Words and Idioms
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Words and Idioms: Studies in the English Language (London 1925) by Logan Pearsall Smith.
It features the essay "Four Romantic Words", an inquiry into the origins and meaning of 'romantic', 'originality', 'creation' and 'genius'.
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WORDS AND IDIOMS
Studies in the iEftglish Language
BY
LOGAN PEARSALL SMITH
SECOND EDmON
LONDON
CONSTABLE ^ COMPANY LTD.
First Published May^ 19 ^ 3 > Second Edition September^t Tg 23 *
PBINISS IK CIUCAT 'BRITAIN BT ROBERT KACLBHOSB AND CO^ UTO.
TBE UKIVBRSITV PRESS, GLASGOW.
PREFACE
“^'WoRDs/’ the poet Donne writes in one of his letters, “are our subtillest and delicatest outward creatures, being composed of thoughts and breath ” ; and the creatures he thus describes — their echoes and overtones, and the eifects which can be produced by the juxta- positions of these wonder-working sounds — have always possessed for me what is perhaps an undue fascination. The art of words, or Literature, as we call it, was, I believed in my youth, an art like the other arts, whose technique could be acquired by study and application ; and no one ever told me — ^as the young are now authoritatively instructed — ^that if only our thoughts are sincere, and our feelings adequately excited, the right words will rush to our pens without care or trouble. It is my misfortune, I suppose, that having been bom before the date of this great labour-saving discovery, I should have spent so much of my time in studying words and reading dictionaries. The human mind, moreover, is so constituted that pursuits which we take up as means to an end, become for us, not infrequently, ends in themselves ; the hunter we mount for the chase, often turning, before we know it, into a kind of hobby-horse which gallops off with us
V
PREFACi
on unpremeditated expeditions. Nor is there anyone to
whom thi^is more likely to happen than the student of
words, A dictionary, as Anatole France has said, is
the Universe in alphabetical order ; and the Univers^
whatever else may be said in its disparagement, is
certainly full of curious facts and details of the most
fascinating interest- These lacts and these details,
moreover, are often called by names which are so odd,
and possess such romantic histories, that few can indulge
in the joys of l^^Pgraphy without being touched by
the word-collecting mania — ^a mania which, like stamps
collecting, would be one of the most innocent pastimes
or vices, were it not so often accompanied by the desire
to make a display of one’s specimens. There is a
peculiar tedium, a special kind of boredom which seems
inseparable from books on words, and I certainly never
intended to add still another to the many publications
of this kind. I have, however, at various dates in
the last fifteen years written and printed a number of
essays on words ; and if I am now yielding to the
temptation to put together in book-form some of
these studies, I may perhaps attempt to justify this
republication by the fact that my purpose, in the
papers printed jn this volume, has not been to make a
miscell^eous display of curiosities, but rather to use the
specimens I have collected as illustrations of certain
general ideas, or as prooft of some practical conclusions
which seem to me to possess a certain importance.
Being a lexicographer rather than a philologist — if indeed the name of lexicographer may he extended to include those who make compilations from the diction- aries of others — my interest has been more especially
vi
PREFJCE
aroused by two aspects of linguistic study which lie somewhat outside the scope of the strict philologist, into whose special field of enquiry I have not dared to venture. The most important of these aspects is the one which is described by the name of “ Semantics,’’ the study of the meanings, rather than of the forms of words ; the history of the terms of our speech with reference to the history of the ideas they embody — the origins, the travels and transformations of these ideas in various epochs and countries. Our modern cos- mopolitan civilization is a vast web or tissue of thoughts and inventions, each of which has its place of origin and its special story ; and the names by which these pheno- mena are designated often turn out to be clues which enable us to unravel, and trace to their sources^ the threads out of which this great fabric has been woven. In the first essay in this volume I h^-ve attempted such an unravelling in one department of our language which has for me a special interest, the names of the nautical discoveries and inventions which go to make up our vocabulary of English sea-terms.
But far more interesting than the record of man’s practical inventions is the record of his thoughts and ideals and ways of feeling. No history is so fascinating, or so important, as the history of the human spirit ; and in the study of words we find a method — 2. sub- sidiary method, it may be — ^but still a method of real value for the purposes of elucidating this history and placing it in a somewhat clearer perspective. This semantic method of study has not hitherto been applied with much profit, owing to the uncollected and often unreliable character of the necessary data— the
vii
PREFJCE
vast number of minute, but important facts which are
needed for its adequate exploration. An investigation
of this kind has only at last become possible, at least
with regard to our own language, since the publication
of that great monument of scholarship, the O^cford
Dictionary y in which we find every English word traced
to its source, and all its changes of meaning dated and
registered in their chronological order. If I could
look forward to another life-time^ — or to twenty or
thirty years of uninterrupted leisure in this present
existence — I should like to compile fromthis great work,
and from the dictionaries of other languages, ancient
and modern, a history of all the more important terms
by which men have designated, not only their discoveries,
hut also their thoughts and feelings. Since such a study
would he largely concerned with the loan-words in the
languages of Europe, the terms which have been adopted
by different countries to designate the ideas which they
have borrowed from each other, I may perhaps claim
that in my essay in this volume on The English Element
in Foreign Languages ^ I have broken a little fresh ground
^ in one corner of this wide field of study. In the essay
which follows on Four Romantic J^ords^ I give in more
detail the history of certain terms o f aesthetic , criticism
with which our language has enriched the vocabulary
of Europe.
The other aspect of language which has engaged my attention is what I may perhaps call its teleological aspect — the study of diflFerent forms of speech, not from the point of view of the history embodied in them, but with regard to their value and efficiency 'as means of ex- pression. As^far at least as the borders of this large, and
PREFJCE
as yet almost unexplored, region of speculation I have
more than once ventured, and I have been impressed
on these expeditions by certain views -which I regret
that I have not had time to corroborate and elaborate
in more detail. If I could hope for still another thirty
or forty years of leisure — still another life-time indeed
would hardly be adequate for the undertaking — I should
very much like to make a comparative study of all the
languages of culture, discriminating in each its aesthetic
and expressive merits, its harmonies and happy inven-
tions, its fortunate contrivances of grammar and syntax
and idiom.
But these are but the daydreams of an ageing lexico- grapher already much distracted in a world which is full of too many other interests. I shall never write either of these works of research : I have, however, embodied some of my views in a few criticisms of certain prevailing tastes and feshions and false ideals which, in my opinion, are tending at present to hamper and impede the elEciency and development of our own speech- Some of these views have been suggested to me by the writings of the famous Danish linguist, Dr. Jespersen ; others, and in especial the conception of purity’’ in language, I owe to Remy de Gourmont’s Esthetique de la langue frangaise. My confidence in the validity of some at least of my conclusions has been greatly confirmed by finding them expressed in various tracts of the Society for Pure English- I must, however, be careful to point out that although two of the essays in this volume were first printed in the publications of that Society, I cannot of course claim its approval for all the suggestions
IX
CHAPTER I
ENGLISH SEA-TERMS I
If we take the words in common use among English sailors, the terms^ special or general, connected with the sea and ships, we find a \rigorous and expressive vocabulary, very characteristic of the hardy and practical people who habitually employ it. And yet if we examine these short and vivid words, which seem so essentially English in their form, and which are now being borrowed from our speech into most of the languages of the world, we shall find that the greater part of them are not of English origin at all. Indeed, anyone with a knowledge of the history of our language will notice, in passing from an agricultural district to the sea-coast, a remarkable change in the terms in common use. While for the barns and buildings in- land, the fields, the meadovrs, the principal crops, agricultural processes, and Jhimals, we should employ, for the most part genuine old English words, our terms for the coast and its main features, for many of the birds above and the fish beneath, for the ships sailing the seas under the British ensign, ’would prove on examination to be a set of borrowed names of a curiously polyglot
PREFACE
I have put forward ; they are made on my own
responsibility^ and are without any other endorsement.
The essay on Sea^Terms was printed in the English Review in rgia ; that on the English Element in Foreigt Languages in English in 1919. The
paper on Popular Speech and Standard English was read to the Yorkshire Dialect Society in 1917 5 I l^^ve considerably enlarged it for publication in this volume. The chapters on English Idioms aijd on Four Romantic Words were originally published as tracts of the S.P .E. in 1922 an 4 1924.. All these papers are reprinted here with the usual acknowledgnnents- The tract on English Idioms was edited by the late Dr. Bradley^ to whom^ and to Professor Graham Wallas, I am indebt^ for many suggestions. It is considerably longer in its present form, for it is in this paper that I have yielded most unreservedly to the temptation to make a collection of curiosities which should be as complete as possible. If I may be accused of encouraging or inventing a new vice — ^the mania, or idiomania,^’ I may perhaps- call it — of collecting what Pater called the gypsy phrases ” of our language, I have at least been punished by becoming one of its most cureless and incorrigible victims.
WORDS JND IDIOMS
mixture, derived ultiuiately from Greek, Latin, Italian,
Spanish and Dutch sources. These words seem like
English words, because English sailors have given them
an English shape and an English sound j they come
nevertheless from remote countries, and are embedded
in our English vocabulary like jetsam washed from afar,
but so worn by the waves that it lies almost undistinguish-
able among the other objects that strew our coasts.
But words are like sea-shells 5 they have their voices,
and are full of old echoes ; and if we take up these
terms, and examine them, and sort them according to
their ages and various sources, we find that they have
much to tell us of the history of English seamanship.
And, moreover, as we examine our sailors’ speech,
and the way they have fashioned and formed their
admirable set of terms, we may come on a lesson or
two which will not be without value to those who are
concerned with the present state and future prospects
^of our language.
Our oldest sea-tenns divide themselves into two main classes, and are derived from the two far-distant comers of Europe, where, in prehistoric times, men of European races first built themselves ships and ventured on the sea. These places were in the South among the islands and peninsulas of Greece, and in the North along the shores and shallows of the North Sea and the Brftic. From ^Greece the arts of navigation spread with dirir appropriate terms over the Mediterranean, the sadors of the North carried their Teutonic ^eech along the coasts of the Atlantic. Gradually these two vocabularies met and mingled, and the sea-vombularies of England and the other European
2
ENGLISH SEJ-TERMS
countries are largely made up of a mixture of these North Sea and these Mediterranean terms. The most English and anciently established ones in our language are, of course, of Northern origin, and consist of those words which the Angles and Saxons brought with them to England, and which safely survived the Norman Conquest. But among these old inherited terms are a few which, though they belong also to the South, have not been borrowed from thence, but descend to us from a time, thousands of years ago, when the Northern and Southern races dwelt together, and shared in a common language. Indeed, in sorting our words, we must put a few of them aside as belonging to the Aryan speech, from which not only most of the languages of Europe, but those of the Hindoos and Persians, descend. Two words, indeed, connected with some form of navigation have come down from that primitive Indo-European or Aryan language : a term for some simple form of boat (probably a dug-out or hollowed tree), and a name for the paddle with which it was propelled. The name for the canoe we have not inherited directly, but have borrowed it from Greek or Latin in the words nautical^ navy^ navigations etc. The Aryan word for a paddle, however, descends to us in our verb to row^ and also in our word rudder^ for the primitive rudder was, of course, a paddle or oar ; the fixed stern-rudder being a thirteenth-century invention. After these ancient words the next in antiquity are a few terms common, not to all the Aryan races, but to those of them who settled in Europe. These date from a period, after the separation from the Persian and Indian branches, when the ancestors of Greeks, Romans, Teutons, Celts and
3
WORDS JND IDIOMS
Slavs all shared more or less in a common language.
Fish and salt are among these ‘‘ West-Aryan ” words^
as they are called, and also the old European word for
sea [mare in Latin, Meer in German^, which we pre-
serve in our poetic word mere^ in marshy in the com-
pound mermaid^ and in names like Windermere.
These words, then, row^ merCy salty fishy are common to North and South 5 our next little heap is exclusively Northern, and is composed of those terms which belong to the Teutonic languages, and descend from that North Sea vocabulary which the English, German, Dutch and Scandinavian races share in common. Here at last we breathe a sea-atmosphere, and find our race embarked in boats with a vocabulary fit for sailors, and many terms for the objects and phenomena with which they are concerned — ^islands and landmarks, winds and weather, the points of the compass, and the birds and animals that haunt the sea. Sea and shipy aavy masty sail, steer, fbod, cliff, strand^ stormy Northy Southy East and West, mew and seal and whale, are^ ’ among the words which the Angles and Saxons brought with them in their pirate ships to England, and which they share with their Teutonic cousins ; and we find among them, like a Mediterranean seashell, one word from -the distant South. This is the word anchor^ which the pirates from whom we descend had borrowed, before they came to England, from the Roman sailors who had taught them the use of this contrivance j their eaifiest boats bdng moored, like the Homeric ships, by cdjles fostened to the shore, or by a stone sunk over- board with a rope attached. For anchor is not a Homeric term, but appears in the Greek language at 4
ENGLISH SEJ-TERMS
a later date 5 it is, however, the first Mediterranean
word which was added to our English sca-vocabularjr,
and like many of our words from Greek or Latin, the
spelling has been tampered with by pedants, who in-
serted an A, owing to the notion that anchora and not
ancora was the correct form in Latin.
These Mediterranean words are more numerous in the next little heap of our sea-terms, the next layer which we find as we dig down into our old vocabulary. This layer is composed of words which were not, as far as we know, brought hy our ancestors to England, but were added to the language during the Anglo-Saxon period, before the Norman Conquest. In this layer we find the famous word port^ which is borrowed from the Latin portm^ and is a distant cousin of our Teutonic 'v/ordiford. From the use of port sls haven or harbour, is probably derived the use of the word for the left side of the ship, which has recently superseded larboard^ owing to its similarity of sound with starboard, Fort •in this sense is found some centuries before its official adoption by the Admiralty in 1844, 5 supposed to have arisen from the fact that when the steering apparatus was on the right side of the ship, it was convenient, in order to keep this free, to have the port or harbour on the left side when approaching it. Other IVT editerranean words borrowed in this period zre lobster^ /dmpety and mussel^ and a name for oyster, ostre^ which however perished later, and was replaced hy the F rench form oyster, A taste for the delicacies of the sea is one of the results of civilisation, and our ancestors probably acquired this taste at the time that they were civilised by Christian missionaries — who, moreover, would
S
WORDB JND IDIOMS
impose on them the necessity of a fish diet in fasting. The word hulk is also found in Englis^ v- in this period , it is a Mediterranean word^ diflFused in the languages of Western Europe, ,
generally supposed to be derived from the Greek These are the Southern sea-words that drifted tro shores in the Anglo-Saxon period. With them^ ^ find a few terms apparently of native English fleety and the adjective afloat^ neap^ and Starboard is really steer board^ and means the bo3.r« side of the ship on which the stior or paddle was for steering. This in ancient times was the right: the Anglo-Saxon name for the left side b^eC’-hor^w ^ ^
side to the back of the steersman, has become in English, although it still survives in the bachhord and the French hdhorL Bac-^bord wa3 replaced by larboard (which some would derive the verb to lade) and then, as we have seen, by The important word hat we may perhaps dainn ^ * word of Englisji origin^ — ^it is first found in A.
Saxon, and seems to have been borrowed by the EZJ^uttrh in the thirteenth century, whence, in the form oE it has made its way into German.
These Anglo-Saxon words are known to haver t>e€m a part of the English nautical vocabulary hefor'tfs t^c Norman Conquest. The Anglo-Saxons moreover, a large number of sea-terms which have: sit%cc perished \ for seamanship, unlike agriculture^ hats mol always been an English occupation, and the English command of the sea is a comparatively late acquisi€ic»fK The Angles and Saxons were, indeed, sailors and pira€« and came to England across the sea, hut when they w«ne 6
ENGLISH SEJ-TERMS
once settled here they abandoned that element ; and while they preserved their farming terms, much of their nautical vocabulary fell into disuse, and was forgotten when their language was partially destroyed. Those which survived have already been mentioned ; but in addition to these sailors have adopted since that date, and still preserve, a number of old words which have otherwise perished or nearly perished in the standard language. Words, like other things, are mortal, and many once of general currency only survive because they are used in some technical vocabulary. Fore and aft and abaft, sprit, cleat, and pintle are among these survivals, and the verb to helay^ which was used with meaning to “ waylay,” as late as the eighteenth century. The old word lee is seldom used now except with a nautical meaning, although in the form of lew it still preserves in many dialects its old meaning of “ protec- tion, shelter,” especially protection from the wind. Lew is one of our best dialect words, as beautiful as the warm, sunny, windless nook it so well describes, and a “ lew corner ” should be found for it in our literary language. Gangway is an Anglo-Saxon word meaning “ road, thoroughfare ” 5 it survives in English ships, and in the English House of Commons, where we hear of seats above or below the gangway. When, moreover, sailors speak of a ship heeling over, or of faying planks or timbers, they are using old English verbs 5 for heel is a transformation of an earlier verb to heeld^ “ to slope or bend downwards,” and fay is another old verb meaning ‘‘ to fit, adopt or join,” and is the same word as the German filgen. Both these words are also pre- served in the southern dialects of England, where,
7
WORDS JND IDIOMS
however, fay has lost its original signification and now
means “ to succeed or prosper,”
While some words perish in the literary language, others change their original meanings, which, however, are often preserved in technical vocabularies- Thus when we speak of trimming a boat, we use the verb to trim in the old English sense of preparing or setting in order 5 and in the sailors’ phrase to hend a rope, bend is used with its old meaning of “ fastening, fettering.” Bend has acquired its current meaning of curving or crooking from archery ; as the bow was “ bent ” or confined with the string, the sense of fastening was changed to that of curving. Shroud is one of those words whose meaning has, in the process of time, been much narrowed 5 on land it is only used now for the garments of the dead, but its earlier and wider significa- tion of garment, coverings,” is preserved on the sea in the name of a ship’s shrouds.
These words, then, form the main part of the Anglo- Saxon or early English element in our modern nautical vocabulary 5 some, as we have seen, were nautical terms in Anglo-Saxon times, while others were adopted by sailors at a later period, and preserved by them in their technical vocabulary. We cannot, of course, be certain of the exact date at which any given word is formed or acquires a nautical meaning 5 the speech of sailors is a spoken, not a written language, and sailors’ words were no doubt in many cases used for a long time before they made their appearance in writing ; thus the word amidships is not found before 1692, although its genitive form {^shif>s instead of ship) shows that it must have come into use some centuries earlier, and must
ENGLISH SEJ-TERMS
belong to the period when amid (which was originally
a phrase, “ in the middle of,” like the Latin in medio)
was followed by the genitive.
II
The next layer of our sea-words is, of course, Scandinavian. England was largely settled by Danish sea-pirates 5 Viking ships have been unearthed in England 5 Alfred’s fleet was built on their model, and it was in Viking ships that William the Conqueror crossed from Normandy, and Richard I. and his Crusaders sailed to the Mediterranean. From the speech of these Viking pirates we have inherited, as might have been expected, a number of nautical terms, the stern for instance, the keel^ the hounds of the mast, and words like rafty tug and ivindlass. When we say a ship is bound for a certain port, or homeward hound^ we are using, not the past participle, as we might think, of the English verb to bind^ but of a Scandinavian word meaning ready or prepared — ^its derivative, a word which in the form of boun^ to make ready, still lives on in Northern dialects. Billow is probably a Scandinavian word which survived in one of the Northern or Eastern dialects which still preserve so many Danish words 5 it made its way into Southern English in the sixteenth century, and was given a literary stand- ing by its use by Spenser and Shakespeare. Wake for the track of a ship is another Scandinavian word, preserved in dialect 5 its original meaning, as Professor Skeat tells us, was that of an opening in the ice, especially the passage cut for a ship in a frozen lake or sea and
9
PFORDS AND IDIOMS
theiij from being applied to the smooth watery track
left by a ship after its passage through the ice, it came
to be used when there was no ice at all. This useful
word is one of the nautical terms which the French
have borrowed from English, although it is not easy to
recognise it at first in its French form of ouaiche ; and
it is still used on the Norfolk Broads with its original
meaning of an open place in the ice.
