VERBAL ANTICS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20235, 20 April 1929, Page 1 (Supplement)

VERBAL ANTICS.

BY KOT.UtE.

CHANGES OF MEANING.

Our Minister of Education has announced that one of his objectives in controlling his department will be to raise tho social statuafof tho farmer. Probably most of us did not know that it needed raising. The intelligent section of the community acknowledges that the farmer holds the strategic position in the life of the state and that if ho fails everything faib. If the Minister is aiming to impress that fact on tho foolish folk that at present do nt>t realise it, more power to his elbow. I fancy he is chiefly concerned with the drift to the cities which is not counterbalanced by an equal drift from the town.

Situated as we are, the land and the mercantile marine are the corner stones not only of our prosperity but of our very existence. Yet I have the assurance of one of the leading secondary headmasters in New Zealand that it is almost impossiblo to place in either of these basic occupation boys whose inclinations and training lead in that direction. They want to cuter tliein, but they find the gates barred and bolted. The way to the city is broad aud any man can take it; the road to the fields and tho sea is so narrow and so steep that only the very few can find it. This man certainly knows what ho is talking about, and tliero is his mature judgment after years of experience. But the train of thought set going in my mind by tho Minister's remarks switched off at this point into entirely different territory. Tho farmer more than most of us is depeiulc t on forces ho cannot control. Weather is a matter of comfort or discomfort for the majority of town-dwellers. It is life or death to tho farmer. If tho heavens remain brazen in tho tropical sunshine for the months of summer and tho rain clouds refuse to como up on the wind, ho sees a year's work go for nothing. Or if the heavens arc opened and the torrents fall week after week he faces the same dire calamity. "Country Conditions. This dependence in the last issue 011 forces outside his control inevitably leaves its mark 011 tho farmer's psychology—blessed word that. Shakespeare pictures a farinct' who hanged himself in expectation of plenty. A really good year with the prospect of both a good harvest and high prices was too much for him. lie could not face such incredible good fortune. It so upset the scheme of tilings as he had known it that it threw his mind off its balance. Wc arc not as bad as that here and in this year of grace; but some of our farmers will marvel at Shakcspcrc's penetration. But the point i was making for in my meandering was this: If ever any section of the community had a just grievance against the English language it is the farmers. Practically all the words applied to the workers on tho land have undergone a most pernicious degeneration. Even the word 'farmer" has gathered evil associations through the centuries. It began as a title for tho man who received the use of land for a fixed payment. It was associated with the special mode of tax-collecting popular from Roman days, common right down to the French Revolution, and one of the causes of that tremendous npheavel. A capitalist paid a certain sum <0 the State and then had the State's authority to collect the tax for himself. It meant that he could make whatever he could extort from the unfortunate public. The abuses of tho system made tho name of farmer loathed and hated throughout the older world.

Libel. lint that is only a minor part of the farmer's case against tho language. Our word " villain " originally signified a worker on a farm—nothing more or less. And see what it has como to mean today. Here is a most unwarranted aspersion on one of the noblest of occupations, imbedded past hope of remedy in the usage of everyday speech. And " villain " was merely the Norman word that displaced the older " churl." the name of the Saxon farm-labourer. .As " villain " libelled bis character, so " churl " reflected disrespectfully on hi.s disposition. And to make tho tale of infamy almost complete, " boor," the English counterpart of the Dutch "Boer," has gone tho samo easy descent to A vermis. Even worse is the reflection on his piety contained in tlie history of the word " pagan.." A pagan was originally simply a country-dweller. Then, probably because conservatism was moro strongly entrenched in tho open fields, and the farming communities held longest to their fathers' faith, ' pagan " was used to signify the anti-Christian, attitude. And so -it has continued to this day. Bourgeois. But that the town-dweller might not swell with self-conscious pride, the history of tho language does not leave him unscathed. A bourgeois or burgess was a man of dignity. Medieval history is largely on its social side tho record of the rise to wealth and power of tho citizen, .It was he that killed the feudal system and laid tho foundation of tho modern state with its parliamentary institutions. Vet in many quarters to-day " bourgeois " is a name of utter contempt. It stands for smugness, selfishness, ultra-repectability, the love of money, contempt for tlioso lower down on the social scale, and a whining, cringing attendance 011 those above. Mr. Baldwin went so far as to devote part of a speech in the House of Commons to the , singular use of bourgeois as a scathing invective. Ernest Woeklcy, who ranks very high among English philologists, comments thus on this modern perversion of usage: " So far as I have observed the depreciatory sense of ' bourgeois' contains in only three classes, which may roughly be said to inhabit the Beau-tnonde, Bohemia, and Bolshcvia; i.e., the regions in which hard work is regarded with least enthusiasm. To these classes a bourgeois is, according to tho exact point of view, a sinister or a comic figure. To tho Bcauliionde ho is a person of inferior manners, to Iho Bohemian a narrow-minded pliilistine, to tho Bolshevist an embryo capitalist." Week ley traces the progress of tho degeneration. It began in France, he says, when tho nobility forsook their estates and led a wild and useless lifo in the capital and at tho King's court. They soon " began to conceive a contempt for all that was plain and simple and honest." The next act is also set in. France. The young literary bloods of a hundred years ago, liko their successors of whom wo have far too many to-day, counted it the salt of lifo to shock the ordinary honest and clean-minded citizen.. The bourgeois with bis solid respectability was anathema to tlie Bohemian. The final stage was developed in Russia and is current wherever Moscow is rogarded as tho holy city of humanity. Sumo idealists imagine that if we only make a united effort, a long pull, a strong pull and a pull all together, wo can bring back words to their original meaning. Rut Innguago does not grow liko that, and what wo find firmly established we must e'en, accept with what graco we may. The farmer and the city man will lose no sleep over linguistic , perversions.