&fio period. 'It. has become "a genera.- t<vfm; ; for the liquor. traffic and .all the potations they manufacture and sell but that is pure! modern Americanism. " :No doubt its soundfor it is one of the few words that seem to mingle ); contempt and humour in tliair effect upon the ear—led to its appropriation to this special function. It is found in Spenser, and that should be a, satisfactory hall-mark. ':' One of the character!) in the "Faerie Queenrt" carries a boozingcan. Perhaps Spenser took it from .tho fraternity of vagabonds; it occurs in the description of Gluttony and the stanzas are full of contemptuous disgust. As, it also occurs in the contemporary records of low life, it may be that Spenser chooses it deliberately because of its unsavoury associations. However that may be, it soon sank to its lovsl again. It could hardly hold its ground. For the English mind has invented more- terms to describe the condition of drunkenness than for any other idea for which it has set itself to find words. _ A most interesting point this. You can s;;y a man is " drunk," and you keep within the border of standard English. If you wish to bo pisdantio you can say he is " inebriated" \or intoxicated"— full sounding Latinisms that seem to mitigate tho oiunt Saxon frankness of "drunk.". But outside these three words there are at least 40 words, and phrases to describe the same condition. Practically everyone is a euphemism, a semi humorous attempt to gloss over something that is to-day regarded a3 reprehensible and disgusting. It all seems part of a humans disposition to cover up an ugly thing with a whimsical phrase. Somehow we . are : considerate of the drunken man's feelings. In no otherconnection do we ,so persistently refuse to call a spade a spade. & The Explanation. .

It all bears some ; relation : to our national character; what is hard to say. Is it a heritage from the days, riot so far distant, when drunkenness was almost the mark of a gentleman, and "when a boy was specially commissioned to loose the neckbands" of, : dinera who ' had fallen under the table? A drunken.man then was simply a gentleman overtaken in his cups, or he had dined not wisely but too well. He was the worse pi liquor in Ireland, he had . drink taken. Somehow it, has become almost; a sacrilege to say a man is <L*unk. And man's inventive powers show no eignii of any diminution. There are now phrases continually appearing ; where they come from no one knows. Even ti'.i classical Hebrew , shikar, th.?t ancient iJewwhword for strong drink, hp& been conscripted for service. It' may not be sympathy that has■• \ stimulated our powers of invention; one would like to think there was more than a modicum of shame at the bottom of it. But whatever the reason, the fact remains. And the tendency persists in spite of the extraordinary change of attitude th«, I last 50 years have aeen. Anyway, t-.a whole business shows the elasticity and adaptabili+r of our languagewith all its defects perhaps the greatest achievement pi the English genius*