These Scandinavian words, like the old English, were partly nautical in their origin, partly words adopted at various times into the nautical vocabulary j and with them also, it is not possible, owing to the absence of records, to fix the exact date of their adoption and common use. This is also true of the next great and important stratum in our sea-vocabulary, file large number of nautical words which we have inherited from the F rench of the Norman Conquerors. Although the Northern sailors who conquered Normandy and after- wards England, were of a Scandinavian race, they lost during the century and a half they spent in France almost all traces of their Scandinavian speech, and, with the exception of a few nautical terms, such as the fish-name flounder^ and perhaps equip^ the language they brought to England was that of France, and their sea-speech as they sailed over in their Viking ships was French and not Scandinavian. Many of our principal sea-terms, therefore, have come to us across the Channel from France — brought hither either by the Normans, or borrowed afterwards in. the thirteenth and fourteenth cen^ries. Very few of these words are, however, of native French origin. The French sea-vocabulary is itse f, like the English, of a borrowed and composite 10
ENGLISH SEJ-TERMS
character, being formed in the first place of Mediter- ranean words, to which have been added a number of North Sea terms, brought with them by the tribes from Germany who invaded France in early times. But the terms we borrowed from France and still use, are for the most part from the South, and belong to that collec- tion of sea-terms which the Southern nations — F rench, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese — ^possess in common.
Ill
This Mediterranean sea-vocabulary, composed of words still in daily use among Southern sailors, is full of an historical and almost romantic interest. Various nations at various times have filled this Southern sea with their shipping, and established their dominion over its ports and coasts ; and each of these sea-empires, or “ Thalassocracies,’’ as modern scholars call them, has imposed its language upon sailors of other nations, and left, when its ships decayed, and its power vanished, a deposit of words in the speech of all the peoples who navigate those waters. The first Mediterranean sea- empire of which language gives us definite knowledge, is the Greek — ^how much the Greeks in their turn owed to the still earlier Phoenician navigators, the traders and pirates of Tyre and Sidon, is a point which is somewhat disputed — ^at any rate, no sea-terms can be traced with any certainty to these prehistoric sailors. But already in Homer we find a highly developed vocabulary of nautical terms. From this Homeric vocabulary three words have come to us by way of France, dolphin and prow^ and ocean^ the Homeric
II
WORDS JND IDIOMS
name far the great stream supposed to encompass the
disk of the earth. The Homeric name for ship, nam^
is represented in our words nautical and nausea ; and
the dialect quanta used on the East Coast for a long
punting pole, is perhaps descended from the kovtos^ the
pole with which the Homeric sailors pushed their ships
from shore. Anchor^ which came to us at such an
early date, is, as we have seen, a post-Homeric term,
and other sea-words from Greece which we still use
are prate and conger and oyster and seine, Seim is
derived through the Latin sagena from crayvivr}^ the
Greek name for a drag-net ; and as it is found in
Anglo-Saxon and other Teutonic languages, it is pro-
bably, like anchor y a word borrowed by our ancestors
before they came to England.
Rome succeeded Greece in the Empire of the Medi- terranean 5 but the Romans were not naturally sailors, and their sea-terms were for the most part borrowed from their Greek predecessors. They, however, have also left their d^^Josit in the Mediterranean vocabulary. P oop from puppis^ and the verb to careen^ are words from classical Latin, words used by Virgil ; and corvette is derived through French and Spanish, from cor bit the Latin name for a slow-sailing ship of burden — so called, it is believed, from the basket (corbis) hoisted by the Egyptian grainships as an ensign. The Aryan name for a boat or canoe comes to us, in its Latin form navis^ in our wor<fe navy and navigation^ and the West- Aryan word for sea (our mere) appears in its Latin form inare,, in our words mariney mariner y maritime^ and also in the cormorant or corvus marinusy the sea-crow. After Rome, the Byzantine Empire was the next sea-power 12
ENGLISH SEJ-TERMS
in the Mediterranean, and from Byzantine Greek we inherit^i^^, and perhaps the word which superseded our native English lodesman in the sixteenth century. After Byzantium the Arabs won for a while the sea- supremacy in the South, and from them the important word admiral is derived. Other words which have been traced with less certainty to Arabic sources are the verb to furl^ and average^ which was originally a Mediterranean term for a duty or tax on merchandise. The Italians, with their fleets from Venice and Pisa and Genoa, were the next great sea-power of the South, and their importance as sailors, and the extent and duration of their empire, have left an enduring mark upon the sea-vocabulary of modern nations. Several of our names for diflFerent kinds of sailing ships are derived from Italian ; brigantine and brig and frigate 2 JiA pinnace are Italian words ; skijfh derived from our Teutonic word ship in its Italian form, and bark is also perhaps Italian, and derived from the late Latin barca — z word from which barge and bargain are also derived, and which some etymologists trace to a Celtic, some to an Egyptian source. These names for ships have for the most part changed their meaning as old types became obsolete and new ones were developed 5 our modern barks, brigs, and frigates have little con- nection with the craft that originally bore these names — the ships perish, but the names survive, like shells, which, after the death of their builders, remain to be the hosts of new inhabitants. Other Italian words in our sea-vocabulary are mizen^ quarantine^ and squadron; compass and cable and cape and galley are Mediterranean words of late formation, which are
13
WORDS JND IDIOMS
found in Italian, and have perhaps come to us from an
Italian source.
These words form the Mediterranean element in the French sea-vocabulary, and all of them, Greek, Latin, Arabic, and Italian, have come to us by way of France. But a large proportion of the words used by French sailors come from the North Sea, and are German in origin — havre and mdt^falaise and Jiot^ Nord^ Sud, Est and Ouesf^ and many other terms show the sea-know- ledge brought to France by its early invaders from the North. The fact that in French, and also in Italian, the word for tacking or sailing into the wind [lowjoyer^ hordeggiare) are of Northern origin, has been regarded as a proof that this part of the nautical art was unknown to early Mediterranean sailors, but learnt by them from Northern seamen. Among the Teutonic words which have come to us from France may be mentioned aboard^ and the verb to haul.
In the North the sea-empire of the Scandinavian Vikings was ^>llowed by that of the Low Germans and the Dutch. From the time of the early Middle Ages the great sailors and merchants in Northern seas came from the towns of the Hanseatic League in North Germany, and from the Netherlands, and English sailors began in early times to borrow nautical terms from these Low German and Dutch seamen, who so fer surpassed them in the arts of, navigation. As Dutch and Tow German are nearly related, and possess many words in common, it is not easy to determine the exact source of these early borfowings~/fl'r/f/^, one of the earliest of them, is apjmrently Low German , sktfper (from schtp) is perhaps Dutch ; while mate and bowsprit
14
ENGLISH- SEJ-TERMS
may be from either dialect. All these words are found in English before the year 14.00. In the fifteenth cen- tuiy,wheii Englishshipping became of more importance, our sailors borrowed from their still superior Dutch rivals a large number of nautical terms, and among the words found at this time, and regarded with more or less certainty as being of Dutch origin, are iuoy, deck, freight, marline, orlop, and the names of boats, hop and lighter. ^ The words and leak, which are first found in English in connection with nautical matters, are also perhaps borrowings from Dutch sailors.
The borrowing of nautical terms from the Dutch has gone on till very recent times, and was especially frequent in the seventeenth century, during the naval wars and maritime rivalry of the two nations ; and in this period are found the following words, which have beeri traced, with more or less certainty, to a Dutch origin, botu, boom, taffrail, cuddy, sloop, yacht, cruise, ertaser, avast, and the verbs to reeve and to gybe. Commodore is believed to have been introduced from Dutch by William III., and the nautical use of the old feudal and law-F reach word to sm%e, “ to seize a rope,” is perhaps derived from a similar use of the word among Dutch sailors. The verb to splice is another Dutch word found in English in the seventeenth century, and caboose, compeemon, lugger, smack, and scovi, and the verb to marl, which belong to the next century, have also been traced to Dutch sources. The feet that so many of our nautical words, and the greater part of our names for various kinds of sailing vessels, have come to us from the Low Countries, is a proof of that great superiority of the Dutch in ship-building
15
WORDS JND IDIOMS
and navigation, which lasted for so long, and did
so much to give its present character to English
seamanship. These Dutch terms are, for the most
part, of Teutonic origin 5 and some of them are words
which we have also inherited, but which have been
given a nautical meaning in the Low Countries ; boomy
for instance, is the Dutch form of our word beamy and
bow is a variant of the English hough. But the Dutch
sailors also borrowed some Scandinavian, French, and
Mediterranean terms 5 a reef in a sail and a reef in
the sea are both from the Scandinavian rif, a rib 5 the
first may have come to us directly, while the second
was probably borrowed from Dutch or Low German
sailors ; words like buoy, quartermaster y and companion
(in its nautical use) are of Southern origin, but it is
probable that they came to England from Holland.
While the Dutch were the sailors of the North Atlantic, the Portuguese, and then the Spaniards, estab- lished sea-empires in Southern waters, extending to India in the East Jnd America in the West. The word corvette^ as we have seen, was borrowed from Spanish into French, and among the words taken by English smlors direct from Spanish may be mentioned binnacle^ fiotillay stevedoroy cargOy and tornado and embargo. But the most interesting part of the Spanish element in our nautical vocabulary is composed of those words which were brought to England by the Elizabethan pirates and adventurers who followed and fought the Spaniards in the Spanish Mmn, and learnt from them the strange terms, hurricaney hammocly and canoey which they, in their turn, had learnt from the native tribes of the West ‘ Indian islands. Breeze^ too, is a Spanish word, and
16
ENGLISH SEJ-TERMS
was used originally, the Oxford Dictionary tells us, for
North-East winds, especially for the North-East trade
wind in the Spanish Main. Launch is a name for a
boat picked up by Portuguese sailors in the East (it is
probably of Malay origin), and handed on by them to
Spanish sailors, from whom it was borrowed into
English. It is quite different in origin from the verb
to launch^ which is derived from the Norman-French
form of the verb lancer.
IV
Thus we see how all the t^assocracies,, or sea- empires, which have succeeded each other in the course of history, Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Arabian, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish in the South, and Teutonic, Scandinavian, Low German, and Dutch in the North, have left their deposit of sea-terms in the vocabulary of our English sailors, and how rich are the elements of historical association in these sea-borne words, washed to our shores from distant ports, once flourishing but now decayed.
Of all these great sea-empires of the world, the most recent and the greatest is the British ; and English sailors, since the establishment of their sea-supremacy, no longer borrow their terms from abroad 5 they form them at home, and impose them on foreign nations. The speech of sailors all over the world is beconung more and more English in character 5 and linguistic patriots, alarmed for the so-called purity of their native forms of speech, have begun to protest against this invasion of British words. But we may be sure that
WORDS JND IDIOMS
their protests will be in vain, for just as Englishmen in
the past borrowed from the languages of those nations
who were superior to them in the arts of shipbuilding
and navigation, so foreign nations will continue to
borrow from English, as long as English sailors maintain
their supremacy at sea.
This export of English sea-terms assumed no great proportions before the era of steamships in the nineteenth century, although before that time a few of our words found their way into the vocabularies of French and German. The early English word boat (if indeed it be English) has already been mentioned ; another apparently English formation, is found in all the T eu tonic languages 5 and the German name for pilot, Lotse^ is believed by German philologists to be derived from our earliest lodesman^ which we abandoned for the M editerranean word pilot, F rench sailors borrowed in the Middle Ages the words haddock {hadot) and ling (lingue) 5 shore and flyboat reach them in the sixteenth century in the forms of accore and flibot ; and in the next hundred years the Dutch words yacht and com-- modore were taken from English, while handspike and ketch were transformed into anspect and quaiche. The next important English word to find its way abroad is log, for the log, or piece of wood fastened to a line to measure the rate of sailing, appears to have been an invention of English sailors in the sixteenth century, and the word is found in German, Danish, Swedish, and also in French, where it has taken the form of loch. Our seventeenth-century, word packet-boat (originallyi a boat for carrying the ** packet ” of State letters and despatches) was also borrowed by the French and
ENGLISH SEJ-TERMS
Germans, and is familiar to us in the French form of
paquehot. Brick {brig\ lougre {lugger) ^ cotre {cutter) y
sloop and schooner are other names of sailing-ships
borrowed into French from English. Curiously
enough, at least three words, cahiriy mess and furl, seem
to have come into England from France, and, after
English sailors had given them an English form and a
nautical meaning, to have made their way back again
into the language from which we borrowed them.
During the nineteenth century English sea-terms were borrowed by foreign sailors in large numbers, and a protest has been recently raised in France against them j but the greatest sufferers from this invasion are the Germans, and the pre-war developments of the German navy and merchant-shipping led to the borrow- ing of English sea-terms in a wholesale manner. An examination of any recent German dictionary of nautical terms will show the great extent of this borrow- ing, and how it has immensely increased in recent years, in spite of the efforts of patriotic Germans to counteract it. These efforts were led by the Allgemeiner Deutsche Sprachnjereiny a society which was formed in 1885 to purify the German language, and which claims to have done much, with the help of the Government, the newspapers, and the educated classes, to replace borrowed terms by words of native formation. If we are to j udge
by the publications of this society, Germany was for many years before the war threatened by an invasion of English methods, English ideals, and English terms |n all departments of life j in 1899 the Sprachverein passed, in the form of a resolution, a warning to patriotic Germans, urging them to resist the growth of English
19
WORDS JND IDIOMS
influence, and to fight against this invasion of English
words. In the same year they published a tract,
Englanderei in der deutschen Sprachey and ten years
later this was amplified and republished, and the book
is now before me. One section of it is concerned with
sea-terms, and its author gives from various German
nautical vocabularies a long list of words which have
been borrowed from the English language.^
The author has, however, omitted to mention the curious fact that the English surname of Lloyd has become a name for a steamship company, as in the Bremer Lloydy the Norddeutscher Lloydy and is also used in compounds like Lloyddampfer,
It is possible, as some believe, that English is destined to become a universal language, and that the flooding of the languages of the world with English sea-terms is the beginning and rising tide of this process. Or it may be that the English sea-empire is destined to share the fate of the great empires of the past, and to leave in the sea-languages of the world, as these have done, a deposit of English terms as a memorial of its vanished greatriess and dominion. But whatever the future may hold, there is one lesson which we may learn with profit from the past and from the present character of our
^ Bilge, Brigg, Bu'nker, Centreboard, Dock, Donkey, Ekono- miser. Fender, CUg, Hiel, Hurricane-Deck, Jiggermast, Klipper, Kommodore, Kove, Kriek, Kutter, List, Lugger, Messe, Pan- cakes, Pijacke (pea-jactet), Pier, Pitchpine-noU, Poop, Pro- peller, Shaping-Maschine, Skiff, Skylight, Skysail, Steerage, Stern, Storekeeper, Stringer, Surf, Tandem-Maschine, Tank, Tankschiff, Tender, Topp (of a mast), Tdrrt (turn), Track, Tramp, Transmitter, Trawl, Trimm, Trunk, Trysegel, Twist, Yellow-metall, and Yellow-pine. In addition to this large and miscellaneous collectioiL of nouns, the, verbs chartern, dippen, docke,n^ jumpen, listen, loggen, pullen, schiften, trimmen and several others are mentioned.
20
ENGLISH SEJ-TERMS
sea-vocabulary. The English language is of a com-
posite character ; for many centuries it has enriched
itself by borrowing terms from foreign languages, and
this process will no doubt continue in the future. How
should we treat these foreign invaders ? Should we
turn them into natives, or should we preserve as far as
possible their alien character and sound f The modern
tendency is to use these words in their foreign form,
and to preserve the foreign spelling and the foreign
pronunciation of the vowels and consonants. This
tendency is to be regretted from many points of view,
for words of difficult pronunciation put an unnecessary
burden on English tongues 5 and terms, moreover,
which we borrow, but do not naturalize, are apt to
be short-lived, and to perish from our language, and
thus our speech tends to lose expressions which would
add to its richness and variety. In old days, when words
were borrowed, not from books, but from living speech,
little or no attempt was made to preserve their foreign
appearance j they soon were translated into English
form and sound, and made thoroughly natural and at
home. It is owing to this old assimilative power that
the English language, in spite of its polyglot sources,
has been handed on to us with so native and genuine
and English a character and sound.
V
We most of us believe ourselves to be concerned about the preservation of the English language, and every now and Api some eminent person a
gr^v^ and w;ams us that its pmty
WORDS JND IDIOMS
is threatened "by this or that new development which they happen to dislike. It would be easy to show from the record of these protests in the past, or from a criticism of those which have been made in more recent years, that the purists are almost always wrong — that their condemnations and fulminations are little more than outbursts of blind prejudice, being based neither on a knowledge of the past history of our speech, nor any sound conception of what pure English really is. For what after all is purity in language ? The German notion that it consists in the expulsion of terms borrowed from foreign sources, and their replacement by native compounds, is at best a questionable one, and, in spite of our Anglo-Saxon enthusiasts, can have but a limited application to our speech — ^we have drunk too long and too deep of southern vintages to restrict ourselves now to northern brewings. It is true indeed that owing to our whole- sale importations from abroad, terms of native manu- facture, and in especial English compounds, are unduly handicapped — ^words like aviator, aeronaut amd aero- plane^ are swallowed at once, without quest! on, while air- man or airplane have to fight hard for survival. But it is the ancient custom of our speech to take what words it needs freely from foreign sources, and to give them, as we have given our borrowed sea-terms, English shapes and sounds. It is by means of this process of assimila- tion that we have preserved in the past the purity of our language — purity meaning for us homogeneity of speech, or if that word is too cumbrous, we may perhaps borrow from the editor of the Oxford Dictionary the slightly less cumbrous word “ anglicity,” to define this
22
ENGLISH SEJ-TERMS
ideal of purity, or press the word “ integrity ” into
our service. By the purity ” of an English word, its
homogeneity, its anglicity, we would mean then, not
its Teutonic pedigree, hut, whatever its source, its
conformity in sound and shape with the core of the
language, and its complete and satisfactory assimilation.^
This assimilative power belongs not to the educated classes, but to practical and unlettered people 5 and nowhere can we study its working better than in the speech of sailors and fishermen, who are not troubled by any ideal of “ correctness,” and transform all their borrowings, gathered from almost all quarters of the world, into words which seem thoroughly native and at home. But sailors, like all true language-makers, carry this process of assimilation still further. They are often not content with translating foreign words into sounds congenial to English ears, and suitable to English tongues, but like, when possible, to change them to look like words with an English meaning. Thus halier was transformed by sailors into halyard^ by association with the old English word yard^ the Dutch taffereel (a little table or picture) has become taffraiU as if named from the rail above the carved or ornamented part of the ship’s stern, which originally
^M. Remy de Gounnont in his Estketique de la langue Francaise, has expounded with reference to the French language> ideal of purity, and it has been accepted as satisfactory, I believe, by the best French linguists. Punty in he says, consists in assimilation, and the French
pure ” words which have undergone those modi- changes in shape and sound by which the French :^|itoa^e has been created out of I^tin. Impure wordsf^j^ hand, are those which have been taken
scientists from the classical or modem
WORDS JND IDIOMS
bore tliis^ designation ; and the Spanish bitacula (from
habitaculum) has, through bittade^ become hinnade^ as
if it was connected with our English word bin. This
method of punning or popular etymology often leads
to somewhat absurd results, for any kind of meaning,
howdver inappropriate, will do, so long as there is a
similarity of sound. The word, it is felt, must mean
something, even if the meaning have no connection
with the object or process which it describes. So the
horns of a mast (a Scandinavian word) have been changed
into hounds^ and thejury’-mast^ derived perhaps from an
old French word ajuirie {adjutare\ has been given a
name which may well puzzle anyone who tries to
discover its meaning. An absurd and recent pun of
this kind is found in the phrase to scandalize^ or reduce
the area of the sail, for the origin of this inappropriate
verb is to be found in the older word scanteli%e»
But the genius for language of English sailors shows itself not only in their power of assimilating foreign terms, but in their faculty of creating them when necessary. The native words which appear to have been formed in Anglo-Saxon times have already been mentioned j and cody haddock^ prawn^ are first found in medieval English \ jib, ripple^ berth, awning appear in the seventeenth century, while bunk and capsize and lurgee are of more recent formation. These words have come into being in ways which baflde etymologists, and some at least of them look like fresh creations — living words, fresh-minted by the fishermen and sailors, who preserve that power of word-creation which belongs to the unlettered classes, and which, still active in spoken dialects and the speech of various trade? aiid sports,
24
ENGLISH SEJ-TERMS
provides that rich choice of vivid terms by* which
standard languages are nourished and replenished. The
word heackj for instance, is a dialect word native to the
coasts of Kent and Sussex, where it is still used with
its original meaning of shingle or sea-worn pebbles,
used for “beaching” paths and roads. One of the
most important of our new nautical terms, schooner^
has come from New England, and, like the nineteenth-
century clipper^ remains in our vocabulary as a token
of that pre-eminence in the arts of shipbuilding which
the Americans won and held so long. Schooners were
first built, or at least first came into extensive use, in
the American colonies, and the story is well known of
the bystander at the launching of the earliest of these
American vessels, who exclaimed, “ Oh ! how she
scoons ! ” whereupon her builder answered, “ A scooner
let her be.” Etymologies depending on anecdotes of
this kind are justly regarded with considerable suspicion,
and there is no evidence that the Northern dialect word,
to scoon or scm^ “ to skim along the water,” was ever
used in New England 5 but at present this explanation
holds the field, as no better one has been suggested.
