OUR MOTHER TONGUE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22628, 20 July 1935, Page 26

OUR MOTHER TONGUE

RANDOM NOTES By Professor Arnold Wall. I. " BEHAVIOURISTICALLY " Our language is full of mongrels, lialfbreecls, or hybrids; this is an exceptionally fine example, being, in fact, a perfect* verbal sandwich. The bread is English, all the rest is alien. The top slice of, bread, “ behav,” is pure Anglo-Saxon; below it is Latin butter, “ iour,” with a French flavour; then two slices of Greek meat, “ ist ” and “ic”; then, for the bottom slice, more Latin butter, “al”; and, last of all, the English bread “ ly.” The good philologist is supposed to disapprove of the formation of hybrids, but it is wiser to accept the inevitable and rather rejoice that these haughty invaders, Greek and Latin, are so willing to intermarry with the humble and homely natives. By the way, the word, if word it be, is to be found in the writings of a certain school of philosophy, of American origin.

"MARMALADE AND ANTIMONY" This is not a ‘recipe. One motto of the old etymologists was “ when in doubt tell a story.” Hundreds of anecdotes of this kind* have found credence in the past, and they die very hard. “ Marmalade,” said the ingenious inventor, is compounded of the French words “ Marie and malade,” “ Mary ill.” It was so called because Mary Queen of Scots used jt as a remedy for sea sickness on a voyage between Scotland and France. So there you are.

"Antimony,”. said another expert, is formed from the Greek prefix “ anti,” “ against,” and the French “ moine,” a monk (the word in French is “ antimoine ”). The story is that- the famous fifteenth century German monk, Basil Valentine (a very shadowy personage), who experimented in alchemy, noticed on one occasion that tlm stuff seemed to fatten the pigs to whom it. had been thrown; he tried it on his brother monks, with the result that they all died, so he named it “ antimOme,” “ bad for a monk.” I need only and that both words are Greek, and Qiat ‘ marmalade ” represents, in good disguise, the Greek words for “honey’' and “melon.” Yet one feels that it is cruel tv spoil a good story. “TOUCH "

“ Try our famous butter; nobody can touch it,” shouts the enterprising advertiser. Let us see how he comes /to blunder into such a pitfall. When we say that A “cannot touch” B as a speaker or tennis player or what-not, we unconsciously use a metaphor from foot racing. A cannot pass B and cannot even come within touching distance of him. The racing, Maori warrior, in Maning’s “ Old New Zealand,” could not catch his competitor, but did just manage to touch his ehoaider. “ He will boast everywhere that he has touched the shoulder of the famous ‘ Sounding Sea.’ ” Unluckily for the advertiser the word “touch” is also figuratively used in vniite another sense. When we dislike the taste of something intensely we say we “ cannot touch it,” implying that its nastiness is strong enough to affect our sense of touch —that we could taste it with our fingers.. So while the merchant has in mind the first of these figures the reader only perceives the second. Hence these tears (of laughter). The moral “leaps to the eye.” The use of the word "touch” in football, I may say incidentally, is not figurative and can only be explained by reference to the terminology of the original Rugby school game of which our modern sport is the descendant. " SATIRE " This is not one of those words which disturb the pence of households and even become the subject of heavy wagers, e.g., the two gentlemen who waylaid Dr Johnson in the street and called upon him to settle their 20-gninea wager upon the pronunciation of the word “ irrefutable (■was it?). No, we all know bow to prenounce “ satire ” and the modern pronouncing dictionary does not even offer us an alternative. But only a century or so ago things wore very different and the word was pronounced in four different ways—according to the invaluable Walker, the best authority in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. In the absence of any generally understood system of phonetic spelling it is not easy to make clear what those four prenounciations were, but we can try. They might be thus spelt: “ Safer ” (rhyming with waiter) ; “sutter” (with flatter) : “ say-tiro ”; and “ sattier " (like nattier). Walker cites ten different authorities among his predecessors and considers the question at great length. He finds that the pronunciation “ eater ” is the most general, while “ satter ” is most favoured by the learned, and he decides in favour of “eater.” The odd thing is that none of Walker’s four has survived. The struggle for existence has been determined by a compromise and our modern pronunciation is a combination of his second and third competitors —a combination not apparently in the running at all. 1 should guess that the modern form established itself gradually during the period between about 1820 and 1850. BELCHER Time has not often been so unkind as in the case of this name. In the Middle ages, when most surnames were established, many people had to put up with uncomplimentary names which, we must suppose, they deserved. In later days some men are so sensitive that they take legal steps to change their names, while others brave it out and continue to call themselves Mouldy or Hogg or Silly. Often the name is only comical, not opprobrious, yet many people dislike that and refuse to remain Pickles or Onions or Gotobed. Pickles, in fact, is -rather like Belcher in that it originally means something quite different from what > it seems to mean now. Belcher is suggestive of, let us say, homely manners, but it is a Northern French form of the very respectful name Belsire, which means “grandsire” and also exists among ns as Bewshire and Bowser. Pickles is an innocent place name and probably meant “ hill-meadows.”

The writer of these notes is interested in the etymology of surnames, doubtful pronunciations and kindred matters, and will be glad to answer queries on such subjects to the best of bis ability if addressed through the editor of this journal.