Some Misused Words.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 457, 19 May 1932, Page 8

Some Misused Words.

'J'HE CORRESPONDENT who asks the meaning and origin of self-help should not confuse the word with the stores of that name in various parts of the world. Carlyle probably coined the word in “ Sartor Resartus ” when he wrote:—“ In the destitution of the wild desert does our young Ishmael acquire for himself the highest of all possessions, that of self-help.” Samuel Smiles published his 41 Self Help ” in 1860, but the modern history of the prefix “ self ” began in the Sixteenth Century, when man became more self-conscious, and words like selfness and selfist were used where we would now say egoism and egoist. Even the word selfish was coii>sd during the Reformation. Shakespeare wrote:— Allowing him a breath, a little scene, to monarchize be fear’d, and kill with looks; Infusing him with self and vain conceit. Self-assertive came from the time of Dickens; self-expression is very modern, but self-contained comes from the Sixteenth Century word. TOUCHSTONE.