The home-made character of English sea-terms which has been so strongly marked since the establish- ment of the English sea-supremacy, is fully apparent in the more recent additions to our nautical vocabulary.
Our terms connected with steam navigation, steamboat ^
steam^^dineTy paddle y propeller y screw y and ftmnel are
mp<:^^M^sh formations, or the application of words
in our language 5 and those excellent
searchlight^ and ironclad are a proof
pr^erve that word-making faculty,
2 S
WORDS JND IDIOMS
and that love for simple and easily comprehended terms,
which seems, if we are to judge by recent additions to
the language, to be dying out in most other classes of
Englishmen. The word last mentioned, ironclad^ is a
good instance of the happy exercise of this faculty.
When d\iring the Crimean War ships protected by
iron or steel armour were first built in France, and
almost immediately afterwards in England, a large
number of adjectives, as the Oxford Dictionary tells us,
were used to describe them : iron^ or steel-- or armour--
plated^ --cased^ --clothed^ -sided^ and many others, and
iron-elated was the official adjective until 1866. But
among these adjectives ironclad had also been used ;
and as this term, unlike iron-plated^ could be easily
employed as a noun, the common sense of sailors (appar-
ently first In America) adopted it, and it has now
vanquished its competitors in this interesting verbal
struggle for survival. This sailors’ luck or inspiration
has also added, in quite recent times, a magnificent new
word to our nautical vocabulary ; for when the first
of the great new battleships was given the historic name
of ‘‘ Dreadnought,” a name was chosen which could
easily become a class-name, and is now used to describe
a special class of battleship ; and we have forgotten that
the word was in earlier and humbler use for a thick
cloak or waterproof. Another recent enrichment of
the language is the great word battleships contracted
from the older line-of-hattle ship, and this formation
would appear to be a very new one, as battleship is not
found in the Oxford Dictionary,
One trembles to think of what our names for these new vessels would have become, had their baptism been 26
ENGLISH SEJ-TERMS
left to the learned inventors and men of science to whom, on land, we entrust the duty of providing us with new terms. If we are to judge by words like cinematograph and terms of aviation, hydro’-aeroplancy etc., a steamer would have been called a pyroscaphe (like the Italian piroscafo)^ or an athmoploion^ after the example of modern Greek ; for battleship we should have had a word like polemoscaphe perhaps ; while an ironclad might have increased its formidable character under the name of siderozone or siderochiton^ or if we preferred a ]\yhni^ferropleuk. That words like steamer^ ironclad^ Dreadnought^ battleship are to be preferred to these Greek compounds, few would question ; we ought indeed to keep them before us as models of what new English words should be \ and as the safety and independence of the English nation is committed to the care of the English fleet, so we might also do worse than entrust the care of the English language to her seamen, in the confidence that they would preserve its national character better than we on land seem to be performing that necessary task.
27
CHAPTER II
THE ENGLISH ELEMENT IN FOREIGN LANGUAGES
I HAVE mentioned in the last chapter sor^:ie of the English sea-terms which have been adopted into the vocabularies of foreign countries. But in a.d<lition to sea-tenns, our language has contributed rxt^ny other words to continental vocabularies : we often come across these in foreign books and newspapers, where th ey* make on us a curious impression of mingled familiarity and strangeness. Sometimes, as in gin, sport, gentleman, they keep their English forms 5 others have acquired foreign shapes 5 our pudding has become pozedingue in French, podingo in Italian, tranmay is tr'tznvia in Spanish, and boycott, boikottirovat in Russian- Or we can recognize English compounds which have been trans- lated — aussperren for lockout in German, bol'a negra for blackball in Spanish. In the linguistic adventures abr^ of our English words there is much that is curious, but their borrowing has more than a linguistic importance. When we examine the Englishi element in the French language, we find that it is for the most part compos^ of words likeyWy, budget, sport, Jashion, comfort, which are French in origin, but which have returned to France with English meanings acquired
ENGLISH WORDS ABROAD
during their sojourn in this country. And here we come on the really interesting part of our curious subject; for it is after all on account of their meanings, and not their forms, that these words and not others have been borrowed by our continental neighbours. They repre- sent special products of English life for whigh other languages possessed no terms, and stand both for English characteristics which foreigners have observed, and for objects, institutions, customs and ideas of English origin which they have imitated.
Much has been written about national character, and the influence of various nations on each other. We know of course that all the countries of Europe have developed on more or less different lines ; and that each, owing to race, climate and historical causes, has pro- duced its own form of civilization, and that these have often influenced each other ; and that the history of one country must be studied with reference to that of its neighbours. We know also that the various Western nations share in a common civilization to which, in varying degrees, they have all contributed.
The study of this European civilization, its origin, and growth, and the contributions made to it by different nations and races, is unfortunately one of those subjects which, in Buckle’s phrase, although they are not wanting in certainty, yet lack precision. There is a sad want of conctote and definite facts, anything we can take hofjd of and date and measure. Estimates of national apt to be little more than expressions of opinion or prejudice ; and they are often so so contradictory, that sceptics have questioned ^ibere was really any such thing as national 29
WORDS JND IDIOMS
character at all. And yet we feel that the Englishman, the Frenchman, the German, the Italian, are all very different ty^es, although their exact differences may elude our attempts at definition. And when we approac^i the history of European culture we find our- selves in a cloudy realm full of vague generalizations and vast conclusions ; and even in the study of com- parative literature the same lack of precision baffles us, for literary influences are subtle matters, and it is difficult to trace them very exactly.
But these are all questions which are too important to be neglected ; the historians of the future must be largely concerned with the history of international culture, and the study of those nations and races by which it has been created. The subject will, no doubt, be approached in different ways ; and among these it may turn out that the most definite, and perhaps not the least fruitful in results, will be that of language. For not only is the collective spirit of a nation more completely embodied and expressed in the national form of speech than in any other way, but the influence of the language of one country on that of another is an influence that can be accurately traced, and it is always a sure proof of some sort of relation between the two countries. The French, the Italian, the Dutch ele- ments in our English vocabulary are clear indications of what we have borrowed from those countries 5 and if we isolate and study the English element in conti- nental languages, we may hope to find it an expression of English character, and an indication of the contribu- tion which our race has made to the civilization of Europe — of the special domains of human activity
30
ENGLISH WORDS JBROJD
ia w-hich it has been most fertile in ideas. This
linguistic method of study may prove itself in some ways
inadequate 5 it may fail us at certain points, but it will at
least be based on definite facts, and will bring something
objective and capable of test into a region tc^ much
given over to patriotism, prejudice and mere ojfinion.
In examining the words borrowed from our language .it is necessary, however, to make certain distinctions ; they fall into different classes, and all of these are not of equal importance for our purpose. First of all there is a number of exotic terms whose origin and character are not English, although they have reached the con- tinent through the medium of our language. Among these are terms from India like calico^ shampoo^ veranda^ the West Indian mahogany^ and other exotic words like albatross, alligator, gutta-percha, tatoo, taboo, and totem. Then there is a second class of international words whose English provenance is also more or less accidental. This class consists of terms deliberately coined by individuals, for the most part men of science 5 they are made up of Greek or Latin elements, and belong to the language of European thought, rather than to the specifically English vocabulary. They are hardly national products, but the coinages of individual English- men, like Sir Thomas More’s Utopia, l:^zipierhhgarith 7 ity Bentham’s international, and others of the same char- acter, cyclone, eugenics, kaleidoscope^ and the
silkdcnd, linoleum. These terms, save as the trend of English thought, and the in which it has made discoveries, are also importance for our purpose, significant are what we may call travellers’
31
WORDS JND IDIOMS
terms, words like alderman^ coroner ^clergyman^ Dissenter y
Quaker y Presbyterian ^ MisSy policeman y Tory^ Whigy
Squire, which are used hy foreigners who have visited
England, or by writers who have described English
life. Jjrhese possess a certain national interest, as they
descriof the impressions of foreign observers. But the
most interesting, and for our purpose the most important,
class of English words in foreign languages, are those
which have been borrowed abroad with the objects,
the institutions, the ways of thought and feeling they
describe. These are the words which have been most
thoroughly assimilated and most completely incorpor-
ated into foreign speech, and they are the surest indices
by which we can trace our contributions to the civiliza-
tion of Europe. But for an adequate treatment of our
subject we must not confine ourselves merely to the
borrowing of English words. There are many cases
where not the word itself, but its English meaning, has
been borrowed 5 where words already established in
the European vocabulary have acquired a special
significance in this country which has then been added
to this foreign meaning. The word ballade for instance
has two meanings in French and German, one of which
is continental, and the other English ; and the old
French word record has lost its ancient use, which has
been replaced by the signification which it has acquired
in. En^and as a term of sport.
Taking then as the English element in foreign languages both the words and the meanings borrowed from our speech, we are struck, first of all, by the large number of political terms which it contains — hy the importance of the English words relating to politics
32
ENGLISH WORDS ABROAD
which have beea domiciled abroad. That the words
committee^ jwy^ budget^ meetings speech^ pamphlet^ have
beea borrowed, not only- in France, but in other
countries, is a remarkable evidence of the impression
made by the English methods of free government and
free political discussion, and the way in which these
methods have been imitated by other nations. But in
the cases where meanings, but not words, have made
their way abroad the evidence is even more striking,
for it is in England that the great words constitution^
represent^ representative, vote, have acquired the special
meanings which they now possess in the vocabulary of
Europe — ^meanings not found in their earlier uses, and
not always implied in their etymological origin. In
the earlier instances of the word constitution^ both in
England and abroad, there is no suggestion of the
limitation of arbitrary power \ the words represent and
representative acquired their present signification in
England at about the time of the Commonwealth.
Even the great word Parlement, as the French now use it, derives its modern meaning from this country. Parlement was indeed the French name, in early times, for the assembly of the great men of the kingdom ; but it became narrowed in meaning afterwards, and was used for a certain number of the Supreme Courts of Justice, in which the edicts of the King were registered. But in England the Parliaments or great Councils of the Plantagenet Kings developed in the course of history into that modern two-chamber institution which most foreign nations have imitated, borrowing with it the English meanings of the words p£irlia?nent and parliamentary.
W.I. 33 0
WORDS JND IDIOMS
Other old French words which have acquired new and English meanings in the same manner are the parliamentary terms address^ motion^ majority, minority, opposition, indemnity, obstruction, radical, conservative)- Among political terms less strictly parliamentary may be mentioned the words agitation and agitator , which first became popular at the time of the “ agitation ” for Catholic emancipation^ From this movementj and also from the English anti-slavery movement, is derived the popularity of the great watchword emancipation, and its application to the oppressed races* of Europe,® More recently the modern terms ^Nationalism and Nationalist have been adopted from Irish politics as party names in other countries ; boycott has spread over almost all the world 5 Imperialism, formerly used for the Napoleonic form of government in France, has acquired abroad the new and English meaning of extension of empire over inferior races, while colonize and colonhation are borrowings of an earlier date. We see therefore from our linguistic picture that the English are eminently a political people, who have
^ My lists of political and other English, terms whicli have been horro’wed abroad are by no means exhaustive. Since this chapter was written, M. Paul Barbier has published in the S.P,E. Tracts VII. (1921) and XIII. {1923). much more extensive lists of English words in the French language, with lexicological and textual notes of great interest. He gives, fox in.stan.ce, in addition to the above terms, whose political meaning is derived from England, the^ following : ajoumer, ajoumemeifU, amender, amemLement, coalition, dissoudre, dissolu^ tiofi, exScuHf, legislatij, kgislatwe, liste civile, proroger, prorogor iion, quorum, session.
® H. Barbier adds to this class of terms the important words, patnote, patrioiisme, esprit public, ripublicanisme, and the use of the adjective oppressiftox government and taxation. All these were eighteenth-century borrowings.
34
ENGLISH WORDS ABROAD
originated and developed institutions and methods of
popular and free government which almost all the world
has imitated. England has often been called the mother
of parliaments, and like other mothers, she has taught
her own language to her children.
There are two other words of English origin, club and freemason, which though not strictly political terms, have yet acquired a political significance, and have been added to many foreign languages. The word club has changed its meaning in modern times ; it was borrowed, however, in the eighteenth century with the signification, given it by Dr. Johnson, of an assembly of good fellows meeting under certain conditions,” and these assemblies soon acquired a political character, both in England and abroad. Somewhat similar in its origin and in its development abroad was freemasonry, another institution developed on English soil and trans- planted with its name to the Continent at a somewhat earlier date.^
^ The -word freemason was borrowed and naturalized in Italian ^ fvammassone ; in French and German it was translated mto franc ma^on, Freimaurer. The origin of the English word is obscure, and various explanations have been suggested. The masons were called free/* either because they worked in free-stone, or because they were of a superior class, or because they were '*free'* of the masons’ guild; or perhaps, as the Oxford, Dictionary suggests, because, travelling about as they did from one place to another, they claimed exemption from the control of the local guilds in the towns where they were temporarily settled. The word lodge, loge, loggia, etc., already existed in the Latin lan^ages, but acquired a new special meaning from its use in English freemasonry. It is in origin a Teutonic word, and its original meaning was apparently that of a " shelter of foliage,’' a " summer- house," and it is connected with our EngUsh word " leaf." Borrowed from Germany into France, and thence into England, it returned again to the Continent with a new meaning.
35
WORDS JND IDIOMS
In the same way that in the eighteenth century the
Continent borrowed clubs and masonic lodges, so, in
the last century labour organizations have been imitated,
and their terms borrowed abroad. Trade-mion is found
in French and Italian, the word lock-out has been
borrowed or translated in many foreign languages,
strike has been naturalized in German and Swedish,
and the English co-operative movement has given a
new meaning to co-operation^ and the adjective co-
operutwe.
II
After politics, social organisation and labour, the other department of the European vocabulary in which the English element predominates is that of sport. The word sport itself though French in origin (it is a shortened form of disport)^ has acquired its special meaning in England, and, with sportsman^ has made its way everywhere. With it we find practically the whole vocabulary of our racing terms; jockey^ Derby^ turf, handicap, steeple-chase, and many others, with other sporting terms, record, match, box ; and more recently the vocabularies of football, tennis and golf have been almost universally borrowed.
Foreign railway terms also are largely of English origin, and the words rail, express, tender^ tunnel, trolley, wagon, have been taken from our language. Tramway also (meaning abroad a tram-car) and macadam and macadamize are to be found in most continental languages. In the nautical vocabularies of foreign countries the English element is, as we have already
ENGLISH WORDS ABROAD
seen, large and is rapidly increasing. In trade and
finance besides the words guinea and shillings we find
that the important terms, export^ import^ exportation^
importation^ free trade ^ warranty cheque^ consols^ stocky
jobber y have been largely borrowed, and with them
the manufactured words celluloidy linoleum, tabloid, and
kodak,
English journalism has contributed the important words reporter and leader ; esmy^ though borrowed from Montaigne, was popularized abroad by Macaulay’s Essays, and the European vocabulary of literary criticism contains a number of important words, of which we must speak later in more detail. In philosophy and science, in addition to the adjectives Baconien, Lockiste, Nfewtonien, Darwinien, are to be found many terms of great importance taken from these and other English thinkers, to which also a more detailed consideration must be given. The importance of most of these borrowed words is in curious contrast with the English contributions in many other departments of human activity. Our language, with the exception of Deist, ^ P antheist, Puritan, Quaker, Presbyterian, and the recent Salvation Army, has added little to the vocabulary of religious faith 5 ^ save for mess, which is perhaps of
1 Th.e word Deism is first foimd in French, and was used by Pascal, and Deist is even older. But the words returned to the Continent in the eighteenth century with the special meaning given them by the English Deists. Pantheist was formed by the English Deist Toland in 1705. Toland did not use the word Pantheism, which was apparently formed from Pantheist in France. {O.E,D.)
® Free Thought, however, has been borrowed, and M. Barbier believes that, towards the end of the seventeenth century, the controversial terms, J^suitique, JSsuitisme,
37
WORDS JND IDIOMS
nautical origin, it had, until the late war, given Europe
no military terms. But in matters connected with the
fine arts and music the poverty of our contrihutions
is, perhaps, most remarkable. We share, with the rest
of Europe, an international set of artistic terms, a
vocabulary of music, painting, sculpture, architecture,
first formed by the Italians of the Renaissance, and
since then enriched by French, German and more
modern Italian words ; but to this our language has
made no additions of any importance. Pre-^Raphaelite
as the description of an English School, and the modern
aesthetey are so far our only artistic exports ; and
Benjamin Franklin’s harmonica the only contribution
of our race to the world’s vocabulary of music.
This collection of terms certainly presents us a kind of mirror in which we see the character of our race reflected. But there are other classes of borrowed words which add significant details to that picture. When Sterne in his Sentimental 'Journey commented on a phrase used by his French barber, he truly re- marked, “ I think I can see the precise and distinguishing marks of national characters more in these nonsensical winuti^^ than in the most important matters of state ” ; and the English character, as it is seen in English loan words, is perhaps the most clearly mirrored in terms descriptive of food and dress, and of social types and customs.
In the words roast-beefy beefsteak, puddingy rum, aUy grogy vihiskeyy we see portrayed, in an almost comic
^o/pistique^ ^ Catholicisme and anti-chT'itien, derived mucli of theix meaning from English writings. He gives also fanatiqtic ^dfanatisme as words of English origin. (S.P.E. Tract No. VII., pp. lo-ii.)
38
ENGLISH WORDS ABROAD
manner the taste for strong drinks and solid foods of
that John Bull whom Taine described as “ nourished
by meat and porter, and sustained by bodily exercise
and boxing.” If we compare the terms connected with
food and drink which the French have borrowed from
us, with the terms they have given us in return, cham-
liqueur^ omelette ^soufflSy pat S^potage^ and hundreds
of others, the contrast in national tastes appears in a
striking manner. We must content ourselves with
the plum pudding as the highest achievement of our
race in the culinary art.
The same contrast appears in the names of dress. Englishmen, it is true, have set some of the fashions in men’s dress, as we see in the riding-coat {redmgote\ the spencer y the carrkky the smoking; but the greater number of terms connected with costume which have been borrowed from us are of a plain and practical character. France has acquired from England the mackintoshy the macfarlancy the waterproof y the plaidy and the useful fiannely and is now assimilating ulsters, sweaters, snow-boots and knicker-hockers ; while we at the same time have imported, and still import from France, our whole vocabulary of feshionable dress.
But there is even more direct evidence to be found about the point we are considering. Each of the more important countries of Europe has produced certain strongly marked types of character, and provided also from its own language the names or labels they bear in the international portrait gallery. From Spain has come the hidalgo, and with him the don, the duenna^ the Don Quixote ; the dilettante, the cicerone, the charlatan, the la%%eroney the improvisatore are children
39
PFORDS JND IDIOMS
of the Italian climate ; the Philistine, the Jtmker,
the Superman came, with the mild Backfisch, from
Germany ; while France has provided the world with
rich and varied portraits^ the amateur, the hon vivant^
the bel esprit, the fidnewr, iiie femme iu monde^ the demi--
mondaine, the esprit fort, the inteliecfuel, and many
others. In the same way the Englishman, who made,
early in history, a remarkable appearance on Continental
soil as a Goddam, or Godon^ has since that period been
differentiated by foreign observers into various types —
the ?mlord, the gentleman, the sportsman, the groom,
the jockey, the tourist, the dandy, the fashionable, and
the snob. All these, their female companions the
miss, the spinster^ and the Hue stocking, have been
noted and named abroad. Some of these type-names
give evidence of the impression made on foreigners by
the travelling Englishmen of rank and their ideal of
aristocratic life and manners. Our word gentleman,
is, in its foreign use, descriptive of an ideal of what we
call ‘‘good form,” and it is perhaps partly due to the
prestige abroad of this ideal, and of English ways of life in
general, that English sports have been so widely imitated,
and their vocabularies borrowed. Another group of
not unrelated words — high-Jife, fashion, blackball,, and
the more recent borrowings, smart, select, snob, point
to the conclusion that social exclusiveness and social
ambition — le snobiisme in fact — ^must be regarded as
peculiarly predominant in English social life. Other
English characteristics expressed by the terms spleen,
humour, eccentricity will he considered later ; home,
comfort and comfortabJe are three very English words,
which, describing as they do a very characteristic side
40
ENGLISH IFORDS JBROJD
of English life, have been widely borrowed ; and not
unallicd to these is the famous pudeur mglaise, the
desire for outward decorum, which, to foreign observers,
seems not devoid of an element of hypocrisy* The
F rench have borrowed from our language tihe word
cani to describe this characteristic — England is called
ie pays du canty and the adjective shocking I is considered,
all over the Continent, to be one of the most frequent
of English exclamations. Puritan is also used in this
connection, and we have added the word humbug to the
German vocabulary.^ The word respectability has also
been borrowed, and from its English use a new mean-
ing has accrued to the French adjective,
To be at once respectable and comfortable ; these two words embrace all the mainsprings of English actions,” T. aine remarked, using respectable in its English sense of presenting a decent appearance to the world. This special use of “ respectable ” to describe dress or other marks of social position, has been more than once remarked upon by foreign critics, one of them for instance, finding something odd in a sentence which he read in an English paper, to the effect that ‘‘ a young woman of respectable appearance had been found dead-drunk in Ae gutter.”
Ill
Such then Is the Englishman, with his active life
as a politician and a sportsman, his home, his^ comfort,
his strong drinks and solid foods, as he has impressed
^ To this list of ethical terras should be added thefoUomag
French words, which E. Barhier Qoo. at,) taces to English
sources, indilicaU movaUste, immomh tfnnorahU,
41
tFO£,DS Jm IDIOMS
himself upon the continent of Europe^ He has himself
provided from his own language words to describe his
ideals and habits and idiosyncrasies, and the national
type they portray is one of the most vivid and consistent
tiiat can anywhere be found. How absurdly British,
how like a company of British tourists seen abroad, all
these words are — beef-steak^ waterproof comfort^ sporty
and how aggressively the national character sticks out
from each ! It is a type of character, an active and
hardy way of life, which are imposing themselves,
more and more, with their standards and customs, upon
the world ; and the language which so vividly expresses
them, is becoming more and more a universal language
for all educated people. And not only are more and
more foreigners learning to talk English, but they are
naturalizing English words in their native tongues in
ever increasing numbers.
And yet it is curious to note that this immense expansion of the English language, and this borrowing of English words abroad, is a comparatively recent phenomenon in history. For many centuries we im- ported words from the Continent in vast quantities j Englishmen spoke French and studied Italian and borrowed the ideals and imitated the customs of these countries, but they gave practically nothing in return. Their speech was almost unknown to foreigners, nor did it occur to Frenchmen or .Italians that there was anything of value to be derived from this country. Even as late as the reign of Charles IL, there was, as Macaulay puts it in his picturesque way, a great gulf between the public mind of England and that of France. “ Our institutions and our factions were as little under- 42
ENGLISH JTORDS JBROJD
stood at Paris as at Constantinople. It may be doubted whether any one of the forty members of the French Academy had an English volume in his library, or knew Shakespeare, Jonson, or Spenser, even by name.” ^
England was for many centuries regarded by most of the cultivated inhabitants of the Continent as a remote island enveloped in mist, and inhabited by men as fierce and savage as the famous English mastiffs. To the great vocabulary of European civilization, the set of terms descriptive of doctrines, ideas, ways of feeling, institutions, artistic products and processes, which was first Italian and then French in origin, and to which Spain also contributed, our country made no additions before a comparatively late date towards the end of the seventeenth century.^ If at this period all the contributions of England to Continental culture had been wiped out, the world would have been aware of no appreciable loss.
As the point is one of some historical importance, it may be worth while to say a few words about it. During the Middle Ages it is true a few English words connected with trade and with the sea found their way into the French language, and in the sixteenth and the greater part of the seventeenth century the terms that were borrowed are of the same unimportant kind,
^ History of England, vol. i. chapter ii.
® A mention should, however, be made of the words tr^s- ported to Norway in the tenth century, by the early mission- aries who went to convert th^-t country. But these ecclesiastical terms, like abbot, church, cross, deacon, font, priest, etc., which were borrowed into the Scandinavian languages, belonged to the universal language of the Church, and were merely handed on by our Anglo-Saxon ancestors to their heathen neighbours, and cannot be regarded as products of English life.
43
WORDS AND idioms
The only English word borrowed in the sixteenth
century which has become a general European term
is dog. This word, found at first in the phrase English
dog, made its way abroad to describe a powerful breed
of English dogs then famous on the Continent.
Towards the end of the seventeenth and in the first half of the eighteenth century, however, a remarkable change took place. Foreign nations began to borrow English words in ever increasing numbers, not merely terms of trade and shipping, but words of a much more important kind. This linguistic fact corresponds very accurately in date with that great historical event which has been called “the discovery of England.” First by means of Protestant refugees from France and then, mainly through the writings of Voltaire and Montes- quieu, a whole new world was discovered, a civilization, a language, a literature, a science, a philosophy, a system of government, hitherto unknown. England was now seen looming in the West — ^a great and prosperous country, towards which all eyes were turned. But the history of this discovery has been written elsewhere ; ^ we are only concerned with its linguistic aspect. The appearance in F rench writings of the words Alderman, Puritan, committee, hilly before the end of the seventeenth century, shows the growth of this knowledge of England 5 and now, with bowling-'green (houlingrin), ale, rum and punch, we find the earliest of those sporting and alcoholic terms which were destined to be borrowed in such surprising numbers. And with these we find one word of prime importance, perhaps the greatest and most
^ Above and h a most masterly fashion, by Joseph Texte, in his fean^ Jacques Rousseate et les ovigims m cosmo- politisme Httemire (1895).
44
ENGLISH WORDS ABROAD
characteristic word which English has contributed to
human thought. This is the word experimentaly of
which the meaning, used as it was of Bacon’s experi-
mental philosophy,” reached F ranee with the knowledge
of this philosophy before the beginning of the eighteenth
century.
But it was in the eighteenth century, and especially in the years following Voltaire’s visit, that the real invasion began. The lardy the baronet y the gentlemany the coronary the Quaker y the Presbyteriany became known to Frenchmen. Freemasonry spread abroad, and clubs were formed where men of common education, what- ever their condition of life, could meet together and converse on equal terms, English political institutions became objects of study and admiration 5 words like juryy budgety exciscy were borrowed, and the old terms, vote, constitutiony Parlement, acquired new and English meanings. The influence of English liberal thought in religious matters, English natural religion,” popu- larized as it was in France by Voltaire, and by transla- tions from the English Deists, and by Pope’s Essay on Many shows itself in the words Free Thought y Deist, and Deism, which now became current, in the borrowed term Pantheist, and may also be found in the formation of the French word tolerance, which is apparently of later date than the English toleration. The advance in scientific thought which we associate with Bacon and Boyle and Newton, ‘‘English philosophy” as it was called, il saper hritannico, also aroused great en- thusiasm in France and Germany and Italy. The great word experimental was followed by Locke’s Association of Ideas ; by Newton’s learned formations,
45
WORDS JND IDIOMS
centrifugal, centripetal, refrangibility ; by' the new
meanings he gave to fluxions, to inertia, and by his
new and most important application of the word attract
tion — the word which, as Voltaire said, caused such
dismay in France, where the adherents of the new
theory were labelled attractionnaires or attractionnistes.
There is perhaps nothing in linguistic history more
striking than the contrast between the great English
words which reached the Continent at this period, and
the humble trade terms, the names of boats and fishes,
which had been borrowed in the previous centuries.
About 1750 we find the very curious word Anglo-- mania appearing, a word which would have been meaningless in the previous century, but which now became current and popular. This Continental Anglo- mania, this enthusiasm for English ways, which began in France, and spread from F ranee to the rest of Europe, was in some ways reasonable enough, but there entered into it also a certain unreal and fantastic element. The French nation, exhausted by the wars and the dismal years in which the great reign of Louis XIV. ended, and subject still to political and religious despotism, saw in England a striking contrast to its own sorry condition — a prosperous country, in which the principles of religious toleration and constitutional government had been established, and in which also a new philosophy, a new science, and a new literature had come into existence.
But tile real facts of the case were curiously distorted, Voltaire and other French Anglomaniacs had little of the very modern desire to get at the truth, to portray life and institutions as they really are» Their object
45
ENGLISH WORDS ABROAD
was in the main polemical, and their praise of English freedom and English toleration was really an attack on the State and Church in F ranee. Reformers often try to find in foreign countries their ideal of what they wish for at home ; the enthusiasm in Athens for an ideal Sparta, the admiration of Tacitus for the ancient Germans, are familiar instances of this tendency of all peoples to build political castles in the air of countries beyond their own borders. This polemical intention is reinforced also by the tendency, natural to the human mind, to find something wonderful and admir- able in whatever is strange and foreign. Nations look at each other from afar through curious glasses, glasses which sometimes distort and caricature, but which often tinge the objects seen through them with prismatic colours. England has in the course of modern history incurred much political hatred, but English life and English customs have shone, and still shine, with a certain glory. Words in consequence borrowed from our language have acquired abroad a glamour and a prestige which they by no means possess at home. It is difficult for us quite to appreciate the full effects of this curious sea-change, the way in which our clowns and grooms and jockeys take on, in crossing the Channel, a new distinction, and our homely puddings and beef-steaks are transformed into something rich and strange by the same process.
IV
When Gibbon visited Paris in 1763, he found, as he tells in his Autobiography , English opinions, fashions,
47
WORDS JND IDIOMS
and even English games were being adopted by French 5 “a ray of national glory,” he says, illumi^^"’ ated each individual, and every Englishman was supposed to be born a patriot and a philosopheir.^ England was then regarded as the Utopia, the mox’al El Dorado, the Fortunate Island of the time ; it was under English skies that Frenchmen imagined id^al dwelling places, cities of philosophers, free and vvrisc and happy. There is something remote, exotic, a-n.d almost Chinese about this ideal England of the eigh"" teenth century , it has the quaintness of those scen^ we see depicted on Chinese porcelain or fans or lacqiJter cabinets. And indeed the analogy with China is rxot altogether fantastic, for China was “ discovered at the same time, and described in much the same fashion. China, too, was a land of virtue and happiness a.nd religious freedom, whose philosophers were endowed vdth the sublimest wisdom, and whose laws, polioe, arts, and industry were held up as models to the Euiro- pean world. Voltaire was the popular discoverer a-nd the panegyrist of both these realms ; from both of them he drew his arguments and examples, findiiag English Quakers or Chinese Mandarins equally usejfol as pawns in his attack on the Church and the Static in France.
Bearing in mind then this Continental Anglomaixia., with its curious effects of distortion and idealizatiom, let us look at the eighteenth -century Englishman ats mirrored in foreign eyes. We see him in Frerxoli feshion-plates and old illustrations, with his long ridirxg— coat, his yellow waistcoat, his uncovered head, 'his cropped and^unpowdered hair. The distinction of liis 48
ENGLISH WORDS JBROJD
bad manners, his haughty ways, his rigid adherence to
his own customs, makes a strong impression as he travels
about the Continent ; and from his own language the
meaning of eccentricity is borrowed to describe his
individuality and independent bearing. But in the
main he was studied in English books 5 the eighteenth-
century Englishman is essentially a literary character ;
and to describe this character it was necessary to use
words borrowed from these books. The immense
influence which was exerted on the Continent in the
eighteenth century by the writings of Addison, Swift,
Defoe, Pope, Richardson, Young, and other authors,
has been described by all literary historians of that
period 5 we are only concerned with the deposits which
it has left in foreign languages. Among these we find
certain stray words, Swift’s Lilliputian , Richardson’s
Lovelace^ a name (now obsolete} for a seducer 5 and
Robinson^ which lingers on as a villa-name in France,
and which, in the form of Rabinsonade^ became a general
term in Germany for stories of adventure. In addition
to these there is a group of words of much greater
importance. One of the best known of these is the
familiar word spleen^ which became the popular name
for a morbid and hypochondriacal state of melancholia,
regarded, both at home and abroad, as a specially English
malady. Voltaire popularized the word in France,
and in one of the latest of important F rench dictionaries
it is defined as ennui de tmtes choseSy maladie hypo^
condriaque propre aux Anglais, With the growing
knowledge of England, English spleen, English melan-
choly, became famous all over Europe, and the word
spread from French into the other languages of the
w.i. 49 ®
WORDS AND IDIOMS
Continent. Englishmen were universally believed to
be in the habit of committing suicide, merely from
disgust with life i and this view prevailed even in
England itself, as we see from the lines in Young’s
famous Night Thoughts :
O Britain, infamous for Suicide! . . .
In ambient Waves plunge thy polluted Head,
Wash the dire Stain, nor shock the Continent.” ^
Foreigners were certainly right in finding a deeply melancholy strain in English literature, especially in the “ graveyard ” poets. Young, Blair, and Gray, who were at this time so popular abroad. Goethe, not without reason, described English poets as accomplished misanthropes, although we can hardly accept as ade- quate his description of the main themes of English ‘‘ tender ” poetry : Here a deserted girl is dying ; there a faithful lover is drowned, or devoured by a shark before he can swim into the presence of his beloved.”
Another* English term borrowed apparently later than spleen is the famous word humour. That foreigners possessed no term for humour has become a commonplace of criticism. It was however pointed out by Voltaire that the French word humeur^ which now means ‘‘bad humour,” had been formerly em-. ployed to describe the perception or expression of the odd and incongruous. But this meaning became obsolete 5 and when in English writings, and especially in those of Sterne, foreigners became acquainted with this characteristic, but by no means exclusively English quality, they were forced to borrow the word to describe it, and we find humour in French side by side with 1 Thoughts^ book v,
50
ENGLISH WORDS ABROAD
humevr. The word with its derivative humorist^ is
equally at home in German and Italian and other
Continental languages.
If Sterne’s writings helped foreigners to understand English humour, he was even more directly responsible for adding to the currency of Europe the word senti-- mental, which had just been issued, new and shining from the English mint. First found as perfumed term of the time,” in 1749, it was carried abroad in 1768 by Sterne’s Sentimental Journey^ The word was borrowed into French and Italian^and also into German, in which language however it was for the most part replaced by em^findsam, a new formation which, on Lessing’s advice, was adopted in the title of the German translation of the Sentimental Journey.
Writers who have borrowed Sterne’s title in more recent times, have done so with conscious irony ; but Sterne seems to have had no ironic intention in his use of this once enchanting word Sentimental for him and his contemporaries had a meaning and expressed a way of feeling which has fallen with us now into such discredit, that we cannot recall its magic, or find indeed any unspoilt term to express it. It sums up and expresses all the various aspects of eighteenth century “sensibility”; the new emotions, the new ways of feeling, which, embodied in English literature and especially in Richardson and Sterne, gave new sentiments to tender souls all over the Continent, unlocked for them new sources of tears, and taught them to weep where they had never wept before. It meant a delicate sensibility, denied to coarse and callous natures, a power of being touched by genuine and 51
WORDS JND IDIOMS
simple things, a sense of our common humanity, and
of the pathos and beauty of life, even in its humblest
aspects, in the poverty of beggars and outcasts, in the love
of the poor peasant for his dead donkey, the unhappiness
of the caged starling. If it also meant an indulgence
in insincere feeling, in the luxury of tears, and the
enjoyment of one’s own emotions, this was hardly
apparent at the time : the word shone like pure gold,
although it has for us at least long since lost its lustre.
The history abroad of the even more important English word romantic will be found in another chapter, where also will be found an account of the English contributions embodied in other romantic terms of criticism, to the Romantic movements in Germany and France. But many years before these movements were given an adequate expression in literature (for the poetry of the eighteenth-century romanticists was still ‘‘ classical ” in style and diction), their characteristic tendencies and ways of feeling were somewhat fantastically embodied in other materials. Travellers in France and Germany or Italy, visiting old palaces and villas, will often have pointed out to them a Jardin Anglais^ and Englischer Garten, a Giardino Ingiese 5 and if they enter these melancholy precincts they will find themselves in spaces of woodland or shrubbery, irregularly laid out with winding paths, and adorned perhaps with decayed temples and hermi- tages — ^bits of landscape, which though called “ English gardens,” are hardly gardens at all as the word is now used in England. These are but the relics and rem- nants left by a fashion in taste which spread from England to the Continent in the eighteenth century — ^a fashion
52
ENGLISH Jf^ORDS JBROJD
which grew directly out of the ways of feeling embodied in the English words sentimental and romantic. The English garden was romantic, not only because it provided with its caves and grottoes the romantic thrill, le frisson romantique, but because it was a return to wild and uncultivated nature. But like Romanticism it was an artistic and self-conscious return, for the origin of this “ Landscape gardening,” as it was called, was largely due to a desire to realize in nature the descriptions of poets, or to copy the landscapes of Claude Lorraine or Poussin or Salvator Rosa. We find also in the English gardens of this period both at home, or on the Continent, all the decorative elements with which the Romantic poets afterwards adorned their poems — crags and waterfalls, and blasted trees. Gothic ruins, and “ timestruck ” abbeys, medieval castles, caves of Merlin, Druid circles, and tombs of imaginary suicides. Nor was the element of romantic exoticism wanting ; the first suggestion of wild gardens came from the reports of travellers in China ; taste for them was often called in France le goUt Anglo’-Chinois^ and they were adorned with Chinese pavilions side by side with obelisks, mosques and Hindu temples. But these gardens were, above all, sentimental in the old meaning of the word ; they were laid out, as Werther wrote, by a “ feeling heart ” 5 they were designed as haunts for solitude and melancholy reverie. Modem horti- culturists will agree with Horace Walpole’s remark that it is “ almost comic to set aside a quarter of one’s garden to be melancholy in ” \ but the amateur of historical sensations who wishes to enjoy the exquisite melancholy of the eighteenth century, and would weep
S3
WORDS JFJD IDIOMS
once more with Werther and Rousseau (if indeed such
tears be possible^ can most successfully revive this obsolete
emotion in the sombre and lonely paths of the half-
abandoned English gardens ” of the Continent.
V
In our study of English influences on the Continent and on continental speech, we have more or less con- fined ourselves to Prance and the French language. But France was at this time the centre of civilization and culture ; Paris was the artistic and intellectual capital of Europe ; French had become the universal language, and thoughts expressed in that tongue, and words borrowed into it, soon made their way into the minds and speech of the rest of Europe, We find the Italians faithfully following the French fashion of Anglomania, bonowing the same words and imitating the same sentiments.^ If the England discovered by the F rench in the eighteenth century was a somewhat unreal and Utopian country, it did not lose that character when seen and imitated from beyond the Alps, Indeed it "became, if anything, more fantastic ; it was a country twice removed, shining through two sets of prismatic glasses 3 the English costumes grew, perhaps, more exaggerated, the English gardens still more grotesque, and the English nilords^ who began to appear on the Italian stage, Mylord Runebifj Lord Stunkle, Lord Wilk, were even more spleenful and eccentric than their French relations.
^See A. Graf, L.^ Anglomania & Vinflusso inglese in Italia ne $ecolo ^vviii. (roiin.0, 1911).
54
ENGLISH WORDS JBROJD
To Germany also the knowledge of England came at first from France, and many of the English words which the Germans borrowed were pronounced at first in the French fashion. But the Germans soon dis- covered another England for themselves — ^a much more profound and Teutonic England than Voltaire’s Anglo-- Chinois discovery. And to them also, as to the F rench, England stood for freedom — not political freedom indeed, for German political ideals had hardly advanced beyond the conception of enlightened despotism — ^but the freedom of the artist. For in Germany a new and national literature was rapidly springing up, a literature that owed its origin to English influences and looked to England for its models. Not only were the writings of Addison, Defoe, Pope, Richardson, and Sterne, admired and translated even more in Germany than in France, but their influence was more thoroughly- assimilated. And greater spirits than these, and mightier influences, Milton and Shakespere, and above all Shakespere, came to be studied and understood in a way that was impossible in France. Voltaire it is true had ventured to give a modified praise to Shakespere, and made him, with the Quakers, as M. Jusserand says, one of the curiosities of Europe 5 but neither Voltaire nor his countrymen really understood his greatness. But to Germany Shakespere came like a revelation, the revelation of a hitherto unknown world of power and passion 5 it was, as Goethe wrote, like the miraculous gift of sight to one born blind, and they were intoxicated and dazzled by tlie sudden light.
The Germans also, like the French, made use of their new discovery for a propagandist purpose — ^not
55
WORDS JND IDIOMS
indeed to attack domestic institutions, but to free the genius of their country from the alien French domina- tion by which it had been so long fettered. It is not, however, my task to describe the discovery of Shakes- pere in Germany, the rising like the sun of this great luminary in the 'rcutonic heavens ; we are only concerned with the traces it has left in the German language. Blank verse (Blankvers) is one of these, and in addition to the Shakespcrcan words e/f and iomhast, many tags from the plays and especially from Hamlet, “ "I'o be, or not to be,” “ The time is out of joint,” “ words, words, words,” “I'he rest is silence,” have become incorporated as familiar quotations in the German language, and remain as memorials of the immense enthusiasm of the time for that tragedy, when all the stages of Germany echoed with Hamlet’s mono- logues, and every young German, as Goethe tells us, knew them by heart and fencied “ he had a right to be as melanclioly as the Prince of Denmark, although he had seen no ghost, and had no royal father to avenge.”
There remains one other word which, owing to the beginnings of romanticism in England, acquired a new meaning abroad in the eighteenth century. This is the word ballad, which, from meaning a popular song of almost any kind, gradually began in England, like the words Gothic and Romantic, to rise in estimation, and acquired its present meaning — that of a poem of popular origin and character in whicli some story or legend is rclatcd.*^ 'I'his new meaning of the word
^ Ballade meant uriginully in French a dancing song, and has come to designate a special form of metrical composition. The word has also ticquired in French the English meaning mentioned above.
56
ENGLISH WORDS JBROJD
w^as introduced into Germany' by Percy’s collection of
Old Herotcal Ballads, in 1765. Percy’s Reliques
aroused the greatest enthusiasm in Germany, and the
study and imitation of popular songs which followed
its publication resulted in that flowering of lyric verse
which is now regarded as the golden age of German
poetry. And again this foreign enthusiasm returned
to England ; Scott and others began, before the end
of the eighteenth century, translating the German
ballads which were themselves modelled on English
originals, and the word ballad itself came home, in-
vested with a new dignity and importance.
We have now examined the main deposit of English words and English meanings left in French and German by influences from this country during the eighteenth century. In the other languages of Europe, in Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese, in Danish, Dutch, Swedish, and Russian, the English deposit is very much the same j there are certain variations it is true, but on the whole these countries have followed the examples of Germany and France in their appropriation of English terms. Our nineteenth-century contributions to this general European vocabulary are more numerous indeed, but they have not the same historical and literary import- ance, and they may be dismissed more briefly. With the growth of sport abroad, the spread of parliamentary institutions, English sporting and political terms have been adopted in great numbers ; from the English ? vocabulary of social customs, ^Qfive 0^ clocks garden
party, the zvater-closety and more recently the week’-md have been borrowed 5 the English characters the flirt, the pickpocket, the vegetarian, the boy-scout^ and (in
57
WORDS JND IDIOMS
Russia) the hooligan have become familiar : the word
self-help has been widely borrowed, and the English
detective stories, and especially those concerning
Sherlock Holmes, have added the word detecihe to
the European vocabulary. The immense enthusiasm
on the Continent, first for Byron’s poems and then
for Dickens’ novels, does not appear to have added
anything new and distinctive to foreign vocabularies ;
but the Scottish words claymore^ plaid^ and tartan^ owe
perhaps their partial or complete adoption into French
to the great popularity of Sir Walter Scott’s novels.
To the vocabulary of the arts we have added little beyond a few terms connected with the Circus and the Music Hall — clown^ and Music Hall itself, and star and attractions. To the vocabularj?* of thought .our most important contributions have been the word utilitarian^ made popular by Bentham and John Stuart Mill, and the Darwinian watchwords, Darwinism^ natural selection^ simple for existence, and reversion. The terms connected with railways, trade-unions and newspapers, which were borrowed in this country, have been already mentioned. In addition to these, the American branch of the Anglo-Saxon race has begun to export to Europe its special products. A Iready in the eighteenth century the American Declaration of Independence gave currency and fame to the phrase Rights of Man {droits de Rhomme, Menschenrechte, etc.) ; in the name of the Contention ’National e,^ which estab- lished the French Republic, the special use of Con- tention seems to have been derived from the American
Convention ” of 1787, which in its turn was named from the English ‘‘ Convention Parliament ”
58
ENGLISH WORDS ABROAD
of 1688 j and the great revolutionary watchword
Qa ira is said to owe its origin to Benjamin
Franklin, the words being his cheerful reply, during
the American War, to a query about the new Republic’s
chances of success in that struggle.^ More recently,
Europe had borrowed the platform^ the caucus, the
Interview^ and lynch and the Yellow Press, from the
American Continent, and with these table-fuming,
faith-healing, co-education, and the modern cake-walk ;
and since the war President Wilson has added the
great explosive watchword self-determination^ to the
vocabulary of the world.
VI
Races and nations are ultimately judged in the court of history by their contributions to the life and thought of man — ^by what they have added to the common fund of civilization. What the final verdict of history will be on the English nation and on the Anglo-Saxon race, it is not for us to anticipate ; but our linguistic test, our examination of what we have so far added to the language of civilization, enables us at least to form an opinion about the past achievements of our race. Plainly we can claim no originality in the plastic arts or music ; to literature on the other hand the English contributions have been of greatest value. Leaving aside the splendid accident (if it be an accident) of Shakespere’s genius, we find the literature of F ranee
^ M. Barbier traces to the influence of the American War of Iii 4 e]pendence the adoption of the words congy&s and fMtral. He gives as earlier borrowings from America scalper, tatouer, squaw and wigwam (S.P.E. Tract VII., pp. 10, 27).
59
WORDS JND IDIOMS
a.nd Germany drawing new life in the eighteenth
century from England, and almost indeed re-created
by the influence of English novels, poems, plays, and
ballads. But what, after all, gave these works their
great and renovating power was the new ways of thought
and feeling they embodied and expressed. These are
of two different kinds — on the one hand we find
Continental writers learning from English essays, novels
and domestic tragedies, a certain sense of actual fact,
of realism, and human character and humour ; and also
imbibing from English writings sentiment and melan-
choly and romanticism — z romantic love of the past,
and an equally romantic love of wild nature. Of
these, however, the realism and humour may perhaps
be regarded as most essentially English j for the
sentiment and melancholy and romanticism are rather
Teutonic in character ; they belong to all the German
races 5 they are more at home in Germany than England,
and they were only regarded as English in the eighteenth
century, because the English were the first Teutonic
people who expressed them in literature of world-
wide importance — ^the first to play an important part
in that great stage of civilization which had been
hitherto almost monopolized by the Latin races.
There is one thing, however, characteristically English about them — the unconscious and almost casual way in which they arose. They were movements of thought and feeling, which, unlike similar movements abroad, were unorganized, uncritical, undogniatic ; they seem rather spontaneous growths, arising sporadically, and by chance, on the li^ soil of England, and only flowering into doctrine and theory after their trans- 60
ENGLISH WORDS JBROJD
plantation to foreign countries. The most striking
instance of this is to be found in the early history of
the Romantic Movement, which, as will be seen in
the next chapter, started in an almost casual and un-
premeditated way in England, and only acquired a
conscious purpose and a spirit of propaganda after its
transplantation in foreign countries. In the same way
English sentiment and English Deism were transformed
into new social and religious solvents abroad ; and
even the theory of the British Constitution was first
most fully developed and explained to Englishmen them-
selves by French political philosophers.
In modern theories and ideals there are to be found indeed many elements of English origin, but these are provided in the form of raw material 5 and just as this country in the Middle Ages sent abroad wool for medieval weavers, and re-imported the finished pro- duct, so it has in more recent times provided foreign philosophers with much of the material for their webs, receiving it back again in the form of scheme and theory. English adjectives like romantic and constitutional travel abroad, and, after their sojourn among foreign theorists, return home changed into abstract nouns — Romanticism^ Constitutionality^ charged with doctrine and propagandist purpose.
It is perhaps not fanciful to find the same positive spirit, the same inaptitude and dislike for abstract theory, even in the great contributions which our race has made to human thought. For these — Bacon’s ex- perimental philosophy, Locke’s psychology, Newton’s law of gravitation, and Darwin’s theory of evolution, are not so much new conceptions of the nature of 61
WORDS jiND IDIOMS
the universe^ as definite e3q)lanations and practical workings out of hypotheses derived from other sources*
Xhis same characteristic is even more marked in the region of social theory. It Is from FrancCj le herceau de toutes les utopies^ that Europe has received its great social ideals 5 the w'orking out of these ideals and their embodiment in practical institutions has been the special part played by this country. Watchwords like Izhertjy equality^ fraterni/y^ come to us from France ; while France borrows in return the vocabularies of self- governmeat and the organization of labour. The idealogue and doctrinaire are F renchmen characters, but the Utilitarian is an Englishman.
The one great exception, one important word in the vocabulary of European idealism of English origin is the word Utopia, Bat this exception is one which tests and, as we say, proves the rule. For Utopia was not a product of the English language, it was merely a fanciful coinage made from Greek elements hy a learned Englishman, Sir Thomas More j it was first printed in a Latin book abroad, and was adopted into F rench before it became an English word.
If then our linguistic test has any value, we must conclude that the English are essentially a practical race. The conscious desire for ideal and perfect things has not inspired them, nor have they provided humanity with its religions, its dreams and remote aspirations. What they have contributed — ^and they have contributed much — ^has been done instinctively, by temporary solutions to difficulties as they arose, by unconscious adjustments to new circumstances. They have pro- vided new material for theory, and the ‘‘‘stuff that
62
ENGLISH WORDS ABROAD
dreams are made on,” and they have also done much to bring theories and dreams down to the concrete earth, to embody ideals in institutions, to base abstract theories upon experiment and fact.
So far our linguistic conclusions are in agreement with the observations of Continental observers, who regard the English, not as theorists or dreamers, but as the most practical race of Europe, the Romans of the modern world. But there is one other conclusion our study enforces on us which is perhaps more novel. When we examine the English words in foreign lan- guages, we find that the most numerous and the most important of them belong to a special class, and have in common one marked characteristic. They are all descriptions of some kind of associative action 5 they are names for methods and results of one form or other of voluntary co-operation, and owe their origin to the formation of groups or bodies, large or small, of men working freely together for some common purpose. This class of terms includes not only the vocabulary of party politics, freemasonry and clubs, of various social and labour organizations, but also the whole vocabulary of English sport. For those sports which, like motor- ing, depend upon individual invention and initiative, are of foreign origin, and their terms are foreign, but those which require organized action — racing associations, or crews, or teams — ^with their various bodies of unwritten law, come from England.
When England was discovered in the eighteenth century, it was above all on account of its freedom that it became famous. Continental observers found in it both the model of a free state, and the home of personal
63
WORDS AND IDIOMS
and individual liberty. In the free communities of
antiquity the liberty of the individual had been sacrificed
to that of the state ; but in England not only was the
state free, but the Englishman was at liberty to live his
own life in his own way, to indulge his eccentricities
and humours, to enjoy his own religion, and to express
in speech and print his own opinions.
This picture of England was no doubt exaggerated ; but in contrast to the condition of the Continent at that time, England was certainly, as Montesquieu described it, “ the freest country in the world.” But in addition to the freedom of the individual and that of the state, England was then, and has been through a long period of history, the home of a third kind of freedom, closely related to them — z. kind which was widely imitated, although it did not attract the same conscious attention. This was the freedom of associa- tion, of forming voluntary groups endowed with a kind of personality and a self-developing life of their own. Among groups of this kind which have grown up, for the most part naturally and unconsciously on the English soil, may be mentioned medieval guilds, the Inns of Court, companies of soldiers in foreign service, merchant adventurers, jointstock companies, commercial colonies, dubs, freemasons’ lodges, friendly and co-operative societies, dissenting sects, trade unions, and sporting assodations in almost infinite variety. In one great word which has been adopted from English into almost all the languages of the world — in the word Committee^ we find an embodiment of this English spirit of free association, and the method by which these self-governing groups manage their affeirs.
64
ENGLISH TFORDS ABROAD
The origin and development of this special form
of English freedom has been attributed to the feet that
Roman Lawj with its enmity to voluntary organiza-
tions, and its abstract and absolutist theory of the State,
never supplanted the Common Law of the country.
But to whatever accident of history, or special quality
of race, England owes its free associations, and the
special morality and type of character which makes
them possible — the spirit of give and take, of playing
the game,” the voluntary submission of the individual
to the group — ^it is in these qualities and characteristics
(if there is any truth in our linguistic theory) that will
be found the most original manifestations of the
national genius ; and embodied as they are in the
institutions of free government, the most important
contribution which England has made to the civiliza-
tion of the world.
w.i.
65
CHAPTER III FOUR ROMANTIC WORDS
I
I mentioned in the previous chapter, among the English words borrowed into foreign languages, one adjective, the word romantic, which has been added to all the vocabularies of Europe. This is a word of such prime importance that, to give an account of its origin, and its adventures, both in England and abroad, a separate study will be necessary. There is no word in our language which has a more “romantic” history; much in its signification, both as we employ it now and as we find it employed in our elder literature, is the result of what it has been through; and a knowledge of all this will be of assistance in enabling us to understand the various thoughts and ways of feeling which it has come to express, and which still deeply colour its meaning. But the emergence of the word romantic is not an isolated phenomenon; its history is closely connected with the history of several other terms of modern aesthetic criticism – terms which came into use at about the same time, and shared the same adventures. This cluster of romantic words is the product of one of the most important movements of modern thought, and the history of that movement is curiously mirrored in their usage. They are, both in formation and meaning, very largely of English origin; from English they made their way into foreign languages; and the new conceptions they express form one of the most notable of English contributions to European thought.
Of this cluster of new terms, or of old terms endowed with new meanings, the earliest to make its appearance is the adjective romantic^ of which the first instance is given in the Oxford Dictionary under the date of 1659.^ It is apparently a word of English origin,^ formed from the English word romant or romaunt — z word which was borrowed in the sixteenth century from the French
1 (See below, p. 75. note 2). The adjective is found in
Evelvn^s Diary under the date of 1654 (see below, p. 78, note 2) .
As however. Evelyn edited, or re-wrote, his diary towards
the end of his life, it cannot be relied upon as a safe indication
of Unguistic usage. The etymology of the word is weU ;
a whole chapter of literary history is included in the deriva- tion of Romantic from Rome; it tells of the rise of rude Donulax dialects, alongside the learned and polished Lato, m the various provinces of the Roman Empire ; and of the rise of modem European fiction, writto so ^rinctively m these dialects that it got ite name from them : W. D. Whitney, Language and the Study of Language (1867), p. 131- « It was borrowed into French and German from :
Grimm’s ‘WdrUvbwih, however, quotes from a Latm MS. of the fidEteenth century an instow of rommhci^ used M a term for a fictitious tale (article Bomanhsch). In the Life of aSey, which was written by Fulke GreviUe Lord Brooke, probabfy before 1612, hut wMch was not publish^ until 1652, occurs the phrase, " Doenothis Arcad^Romanties
live aitOT him f " (p- X3)- the word Bomanhes m thw p^age milKr^s be regMded (and so the Editor of the .O^/oi-d D^omry seems to“ have regarded ^
Romanti 7 s, but in a MS. version of the Lt/« m the hbr^ of Tiinitv College Cambridge, the word is spelt Roma^a. In
ties may be a variant of the Chaucerian word Romau^e.
67
FOUR ROMJNTIC WORDS
are what Dr. Bradley called “ identifying ” words ^ 5
sometimes, however, a new discovery is given a “ de-
scriptive ” name like gravitation ; or again, as with
oxygen, an explanatory word may be formed which
attempts more adequately to account for the new
phenomenon. But comprehension is reached, if in-
deed it is ever reached, long after recognition ; analytic
and explanatory terms for half-understood phenomena
often imply, like oxygen (“ generator of acids ”), a false
explanation 5 the usual, and much the safest way, is
to give a non-committal, designating, or at most a
descriptive name to a new experience, which then,
gradually, and in the course of time, can be more
accurately defined and perhaps at last explained. In
the even more elusive phenomena of aesthetic percep-
tions, this process of identification, denotation, and
suggested explanation is still more tentative and slow 5
new aspects of thought and feeling come to be designated
by names which are at first little more than the chance
names of vague impressions — obscure perceptions of
some quality for which a label of some kind would be
convenient. This label then forms a centre of attrac-
tion for other vague perceptions which group themselves
about it 5 and it is only by a long and tentative process
of collective thought that the various aspects of the
phenomena described become more apparent, and the
label or name acquires more definite meanings. Our
word romantic is a conspicuous instance of this process.
Its appearance in the middle of the seventeenth century
is an indication of a change in human thought, and
marks the moment when that change had become
1 S.P.E. Tfact III.,
p. 19.
ff^ORDS JND IDIOMS
romaunt^ and which, used as a variant of romance in
the seventeenth century, was revived as an archaism
in the nineteenth. Before, however, romantic became
a current term, a number of other attempts were made,
as the Oxford Dictionary shows us, to form adjectives
with the same meaning. In 1653 Dorothy Osborne
writes of a romance squire, and in the following year
of a romance story ; in 1656 the Duchess of Newcastle
speaks of her Romancicall Tales ” ; and we also find
the adjectives romancial (1653) and romancy (1654).
The fact that all these adjectives crop up in the seven
years between 1653 ^ind 1659, romantic soon
becomes a current term, is certainly curious. Why j ust at this time was there a need felt for this adj active which had never been felt before ?
The emergence of a new term to describe a certain phenomenon, of a new adjective to designate a certain quality, is always of interest, both linguistically and from the point of view of the history of human thought. That history would be a much simpler matter (and language, too, a much more precise instrument) if new thoughts on their appearance, and new facts at their discovery, could at once be analysed and explained and named with scientific precision. But even in science this seldom happens j we find rather that a whole complex group of facts, like those for instance of gas or electricity, are at first somewhat vaguely noticed, and are given, more or less by chance, a name like that of which is an arbitrary formation, or that of electricity^ which is derived from the attractive power of electrum or amber when rubbed — ^the first electric phenomenon to be noticed. GaSy eUciric, and electricity 68
WORDS AND IDIOMS
ol>vious enough to need a term to express it. Romantic j like romancy and romancical^ simply meant * like the old romances,” and shows that men at this time were becoming aware of certain qualities in these romances for which they needed a name — that they were be- coming critical of them, and had begun to view them with a certain detachment. TTliese romances were of two kinds : there were the medieval tales of chivalry and knight-errants, of ‘‘ The Palmerins of England and the Amadises of Gaul ’’ who, as Haz^litt describes them,
- made their way to their naistresses’ hearts hy slaying
giants and taming dragons ” ; and there were also those prolix French romances of intrigue and gallantry, which succeeded the earlier tales. The special char- acteristic of all these romances, for which a name was now needed, was their falseness and unreality, all that was imaginary and impossible in them, all that was contrary to the more rational view of life which was beginning to dominate men’s minds. The growth of this conception of “ order ” and nature,” this “ dawn of reason,” as an eighteenth-century writer called it, threw into relief certain groups of irrational elements which were opposed to it The phenomena of religious fenaticism were branded as enthusiasm^ and the fictions and imaginations of the old romances were labelled by the word romantic. The meaning of ‘‘ false,” “ fic- titious,” “ imaginary,” implied by romantic was applied both to the supernatural elements in the medieval romances, their giants, magicians, and enchanted castles j and also to the felse, impossible, high-flown sentiments of the later romances 5 those “ wild romantic tales,'* as a seventeenth-century writer described them, “ wherein
70 ,
WORDS JND IDIOMS
to a wordj the special nuance of feeling it expresses,
can often be best seen by the conapany it keeps ; and
in the writings of this period we find the word romantic
coupled with terms like “ chimerical,” “ ridiculous,”
“ unnatural,” “ bombast ” ; we read of “ childish and
romantic poems,” of “ romantic absurdities and in-^
credible fictions ” : can anything,” Bishop South
asks, “ be imagined more profane and impious, absurd
and indeed romantic ” ? and Psalmanazar confesses to
the “ vile and romantic ” deception of his pretence to
be a native of Formosa.
It was the need, therefore, to mark the contrast between the truth of nature and the falsehood of romance which first brought into use this famous adjective. It makes its appearance at the moment when as an eighteenth-century writer puts it, “ reason was but dawning, as we may say, and just about to gain the ascendant over the portentous spectres of the imagination. Its growing splendour, in the end, put them all to flight.” ^ Bishop Hurd is writing of what he calls the “ romantic ” literature of the Elizabethan age, which, according to him was haunted by these spectres : the growing splendour which banished them was that of the Age of Reason, the ^claircissement^ the Avipdanmg — that conception of order and truth, of the whole imiverse governed by law, which rose in the latter half of the seventeenth century like a sunrise of reason over the spectre-haunted Europe, with its romantic literature, its superstitions, its fanaticisms, and its religious wars.
P on Chivalry and Romance, 1762. (Kd. 19x1,
72
FOUR ROMANTIC WORDS
they strain love and honour to that ridiculous height that it becomes burlesque.” ^
Both these elements, the supernatural and what we now call the sentimental, were falling into disrepute at the time when the word romantic appeared to describe them. In 1650 Hobbes, in that famous answer to Davenant, which formed the basis of neo-classical criticism in England, protested against the use of the supernatural, against fiction that exceeded the possibility of “Nature,” “ impenetrable armour, I nchanted Castles, invulnerable bodies. Iron Men, Flying horses ” ^ 5 and his protest was echoed by the critics who followed after him ; while Sir William Temple ® pointed out how Cervantes had turned into ridicule “ the Romantick Honour and Love ” ^ of the romances of chivalry.
In the course of the next hundred and fifty years the word romantic^ as a description of false and fictitious beings and feelings, without real existence in fact or in human nature, fell more and more into disrepute and disestimation. The particular shade of meaning given
1 Thomas Shadwell, Preface to the Sullen Lovers, 1668. Spingam, Critical Essays of the Seventeenth Century, vol. ii, p. 150. (I shall refer in future to this collection as Spingam.)
- Ihid. p. 61.
® On Ancient and Modern Learning, 1690, ihid. vol. hi. p. 71.
- The phrase romantic love/' which has acquired so rich
a meaning in modern times, was used somewhat differently in the eighteenth century. A writer in The World, for instance (No. 79, July 4, 1754), mentions some ladies who had remained unmarried because their imaginations had been early per- verted with the Chimerical ideas of Romantic Love," according to which passion, he adds, " a footman may as well be the hero as his master " ; and he tells the story of Claxinda, who, instead of marrying the suitable Theodore, fell in love with his French valet .^toine, there being " no resisting of the impetuosity of romantic love."
71
FOUR ROMJNTIC WORDS
Of all periods in the history of poetry perhaps the one which is most external to our sympathies, opaque and impenetrable to our imaginations, is precisely this period which lies so near us in the point of time, this Age of Reason, with its bewigged platitudes, its shallow criticism, and its intolerably didactic verse. How can the most practised amateur of historical emotions read Pope’s Essay on Man with the enthusiasm which carried that sententious poem over Europe, or feel the disgust which was aroused, as Evelyn noted,^ in that “ refined age,” by plays like Hamlet ? To recapture that mood, to bathe again in the freshness of that dawn, is not per- mitted to us ; but perhaps, in the architecture of the period, in the severe beauty of some classical church or mansion, with its ornaments adorning, like noble rhetoric, its perfect proportions and ordered forms, we can best realize the charm of the qualities of order and reason and correctness, which were then prized and sought for, not only in architecture, but in poetry as well.
The literary revolution of this period was well summed up by Thomas Warton, when he said that a poetry succeeded the elder poetry, in which “ imagina- tion gave way to correctness.” ^ The connexion between poetry and Imagination or Fancy (the distinc- tion between these two terms was not established till
^ I saw Hamlet Prince of Dejimarlc played, but now tbe old plays begin to disgust this refined age, since his Majestic' s being so long abroad/^ {Diary of John Evelyn, Nov. 26, 1661), quoted by T. S. Perry, English Literature in the Eighteenth Centwry. It should, however, be noted that the word disgmt was in former times a milder term than it is now. (See Mr. R. W. Chapman's notes on Jane Austen’s English, in his edition of Emma, 1923, p. 398.)
- Observations on the Faerie Queene (1754), p. 237.
WORDS JND IDIOMS
much later) was often alluded to by- sixteenth-century
writers ; but it would be vain to seek in the psychology
and criticism of that time any clear definition of the
meaning of the term imagmaiwn^ which had been intro-
duced into Latin as a translation of the Greek pavi-airia^
and which the Renaissance had inherited from Scholastic
philosophy. Notions, how'ever, which are now more
definite to our minds were then held as it were in
solution ; Bacon divided the human understanding into
three Acuities, referring history to Memory, philosophy
to Reason, and poesy to Imagination ^ ; and Shake-
speare expressed this connexion in words which have
a strangely modern sound, when he wrote ;
The lunatic, the lover, and the poet Are of imagination all compact . . .
And, as imagination bodies forth The forms of things unknown, the poef s pen Turns them^ to shapes, and gives to airy nothing A local habitation and a name.®
But with the growth of neo-classical criticism this large
and indefinite meaning of imagination was narrowed
and confined.
Hobbes’s psychology^ as Professor Spingarn has pointed out, became fixe groundwork of Restoration criticism, and to Hobbes the essential element in poetry was Reason. ‘‘Judgment,” he wrote, begets the strength and structure, and Fancy begets the ornaments of a Poem.” ® The imagination came to be regarded
^ Advancement of Zearning, Book II.
- ISdidsumm&f-Ni^hf s v. i. 7-17.
5®" introd-action to tiese volumes
lustoy of the cottcept of Imagination in the earlier and later periods of criticism.
74
FOUR ROMJNTIC WORDS
as la folk du logis^ in Descartes’ phrase, or, in Dryden’s words, as a wild, lawless faculty, which was the begetter of madness, dreams, and fever, but which, held strictly subordinate to Reason, could be usefully employed in finding, in the field of memory, illustrations, metaphors, and other useful ornaments for the sound structure of Reason. Or, at the most, following what Longinus had said of (payiraarla^ the power was attributed to the imagination of making the poet seem to behold the very things he is describing, and thus enabling him to display them to the life before the reader’s eyes. But, as Dryden wrote, quoting from the famous French critic Rapin, if this fancy be not regulated, it is a mere caprice, and utterly incapable to produce a reason- able and judicious poem.” ^
The qualities designated by these critics as romantic were therefore the mere product of unregulated imagina- tion 2 5 they were not reasonable, they did not imitate Nature, and they were therefore condemned as Gothic, unnatural, ridiculous and childish. We can therefore understand Pope’s boast :
That not in Fancy’s maze he wander’d long.
But stoop’d to Truth, and moraliz’d his song,®
1 of John Dryden (Ker), vol. i. p. 229.
“ It is perhaps more than a coincidence that in the j6xst instance which lisis beea found of the adjective romantic^ it is used in close connexion with the word imagination. " As for Imagination, there is no question hut that function is mainly^ exercised in the chief seat of the Soul, those purer Animal Spirits in the fourth V entricle of the Brain. I speak especially of that Imagination wlaich is most free, such as we use in Eomantick Inventions,** (H. Kore, The IrrmortalUy of the Sonl, 1659, p. 328.)
» Epistle to Dr, Arbi^thnot, 340-i-
75
WORDS AND IDIOMS
This theory of poetry was logical, consistent, and worthy of serious and judicious men, who, weary of wild conceits and ornaments and fantastic dreams, welcome it with an enthusiasm which is difficult for us to share. But, like other theories of poetry, it did not correspond to the facts, and even in its heyday of triumph it began to collapse and crumble. A new way of looking at things began to grow up alongside it, based upon a greater appreciation of the value and importance ^ ® imagination in works of art. With this gradual ari only half-conscious shift of feeling, which began ear y in the eighteenth century in England, and flowered at last in the so-called Romantic Movement, the wor romantic itself began to acquire fresh values and meanings. It is no longer always used as a term o depreciation j Addison describes Milton’s account o Thammuz as “ finely Romantic,” ^ and Thomson speaks of a “ fine, romantic kind of melancholy* The Gothic and romantic periods of history, the Middle Ages and the Elizabethan (for both these were regarded as Gothic and romantic), began to interest students 5 the old “romantic” poet Spenser, and the old tales of adventure and magic, came again into fttvour, and romantic began to mean something which, though absurd, was captivating to the imagination- Hoiace Walpole confessed that he preferred the ro- mance’’ scenes of the past,* and the Vicar of Wake- field telk, how owing to his wife’s reading of
1 !Nc>- 303 (1712).
- ** Th& subject and scene of this tragedy, so romantic and
uncommaa, are highly pleasing to the imagination. J • Wartem cm Pope (1757), 1806, i. p. 71 n.
• P^elaoe to second edition of Castle of Otranto, 1763.
76
FOUR ROMANTIC WORDS
romances, two romantic ’’ names were given to his daughters.
In these usages of the English word romantic^ the corresponding French adjective romanesque was a more or less exact equivalent, and is to be found in the early French translation of Pope’s line :
If Folly grow romantic, I must paint it.^
But already, before the eighteenth century, another use had been found for the English word which romanesque did not translate. Along with its depreciatory use for the incidents and sentiments of the old romances, it was also used as an adjective of half-conscious apprecia- tion for scenes and places like those which they describe The adjective romancy or romantic was applied very early to the scenery of the neighbourhood of Wilton, where Sidney’s Arcadia was composed. ‘*The Ar- cadia,” Aubrey wrote, “ is about Vernditch and Wilton, and these romancy plaines and boscages did no doubt conduce to the heightening of Sir Phillip Sydney’s phancie.” ^ In another place he speaks of his rides through this “ romantick country,” with its, flocks of sheep and nut-brown shepherdesses ® j and earlier, under the date of 1654, Evelyn notes in his Diary^ “ Salisbury Plain reminded me of the pleasant lives of the shepherds we read of in romances.” ^ But the word is also used for buildings : in 1666 Pepys called Windsor Castle “ the most romantique castle that is in
^ Moral Essays, Ep. II., 16.
^Natural History of Wiltshire (1847), P*
® J. Britton, Memoir of John Aubrey (1845), pp. 32-3.
Evelyn* s Diary ^ ed. Bray, vol. ii. p. Si,
77
WORDS JND IDIOMS
the world” ^5 and even earlier, in 1654, Evelyn
writes of a very romantic ” country-seat on the side
of a “ horrid Alp ” near Bristol ; ^ and under the date
of 1 679 he says, speaking of the Duke of Buckingham’s
country house at Clifden, “ The grotts in the chalky
rock are pretty ; ’tis a romantic object, and the place
altogether answers the most poetical description that
can be made of solitude, precipice, prospect, or whatever
can contribute to a thing so very like their [the ro-
mancers’] imaginations.” ^ Sir William Temple wrote
in his Essay on Gardening (1685) of the “ romantic
palace ” of Alcinous described by Homer ; and Addison
in his Remarks on Italy (1705) says that on his journey
between Marseilles and Genoa he was shown in the
distance ‘‘ The Deserts, which have been rendered so
famous by the penance of Mary Magdalene who ... is
said to have wept away the rest of her life among these
solitary rocks and mountains. It is so romantic a scene,
that it has always probably given occasion to such
chimerical relations.” ^ This use of the adjective in
the description of places, meaning, as the Oxford
Dictionary defines it, redolent or suggestive of rom-
ance ; appealing to the imaginations and feelings,”
b^:ame more current after 17 ii, when Addison, in
his femous essay on the ballad of Chevy Chase in the
Spectator^ spoke of ‘‘ The fine romantic situation ” of
Feb. 26, 1666.
- ii. p. 54. First noted I believe by T. S. Perry
in bis EngUsh Literature in the Eighteenth Century. In another entry of 3:654 Ev^yn uses the word again : Bray, vol, ii. p. 84-
» Ibid. voL ii, pp, 353.4.
^ Addhon^s Works, edited by Richard Hurd, vol. i. p. 359-
7S
FOUR ROMANTIC WORDS
that battle.^ Thomson writes in his Seasons of oaks romantic/’ of a “ romantic ” mountain, of the “ rom- antic ” Caledonian landscape. Mason writes of ‘‘an old romantic forest ” ^ ; and even Dn Johnson, who is not thought of as a romantic writer, and who almost invariably uses the word with its depreciatory meaning (“ romantic and superfluous,” “ ridiculous and rom- antic/’ “romantic absurdities or incredible fictions,” etc,), was so influenced by the prevalent fashion as to try his unwieldy hand at a landscape of this kind.
“ When night overshadows a romantick scene, all is stillness, silence, and quiet ; the poets of the grove cease their melody, the moon towers over the World in gentle majesty, men forget their labours and their cares, and every passion and pursuit is for a while suspended.” ®
The word romantic then, from the general meaning of like the old romances,” came to be used as a descriptive term for the scenes which they describe, old castles, mountains and forests, pastoral plains, waste and solitary places. In the earlier instances of the adjective the literary reference is more or less explicit 5 but by the eighteenth century it had come to express more generally the newly awakened, but as yet half- conscious, love for wild nature, for mountains and moors, for “the Woods^ the Rivers^ or Sea-’shores^^ which Shaftesbury mentions as sought by those “ who are deep in this romantick way.” ^
^ Spectator, No. 74.
® Quoted in Phelps, The English Romantic Movement, Boston, 1902, p. 98.
- Xlie Adventurer, No. 108, Nov, 17, 1753.
- Sliafteshury’s Moralists (1709) ; Works (1732), vol. xi.
P- 394-
79
WORDS jfND IDWMS
When English books of this period were translated into French, the translators either avoided the adjective in this usage, or rendered it by* rommesjue ox pittaresque, SjiTnanthh or Tomantique is, however, found occasionally as a loan word from English ^ j about 1776 two Erench authors, one of them Letourneur, the translator of Shakespeare, and the other the Marquis de Girardin, the author of a hook on. landscape, made deliberate use ofthe word, giving in notes their reasons for borrow- ing this mpt jlnglds^ as they called it* Monsieur A. Francois, in his brilliant essay on IRomantique ^ — an essay from which much of my information about the French
What IS s^d to be the earliest instance of the word
^maniiqw in Freach is found in 1675, where it is obviously
bo^o-wed from Eaglislx. In 1666 a M. de Sorbite published
a Rtlatzoifi d*un voyage m AngkUne ; and in 1668 Thomas
oprat vmte anonjrmous little book of Observations on this
boot of travel mw^hichi he sa^s (p. 37) of Sorbi^re, “ Bespeaks
^ the Hms, and the hedges of
Aem, mat the Authors of Clelia, or A stua, scarce ever venture to so much on the like occasion,’*’ In 1675 was published Amst^d^ an account of this Riponse of Sprat's, in which u: IS sard, i o/uteur anonyme hUtne Sovhikre d* avoir parU en termes rom^tiques des vallAes, des montaegnos et des haies ven^-nlts d^pays dt JKmt (quoted, Revtie i’Histoire Littirain de France, 1911, p. 440).
i Rousseau (Paris), vol. v. i
rr - also further notes by ME. Fran9ois in the Biblio^ o Suisse (Lausanne), August and
.e ^®i^3^c;oTjr added to the thirty-eighth letter (the third fragment) de l^xpression j? Vaches, in which he attempts to
uiSTOction between romantique and romcenesque, ^peaHng to deep sonls and true sensibilities, the ^ ^ In the best French
dis^ction T^hich. is made between rontafi^ i®’ informed on good authority,
definite is used with a more or less
wavs of Romantic Movement, and the
It Ss French '* Romantics,"
it Has, therefore, a certain historical connotation, and any
So
FOUR ROMANTIC WORDS
history of the word is derived — reprints these notes,
and they are of great importance, proving, as they do,
the English origin of the word, and explaining its
meaning. It meant more, they said, than romanesque
or pittoresque : romanesque meant ‘‘ chimerical,” or
fabulous,” while pittoresque describes a scene that
strikes the eye and arouses admiration. But romantic
implies an appeal as well to the feelings and the imagina-
tion : it not only describes the scene, but “ the toudiing
impression we receive from it.” Both authors enumer-
ate the scenes that in the eighteenth century were
considered romantic, the heaths, the sea, the clouds of
the “ Caledonian landscape,” mountains, torrents and
waterfalls, and le “ lovely moon ” des Anglois, The
word, M. Frangois suggests, was probably brought to
the notice of Rousseau by one of these authors, his
friend Girardin 5 and it was finally given full rights
of citizenship in the French language by Rousseau,
when, in that incomparable masterpiece of his prose,
his famous fifth Riverie dupromeneur solitaire ^ he wrote
les rives du Lac de Bienne sont plus sauvages ^ roman--
tiques que celles du Lac de Geneve?- The word soon
became fashionable in France, and was included in the
Dictionary of the French Academy in 1798, with the
definition II se dit ordinairement des lieux^ des paysages^
manifestations of romanticism noted in an earlier epoch would be described as fomanHsme avant la lettre. In our phrases "romantic love,*’ " romantic friendship," etc., "romantic" would be translated by yomanesque ; the use of romantique in this connexion generally implying emotions as they were felt and described by the contemporaries of Chateaubriand or Victor Hugo.
1 Written in 1777, first published in 1782.
w.i. 81 F
WORDS AND IDIOMS
qifx rappdlent h Phaaglnation Us descriptions des po'imes et des rcmam.
These French definitions of romantique help us to a clea.r understanding of this special use of the word Tw^o points stand out clearly. In the first place rommtic is^ like inter estingy charming y ex'diing^ and many other adjectives, one of those modern words which describe, riot so much the objective qualities of things, as our response to them, the feelings they arouse in the susceptible spectator; And secondly, if we examine the special subjective feeling described by romantic^ we see that it is a literary emotion (as indeed the derivation of the word from romant implies) 5 it is Nature seen through the medium of literature, through a mist of associations and sentiments derived from poetry and fiction. It is curious also to note the appearance and popularity of the word picturesque at the same time as romantic I for just as romantic means Nature seen through a literary medium, so picturesque was used to describe scenes that were like pictures, and were seen through the medium of another art, that of painting. Paintiiig and literature had been from ancient times judged and criticized by their relation to Nature 5 hut this curious reversal of the process, the projection of art into Nature, the contemplation of Nature through the coloured glass of art, and from a consdously literary or pictorial point of view, is an element that must not be neglected in any definition of the word we are ditoussing. It is a nice instance of those subtle changes in men’s feelings, and in their ways of looking at the world, which are so important and yet so elusive, and which can perhaps be most definitely traced in the 82
FOUR ROMANTIC WORDS
emergence of new terms, or in a change in the meaning
of old ones.
Picturesque came by way of France to England from the country of painting, from Italy ; but romantic is a word, as our Swiss critic remarks, deposited on French soil by those currents of English thought and feeling which had reached it in the eighteenth century. Grow- ing but of the heart of old romance, the word had absorbed into its meaning the glamour and newly- discovered beauty of moonlight and moors and moun- tains ; it had then travelled with the fashion for English gardens and the fame of Shakespeare to F ranee, where, welcomed by the great apostle of Nature, Rousseau, it enriched the French language with a definite term for the feeling of which Frenchmen had already become conscious in the presence of wild nature, and which they had hitherto expressed by the vague term je ne sats quoi^
I have quoted the definition of romantique given by
^ Rousseau made use of this expression before he adopted Yomantique into his vocabulary, when, in his famous descrip- tion of the mountains of Valais (which passage has been described as “the first flowering of romantic sentiment in French literature ”), he says, Bnfin, c& specidcle a je m sais quoi de magiqm, de suvnaiurel, qui mvit V esprit et les sens {Nouvelle Hilotse, 1760, i. Lettre XXIII.). For the history of the aon-descriptive, non- explanatory, and purely identifying term of the French Prdcieuses, ja m sais quoi, see Spingarn^ vol. i. p. c. It appears in England as a substantive in the latter part of the seventeenth century ; Shaftesbury attempted to define its critical significance, calling it “ the un expressible, the unintelligible, the I-know-not-what of Beauty,’^ “ a kind of charm or enchantment of which the artist himself can give no account" {Characteristicks, 1711, ed. 1731, vol. i. p. 332; vol. ii. p. 413). Another term for romantic landscape was horrid, and the pleasure it gave was described as “ a pleasing land of horror.*' Shaftesbury writes of the “ horrid Graces of the Wilderness” etc. (ibid. ii. p. 393).
WOS.DS jfND IDIOMS
the Dictionary of the French Academy when the word
was formally admitted into the French language :
Littrd in his dictionary of a later date (1869), after
repeating this definition, adds to the word quite another
meaning. “ It is used,’^ he says, “ of writers who
emancipate themselves from the rules of composition
and style established hy the classical authors.” To
explain how the word acquired this additional sense, it
is necessary to follow its adventures in Germany, for
it was in Germanjr that this meaning was added to it,
and it only became current in France as a borrowing
from German sources.
The English word remantte was borrowed into German, as into French, late in the seventeenth century, romanhafe being (like romamsque) an older term in that language. Romantisch appears . in a translation of Thomson’s Seasons ; it was used by Herder to describe wild and uncultivated landscape, and also by Wieland in his famous line :
Znm Ritt ins alte Romantische Land.^
But the word was applied not only to the scenes and landscapes described in the romances, but also, following certain precedents which can be found in English criticism,^ to the literature itself which describes these scenes. Romantic literature and poetry, the literature and poetry of the Middle Ages, were, in contrast with
^ Soe Grimm’s TVdrterhuch, s. v. RomanHscH.
® Thomas Warfxm, in his Obsarvations on the Faefie Queene, (1754)^ speaks of " the romaatic species of poetical composition mtrodxiced by the prov^jifal bards ” (p. i) . He describes Sp^ser as a ’’romeuntic poet’* (p. 217), and to liis History u 774) be premces a dissertation entitled
Of the origin of fomautic Fiction in Europe.*’
84
FOUR ROMJNTIC WORDS
those of the classical times, called romanitsch ; and from
this comparison and contrast the German philosophers
and critics, as they pondered over it in their Teutonic
cogitations, evolved that great bugbear of modern
criticism, the famous opposition between “ classical and
romantic.” Goethe took upon Schiller and himself
the responsibility of having added to the world’s woes
this famous subject of debate ; ^ the idea,” he told
Eckermann, ‘‘ of the distinction between classical and
romantic poetry, which is now spread over the whole
world, and occasions so many quarrels and divisions,
came originally from Schiller and myself. . . . The
Schlegels took up this idea, and carried it further, so
that it has now been dijffused over the whole world \
and every one talks about classicism and romanticism —
of which nobody thought fifty years ago.” ^
The word romantic^ thus brought in Germany into opposition with the antagonistic term “ classical,” became at the end of the eighteenth century the battle- cry of a school of wild poets and Catholic reactionaries. This war spread from Germany to France, the
1 Although never emphasized or worked out as in Germany, the contrast between romantic and classical literature is occasionally alluded to in English criticism of the eighteenth century. Thus in his Letters on Chivalry (1762), Hurd says Tasso trimmed between the Gothic and the Classic (p. 1 14) ; the Faerie Queen is a Gothic, not a classical poem " (p. 115) . “ Spenser tried to unite the Gothic, and the Classic unity ” (p. 124). Thomas Warton, as Prof. Ker has pointed out, actually uses the words romantic and classical when, in writing of Dante, he speaks of “ This wonderful compound of classical and romantic fancy " (History of English Poetry, vol. iii, 1781, p. 241). Hurd also contrasts the romantic and classic customs or manners (Letters on Chivalry, p. 148).
® Eckermann, Conversations of Goethe, March 21, 1830 (English Translation 1850, vol. ii. p. 273).
85
WORDS JND IDIOMS
seeds of it being carried thither by that adventurous
literary lady, Madame de Stael. It "was her famous
book De V AlUmagne (written with the assistance of
A. W- Schlegel, who had done much to elucidate —
or darken — the meaning of these terms) which brought
to France the new meanings which the word romantic ^
had acquired in Germany \ and there, inscribed once
mote on the banners of young poets, it waved in the
van of those still more famous battles of French Roman-
ticism about which the world has heard so much.
From France the word returned to the home of its
pastoral youth, ^ curiously changed and transformed by
its forHga experiences, its adventures in the company of
German Jesuits, German philosophers, and French
radicals, and loaded with a whole new world of
meanings.
In the antithesis between romanticism and classicism, worked out by German thinkers, there was thus an explosive element, which made the word romantic into a famous battle-cry ; the term coming to designate, as we see by Littr6’s definition, those writers who were
^ Victor Hugo says, ia tlie preface of 1 824 to liis Od,es et BoMades, tliat it was this femme de gMe "who first pronounced the phrase UMratun ramantiqm in France.
- A writer in the Qtiarterly Review of October 1814, speaks
ci the attempts that had receatly been made, esp^iaEy m Germany, to simplify the old debate about the merits of tne Anaenls and the ftodems by calling the productions of antiquity classic, and those of modem time romantic ; and adds in a note, Madame de StaSl has made the 3ritishL public familiar with these expressions (quoted O.E.D.)^ Byron in his answer, to Bowles’s criticism of Pope (1821) says that Sciilegel and Madame de Stael have endeavoured to reduce p^try to systems, classical and romantic ( Byron Wcrks^ voL V. p. 554 n.). In a letter written in 1820 he saya f^t these terms had not been in use when he left Englamd (in 1816), {Hid, p. 104).
86
FOUR ROMJNTIC WORDS
in rebellion against the classical rules of composition.
The romantic poets, first in Germany and then in
F ranee, were the poets who, scorning ajnd rejecting the
models of the past and the received rules of composition,
prided themselves on their freedom from law, and on
their own artistic spontaneity. The origin and history
of this aspect of Romanticism is of considerable interest,
and has attracted much critical attention. It has not,
however, been treated as yet from the point of view of
lexicography, although the lexicographer can, I think,
do something to elucidate that history. For this
movement was already in possession of three other
battle-cries before Romantic was inscribed upon its
banners ; and it will be necessary to give some account
of these three terms in order to make clear its full
meaning.
II
The first of these terms which I shall treat of is the great modern word originality. This word is derived of course from the adjective original, a word which has certain religious associations, since it is first found in English in the phrase “original sin,” but which , as a term of literary criticism, comes from the vocabulary of painting. It was easy to borrow from painting the distinction between an original picture and a copy; this distinction is found in literary criticism in the middle of the seventeenth century;42 it was adopted by Dryden, who speaks of Shakespeare’s Juliet and Desdemona as “originals”;43 and it soon became a current term, especially with reference to Shakespeare, being authorized by Pope’s famous sentence in his preface to Shakespeare’s works, “If ever any Author deserved the name of an Original, it was Shakespear. Homer himself drew not his art so immediately from the fountains of Nature.” From the word original in its use as an adjective, a noun was formed, the abstract term originality,44 to designate the quality of first-handedness in a work of art. All art, the early critics agreed, was imitation; but there were two kinds of imitation – the imitation of Nature (by Nature they meant very much what we mean by “life”), and the imitation of other works of art. The imitation of Nature was original imitation: the writer who drew his materials from the observation of Nature was an original writer. The imitation of other artists was, as a critic of the earlier part of the eighteenth century said, “the bane of writing,” “for Poetry, in this respect, resembles Painting; no Performance in it can be valuable, which is not an Original.”45 Primary and original copying was called invention,46 or finding (heuresis); without invention, as Dryden said, “a painter is but a copier, and a poet but a plagiary of others”47; invention in respect of the matter of a work of art was simply observation; though in respect to the form, the disposition and embellishing of the work were also called “invention.” Originality was simply newness and truth of observation or invention. The great original poets, like Homer and Shakespeare, were those who had most directly imitated Nature, and given the richest and most profound renderings of what they found.
1 'Tis with Original! Poems as -wilh Originall Pieces oi Painters, whose Copies abate the excessive price of the first Hand," Sir W. Davenant, Preface to Gondobert, 1650 (Spingarn, vol. ii. p, 5),
^ I>ryden*s Essays (Ker), -vol. i, p. 228.
- has beea found in French ija 1699 ; the word
wa5 admtte oon- tributed to deepen the word genius with mystierious significations, although we still find it used at tti^ s^nae time — ^and often by the same writers — ^with its older and more commonplace meaning, as when we iread of a “ polite,” an ‘‘ ordinary,” a “ plodding,” and even a “ low and grovelling genius.” •
In the twenty-five years which followed the middle of the ei^teenth century, a number of Essays ^ JR.e/leC'-- iions^ and Dissertations were published, in whicli the probleans connected with Shakespeare, with OrigiJ^^-lity, and Genius were discussed.® Most of these wolumes
^ Rcmil&r, NTo. 154, Sept. 7, 1751.
- Reynoli(is’s Discoi^rses, ed. Pry, 1905, p. 175.
- Among tkose whicli I liave made use of in writ xn g tins
paper may be mentioned :
1751 KchardHurd, A Discomse concemiotg Poeiicas^Z Imita- tim. (In Hurd's edition of Horaxie’s ad
PisQTUs et ii.)
100
FOUR ROMJNTIC WORDS
have been long forgotten ; to the lexicographer they
are still of interest, but to others their perusal would
be indeed a penitential task, for of all the dusty Saharas
and Dead Seas of literature, there are none, save perhaps
those of old theology, which are more desolate than the
arid wastes of obsolete aesthetic speculation.
But these old essays and speculations had their date of eager interest ; they represent, no doubt, an im- mense amount of thinking under the large wigs of that period, and echo a great deal of enthusiastic eighteenth- century discussion. And among them there is one little book which has become famous abroad, and is still dimly remembered in England, where it has been re- printed in recent years. This is the Conjectures on Original Composition y published ajionymously in 1759, but written by Edward Young, the author of the famous Ni^ht Thoughts, then in his seventy-seventh year. The book was mainly written, he tells his readers, with the purpose of preserving and giving publicity to an anec- dote about Addison 5 how, when he was on his death- bed, he summoned his stepson in order that he might
1754 Thomas Warton, Observations on the Faerie Queene.
1755 "William Sharpe, A Dissertation upon Genius.
1756 Edmund Burke, Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin
of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful.
1757 Joseph Wartoa, An Essay on the Genius and Writings
of Pope, vol. i.
1759 Edward Young, Conjectures on Original Composition. 1762 Richard Hurd, Letters on Chivalry and Romance.
1766 E. Capell, Reflections on Originality in Authors.
1767 [W, An Essay on Original Genius.
1769 3Mrs. Montagu, An Essay on the Writings and Genius of Shakespeare.
1769 Robert Wood, An Essay on the Original Genius of Horner.
1774 Alexander Gerard, An Essay on Genius.
101
WTORlDS jfND IDIOMS
see in what peace a Christian an die” ; and
is much pious writing, such as we might expect
an elderly clergyman, in the little volume. But
what incongruously infused into this old bottle find
much of the new and intoxicating wine of the
Movementj the glorifiatioa of Genius, the prais*^ of
originality, the scorn of imitation, and of obedienc:^
the old rules of classical composition, and a buoyant
almost hoyish belief in progress, in the future possitil^**-^^®
of great achievement for the emancipated spirit of
kind. The best way, however, to give an impress!
these aspects of "Young’s Comjectures will be to
some of the sentences which are found in it, and
as we shall see, exploded almost like bombs abroad -
“ Imitatiom are of two kinds 5 one of Nature^ one of Authors : The first we call Originals^ dLuA the term Imitstion to the second.” (p. 9.}
“ An Origitzaly tho’ but indifferent (its being set aside), yet has something to boast” (p- ^ ^
- An Origimzliozj be said to he of a vegetable nature j
it rises spontaneously from the vital root of Grerxius ; it grows j it is not made : Imitations are often a- sort of Manufacture wrought up by those Mechanics^ and Labour^ out of pre-exdstent materials not their o^wn.
“ Originals can arise from Genius only.” (p- 340 What, for the most part, mean we by GeniuS:^ but the Power of accomplishing great things withoixt the means generally reputed necessary to that end A Genius differs from a go{?d Understandings as a Magician from a good Architect ; That raises his structix r e hy meains invisible ; This by the skilful use of common ' tools.^ Hence Genius has ever been supposed to partake of something Divine.” (pp. 26-7.)
102
FOUR ROMJNTIC WORDS
“ Sacer nobis inest Deus, says Seneca. With regard
to the Moral world. Conscience^ and with regard to the
Intellectual, Genius^ is that God within.” (pp. 30-1.)
“ In the Fairyland of Fancy, Genius may wander wildj there it has creative power, and may reign arbitrarily over its own empire of Chimeras.” (p. 37.)
“ So boundless are the bold excursions of the human mind, that in the vast void beyond real existence, it can call forth shadowy beings, and unknown worlds, as numerous, as bright, and, perhaps, as lasting, as the stars 5 such quite-original beauties we mav call Para- disaical, Natos sine semine flores^ Ovid.” (p, 70.)
“ Many a Genius, probably, there has been, which could neiAer write, nor read.” (p. 35.}
“ Learning we thank. Genius we revere 5 That gives us pleasure. This gives us rapture ; That informs, This inspires ; and is itself inspired.” (p. 36.)
^‘To the neglect of Learning, Genius sometimes owes its greater Glory.” (p. 29.)
“ Genius is from Heaven, Learning from man.” (P* 36.)
“ A Star of the first magnitude among the Moderns was Shakespeare ; among the Ancients, Pindar ; who (as Vossius tells us) boasted of his No-learning, calling himself the Eagle, for his Flight above it.” (p, 30.)
“ An Adult Genius comes out of Nature’s hand, as Pallas out of Jove's head, at full growth, and mature : Shakespeare’s Genius was this kind.” (p. 31.)
“ Shakespeare mingled no water with his wine, lower’d his Genius by no vapid Imitation.” (p. 78.)
‘‘ Who knows if Shakespeare might not have thought less, if he had read more ? ” (p. 81.)
“ Born Originals^ how comes it to pass that we die Copies ? ” (p. 42.)
“ The less we copy the renowned Antients, we shall resemble them the more.” (p- 21.)
103
WORDS JND IDIOMS
Let us build our Compositions with the Spirit, and
in the Taste, of the Antients ; but not with their
Materials.” ^ (p. 22.)
Phrases with meanings similar to these, if not so pointedly expressed, might be collected from the other treatises I have mentioned ; but Y oung’s little book has a much greater importance in the history of culture owing to the fact that it was almost immediately trans- lated into German, where it created, as Herder wrote, an * ** electrical ” effect, and kindled a blaze of fire in German hearts.
Already, before this date, the ideas of the new criti- cism had begun to spread in Germany, through the influence of translations from English, and especially, through the writings of the German-Swiss critic Bodmer, who had translated Addison’s Essays on Milton^ and made famous his phrase about the imagination.
It has something in it like creation.” TThis idea of the “ creative imagination,” suggested hut not elaborated by Addison, had become familiar in Germany, and the word creatinjey translated by sch^pjerisch, had aroused the indignation of the pious, one of them describing it as a punishable and blasphemous expression, since the attribute of creation belonged alone to God, and should not be attributed to his creatures.^
But in 1760, when Young’s book was translated,
^ In to Disc(mn& on Lyric Poetry (1728), Young liad already empliasized tliis notion tb.at the methods, not the works, of the ancients, should he imitated.
- Pr^ace to the Poems of D. Triller, 1751. Quoted in
^rimm’s Worterbuch, and more fully in Lessing’s Schriften
- ^iS3S)^,vol.iii.p.2i4. Csxa.’pepxo'^cised ScMpfergeist (“creative
spirit as a translation for genms (Grimm, Worierbuch).
104
FOUR ROMJNTIC WORDS
the time was ripe for a wider and more enthusiastic
receptioa of this new doctrine. The new generation
oF Germans were eager to free themselves from the
ty-ranny of French classicism 5 and in the book of
TT oung, and the notions he promulgated, they found
the faith, the gospel, and the watchwords which they
needed. Y" oung boldly proclaimed the superiority of
the original genius, who went direct to Nature, who
performed great things by the force of his own inborn
powers, untaught by rules and precedents and models ;
and he dedared that Shakespeare was the great original
genius of modern times.
In England the popular conception of Shakespeare as a wild, irregular, untutored genius was generally stated apologetially 5 he had, it was admitted, great faults, but these were condoned by his great and original merits. Above all things he was regarded as inimi- table 5 but Young, on the contrary, declared that he must be imitated ; writers should try to be original like Shakespeare, should imitate, not his works, but his methods ; they should, like him, disregard all rules and traditions, and go direct to Nature.
It was on this conception of Shakespeare and Shake- speare’s methods, and on Young’s belief that they could and should be imitated, that the Germans seized with propagandist zeal. The duty of every artist to rely upon his own gifts and inspiration became the fashion- able doctrine j and in that wild period, which was called at the time the Genteperiode^ but has since acquired the name of Sturm und Drang, the great watchwords (remziSy Orzginalify, and Creative acquired a resonance, an aggressive and propagandist momentum, which they
105
WORDS AND IDIOMS
had certainly nev-er possessed in England.^ A-nd these terms acquired moreover in Germany a much greater profundity of philosophical meaning, and becstuxe the foundation-stones of a metaphysical aesthetic > when we read in Kant that “ creative imagination is true source of genius and the basis of originality > that Genius makes rules instead of receiving them 9 that it embodies in art aesthetic ideas which are creations of the imagination, and suggest more than can ”be ex- hausted by any definite concept, we become aware that our home-bred English words have indeed arxdergone a strange sea-change by being so deeply immersed in the vast and bottomless ocean of Teutonic thought:-
What we now call the English Romantic lHoV'ement of the eighteenth century hardly deserves indeed, as Professor Beers has pointed out, to he called ia move- ment, since it had no leader, no programme, no organ, no theory of art, and very little coherence/’ ^ dilettante bachelors and Church of England clergymen,
^ Readers of Goethe's Wahrheit und DicMting will arernerahex how he emhodied these watch-words in a witty address to a l^ipzig baker :
Who bakes
W^ith creative genius, original cakes.
{JDu h^ckst ...
Mit schdpfrischem Gmie, origimlle Kuchen) (Boole vii..; German critics are agreed in tracing these watcfcL*woxds the ideas they embody to English sources, and aloov^e all to Young's Comedtires {seeJEdward Young in Germafzy^, J- Kind, Rew York, 1906) . ^ i a
Rrom Cenie the (Armans coined the adjectives 0‘ewal &tiq. gemaliscK meaning “ characterized by genius " in jil:s moaem sense. Our word gmidl comes through the Latin, from g&nius, meaning " social enjoyment." 'Tire Frenctt word gSnidl is borrowed hrom German, with its Oerman miming.
History of English Remmtidsm in the ^^ghieenth Centwy, by Henry A- Beers, London (1899), p. 42^ •
106
FOUR ROMJNTIC WORDS
Gray and Horace Walpole, the Rev. Edward Young,
the Rev. Thoinas^ and the Rev. Joseph Warton,
Bishop Hurd, and Bishop Percy, were most of them
hardly “ Romanticists ” at all, but rather amateurs of
novelties which amused them *, and although in the
^ One of the pioneers of the medieval revival in England was Thomas "Warton, Professor of Poetry at Oxford, a Poet Laureate in 1785. Professor Beers rightly calls attention to the interest, in the history of the English Romantic Movement, of his poem on Sir Joshua Reynolds's window in New College Chapel (pnhhshed in 178^). Warton confesses that, “a faiihless tmant to the classic page,"' he had loved to explore old mansions and castles, and Gothic churches,
“ Where superstition’, with capricious hand In many a maze the wreathed window plann'd,
"Wi-th hues romantic ting'd the gorgeous pane.
To jSJl with holy light the wondrous fane ; " but then he goes on to tell how the chaste design ” and just proportions of Reynolds’s window disenchanted his cheated mind.
Broke the Gothic chain And brought my bosom back to tm-th again.'’
He then, urges, in manner of a palinode, that the brawny prophets, the bearded pa-triarchs, the virgins and angels, the martyrdoms and miracles of the Gothic glass, should “ No more the sacred window’s round disgrace.
But yield to Grecian groupes the shining space."
To visit New College Chapel with these verses, and attempt to recapture the mood of this recantation, would be a useful exercise in the historical study of bygone ways of feeling. The same conjQict is expressed by Horace Walpole’s account of his feelings at Stowe. “ The Grecian Temple is glorious : this I openly worship : in the heretical comer of my heart I adore the Gothic building " {Letters, ed. Toynbee, vol. iii. p. 181) . It is amusing to learn that Reynolds was^not at all convinced of -the genuineness of Warton's recantation. ^ " I owe you great obligations/' he wrote him, " for the sacrifice which you have made, or pretend to have made, "to modem art : I say pretend ,* for though it is allowed that you have, like a true poet, feigned marvellously well, and have opposed •the two diderent styles with the slsill of a Connoisseur, yet I may he allowed to entertain some doub-ts of the sincerity of your conversion. I have no great confidence in the recanta- ■tion of such an old ofiender." Thomas Warton, Poetical Worhs (1802), vol. L pp. Ixxx-L
107
WORDS JND IDIOMS
course of their mild speculations they may have written
— and indeed did write — some of these very phrases,
they had attached no metaphysical meanings of dark
profundity to their casual expressions.
When we now use the word genius^ the contrasted term talent comes into our minds, but this differentia- tion and contrast, like that of romantic and classical^ is the product of German — or perhaps of French — and not of English cogitation. The Oxford Dictionary
“ It was by German writers of the eighteenth
century that the distinction between ‘ genius ’ and
‘ talent,’ which had some foundation in French usage, ^
1 This distinction was noticed by Condillac in his Es&ai suf Vovigine des connaissances humaines (1746), I. ii. par. 104, when, writing of invention, he says, II y en a de deux espdces : le talent et le ginie. Celui-ld combine les idSes d\m art ou d*une science connue, d'une mam^re propve d produire les effets qu*on en doit natuvellement attendre, . . . Celui-ci ajoute au talent Vidie d* esprit, en quelque sorte, cviateuv. II invents de nouveaux arts, ou, dans le mime art, de nouveaux genres igaux, ... XJn homme d talent a un caractire quipeut appartenir d d’autres ; . . . Vn homme de ginie a un caractire original, il est inimitable.
The conception of Genius was the product of the whole movement of European thought ; and to this France, as well as England and Germany, made its contribution. But the French conception was not as near to our modem conception as the above quotation would seem to indicate. The con- nexion between imagination and genius was first suggested in England ; in France genius was more connected with esprit. Condillac denied any real creative power to genius ; its activity consisted for him in the power of combining in new relations the materials furnished by experience. This, he said, was invention. Genius possessed invention in a higher degree than talent ; it was an esprit simple which was able to find what no one had ever been able to discover before (see L. Dewaule, Condillac et la psychologie anglaise contemporaine (1892), pp. 89-90). The notions current in France on these subjects are embodied and discussed by Voltaire in his Dictionnaire philosophique, articles Esprit, Ginie, Imagination, etc.
108
FOUR ROMANTIC WORDS
was sharpened into the strong antithesis which is now universally current, so that the one term is hardly ever defined without reference to the other.”
Like the antithesis of romanticism and classicism, that between genius and talent was suggested now and then by English writers, without, however, any emphasis being laid upon it, or any clear distinction drawn 5 and the word genius^ with its pagan, and talent^ with its biblical suggestions, were practically synonymous until the words came back again from Germany. But, as the Oxford Dictionary points out, “ when ‘ genius,’ as native endowment, came to be contrasted with the aptitudes that can be acquired by study, the approach to the modern sense was often very close.”
This distinction indeed grew naturally, and indeed inevitably, out of the conceptions of originality and creation which we have been studying. Genius was, as Kant defined it, Originalgeist^ Originality was its special mark, it was a Creative Talent. The difference was a difference, not of degree, but of kind j Talent could be acquired ; it achieved its effects by imitation and the obedience to rules 5 Genius was a gift ; it was of a nature which obeyed no laws, was a law to itself, and could not be acquired.^
The fire which was kindled in German hearts by these watchwords, and the revolutionary ideas they embodied, flamed up in Germany again at the end of
1 With regard to present usage, the Oxford Dictionary says, “ The difference between genius and talent has been formulated very variously by different writers, but there is general agree- ment in regarding the former as the higher of the two, as
- creative ’ and ' original,’ and as achieving its results by
instinctive perception and spontaneous activity, rather than by processes which admit of being distinctly analyzed."
109
WORDS JND IDIOMS
the eighteenth century, when a new revolt blazed ou^t:
in that literary movement which adopted the
Romantisch as its battle-cry and title. This title^ arrd
the doctrines and propaganda it stood for, was, sls
have seen, brought from her German visit by
de Stael to set literary France ablaze ; and thirs tJhe
word romanUque^ first borrowed as an epithet for
scape, became in France a literary term to descrit^
those emancipated and revolutionary French write^rs
whom Littr 6 describes.
First from Germany, and then later from Fra-moe, the echoes and influence of the German and Frerxoli Romantic Movements began to cross the Charuxel, bringing with them as their great watchword the Englisli vocable whose adventures and transformations a.hro 2 t<i I have briefly recounted- The deeper meanings wliicln had been added to the word romantic by thinkers, and by the opposition they had elaborated between romanticism and classicism, were made ciirre?n.t in England by the writings of Madame de Stael, a-rtd also no doubt by the talk of that inexhaustible corx- versationalist when she ame to these shores in r 8 i 3
But before the date of Madame de Stael’s Englisli visit we find JefiFrey writing in the Edinburgh in 1802 of that sect of poets ** who boast much oF tlxeir orignality, and seem to value themselves very liigtily
^ The abstract terms Romanticism aad Classicism stro not found in English with, the meanings thev had acquired aloroa-d. tUi a later ^te iRommticUm 1844, Classicism 1837) - Tiae problems involyed toob the form, in the concrete Englislx way, of a discussion as to whether Pope could be cstlleci a.
‘ poet, and an attempt to establish an antithesis betrwroen. - magical and evocative poetry, as opposed to a rhetorioa-l and
- < didactic verse.
lie
FOUR ROMANTIC WORDS
for having broken loose from the bondage of antient
authority, and reasserted the independence of genius.”
Though this sect, which had been established in Eng-
land, Jeffrey said, for ten or twelve years, laid claim
to a creed and a revelation of its own, there could be
little doubt that their doctrines were “of German
origin, and had been derived from some of the great
modern reformers of that country.” ^
This sect of poets was the School which afterwards was baptized, apparently by Jeffrey, as the “ Lake School,” ^ and which in quite recent years we have come to group along with Scott, Byron, Shelley, and Keats as the Romantic Poets of the early nineteenth century.^ It was to these poets, especially to Coleridge, that we owe our modern familiarity with the great watchwords of modern criticism as we now use, or misuse, them, originality^ creative^ imagination^ and genius^ as contrasted with talent^^ etc., and from
1 Review of Southey’s thalaba, Oct. 1802.
® The first instance of the appellation Lake School which the Oxford Dictionary cites is from an article of Jeffrey’s in the Edinburgh Review of Aug. 1817.
® It would be interesting to discover when the English Romantic poets of the early nineteenth century were first all grouped together under this Anglo-Franco-German term. Writmg in 1886, Alois Brandi remarked in his Life of Coleridge that the phrase Lake School ” was a name, but not a designa- tion, and suggested that this group of poets, with the addition of ^ott (but not the more " classical ” Keats, Byron, and Shelley), should be called the English " Romantic School " {English translation, p. 222). I do not know when first the Lake Poets were grouped together with Byron, Keats, Shelley, and Scott as Romantic Poets,” but it must be fairly recent.
- Brandi, in his Life of Coleridge, says that Coleridge derived
the distinction he made between Genius and Talent (” Talent was manufacture, Genius a gift, that no labour or study could supply,” etc.) from his reading of Jean Paul Richter ; and that also the famous distinction between Fancy and the
in
WORDS AND IDIOMS
Coleridge the terms were borrowed by Jeffrey and
Hazlitt and the other critics of the time.
In more recent times the meanings of all these terms have been much enriched by the modern conception of the unconscious self. Although many psychologists would not now accept, without considerable qualifica- tions, the earlier notion of the Unconscious as the abiding-place of genius, and the source of inspiraition,
" higher and creative faculty of Imagination was derived from the same source (Brandi, English translation, p. 3 3^^)* However, this latter distinction had already been suggested by Dryden, who wrote, the first happiness of the poet’s imagination is properly invention, or finding of the thought ; the second is fancy, or the variation, deriving, or moulding of that thought ” (Ker, vol. i. p. 15). The distinction, how- ever, was not noticed by Dryden ’s contemporaries, nor did Dryden himself afterwards observe it. Addison explicitly stated in 1712 that he used Fancy and Imagination promiscu- ously {Spectator, No. 41 1). The distinction between the two was, however, elaborated by W. Duff in his Essay on Original Geniiis (1767) — a book that Coleridge must, I think, have read. ** Wit & Humour,’' Dufi writes, ” are produced by the efiorts of a rambling and sportive Fancy, the latter [Genius] proceeds from the copious fusions of a plastic Imagination " (p. 52). '‘A vigorous, extensive, and plastic Imagination
is the principal qualification of the one [Genius], and a quick and lively Fancy the distinguishing characteristic of the other ” (p. 58).
The distraction, also emphasized by Coleridge, between mechanical " and organic ” — the products of Fancy and Talent being mechanical,’' those of Imagiaation and Genius being “ organic” — ^is also traced by Brandi to Coleridge's > reading of Schiegel and Jean Paul Richter. It was Leibnitz who first suggested this distinction ,* its aesthetic application was worked out in Germany, although, as usual, we find it casually suggested in England in lie eighteenth century, as when Young writes, an original may be said to be of a vegetable nature/' etc. (see ante, p. 27). Young uses the word mechanic,, but not the word organic. The first apoear- ance which I have found of organic with this meaning is in Coleridge’^s Lectures on Shakespeare (delivered in 1810-11, and published in 1849), where he attributes the error of Voltaire's abuse of Shakes^are to " the confounding of mechanical viegularity with organkj form " (ed. 1865, p. 54).
II2
FOUR ROMJNTIC WORDS
yet they would probably all agree that something
analogous to the conscious processes of thought, which
may go on beneath awareness, and reveal itself to it
in a sudden uprush, probably plays an important, and
possibly a dominant, role in what we call inspiration
and the creative activity of genius. Although the
exact nature of these processes is still a matter of dispute,
yet the notion of subconscious thought, taken simply
as an unexplained fact of experience, has helped in some
degree to make more definite the meanings of the terms
we have been discussing.^ These meanings have been
moreover enriched in another way — ^by the addition,
namely, to aesthetic theory, and the facts it considers,
of the non-representative arts of architecture and especi-
ally of music. It is curious to note, in the bewigged
speculations of the eighteenth century, that music,
which was the most living art of that time, and especially
so in the German home of aesthetic speculation, is
barely so much as mentioned. The slightest considera-
tion of the form and content of music would have
most effectually shattered the “ imitation-of-nature ”
theory against which the Germans were in revolt 5 but
in their search for something which transcended
Nature, they turned, not to the musical creations of
Mozart and Gluck and the other composers of the
^ Of other additions to our vocabulary of criticism, perhaps the most important is the use of the old word imaginative with the meaning, as defined by the O.E.D., of “ characterized by, or resulting from, the productive Imaginatioii ; bearing evidence of hi^h poetic or creative fancy.” The first quotation for^this use given by the O.E.I>. is from the introduction to Scott’s Guy Mannenng in the edition of 1829. EeaXism as a term of art-criticism was used by Ruskin in 1856, realistic by Emerson in the same year, and realist by Swinburne in 1870.
w.i.
II3
H
WORDS JND IDIOMS
tim^ but to the supernatural world which tb j
W the wntings of Shakespeare and When precisely the phenomena of J^skTer an influence on German aesthetic thiL®?
Wed enough to say,x but certainly in
of the time music was only referrL to T "T"? and most casual manner.^j briefest
V
of of the
WotTdw'^f to
tn cold blood and with comnlef battle-cries
»tiU latent in themT:tSus^T"^■•
voices which still prophesy ofwar ’ J ^ T ancestral conflict is by no means eJded and ite
are a long way from being yet decide? issues
papher also descends the^dWne fiirv’ Th
Jo take up the cudgels and rush ifhut
into the never-enLg combat’ reS ^ ^ moment,
controlthanlatleastinboastof T'"®
WjomigdKspe^i tptdmmiy step
“ppommiiy to p^„, I shall take; this
FOUR ROMJNTIC WORDS
meaning, and how rich they are in overtones of half- conscious suggestion which confuse us, and which we can only half-comprehend, unless we know their history. That our word romantic^ for instance, acquired its literary meaning, first of all from the contemptuous attitude of the Age of Reason towards the old romances, and afterwards from Its use as an adjective for landscape, for wild and desolate views and ancient castles, seen through the medium of old poems and romances, helps us to understand why, when it was used anew as the name for a certain kind of literature, it came to imply the contemplation of Nature, not directly, but through a mist of associated ideas and literary memories, and thus suggested, and indeed still suggests, that element of subjectivity, of vague and reminiscential feeling, which has been generally regarded as a characteristic of romantic, as opposed to classical, literature. The foreign adventures, too, of the words we have been studying, the fact that they have been to the wars, and have become, as I have said, battle-cries in foreign countries, have also loaded them with propagandist doctrine, with revolutionary and explosive meanings, which are still potent in them. This is especially true, I think, of the great watchwords Genius and Originality ; the GenU'^periode in Germany, the Romantic Move- ments, both in Germany and France, were times of angry enthusiasm and of wild revolt j the ecstatic emphasis laid upon the freedom, the spontaneity, and the originality of the creative genius, the attribution to that genius of miraculous and daemonic powers, invested the cult of Genius and the worship of Originality with an exaggerated and mystical importance. The artists H5
WORDS JND IDIOMS
of earlier days had been regarded — ^and had regarded
themselves — ^as craftsmen ; the new conception of the
artist as a genius, as a creature of passion and fire, above
the law, and the popular deification of this ideal, tended
to produce the beings thus imagined and adored — ^the
wild spirits flawless lives and strange fits of passion,
And mighty Poets in their misery dead.
The emphasis, too, on originality, on the expression of the artist’s unique personality, on the never-ceasing creation of something new and strange and never before heard of, has not only tended to inflame the vanity of the artist, but also to suggest standards of comparison and valuation in which the elements of novelty, of newness for its own sake, are somewhat unduly over- prized. The work of a great artist always, or almost always, has in it an element of newness, and is always, or almost always (though without conscious purpose), coloured by his own personality. But these are surely more accidental than essential characteristics of his work j for newness and the expression of unique personalities are of no great artistic importance in themselves. This is especially true in the arts which we call the fine arts, where technique and tradition are of prime importance 5 and it would not perhaps be too fentastic to attribute, in part at least, the downfall of painting, architecture, and the handicrafts in the earlier decades of the nineteenth century — ^perhaps the greatest artistic disaster the world has ever suffered — ^to this modem enthusiasm for the originality of creative genius, and the desire on the part of every artist and architect and handicraftsman to display as conspicuously 116
FOUR ROMANTIC WORDS
possible his own personality and peculiar gifts.
since then the history of art has been the history Conscious and violent revolutions and reactions, of that gradual and unconscious modification a.n inherited tradition which characterized its <iovelopment in previous ages. n*-
Ho'w far the antithesis, developed abroad, in our ^^O.c:^ptions of classical and romantic art has been an ^^V-antage or disadvantage to criticism it would be ftiou.lt to say ; but most of us would agree, I think, this antithesis has been greatly over-emphasized. TThe ■words romanticism and classicism are used like l^a.t:c:liets to chop us materials of the most delicate and svilDtle weaving and intertexture ; and indeed the ^a.irie:ty of meanings attributed to them shows that they are: employed without any precise and accepted under- sta-uding of what their signification really is. For what afxer all is romanticism as contrasted with classicism ? Is it:^ as Pater said, the addition of strangeness to beauty ; is it disease as opposed to health, as Goethe defined it > or a-u appeal to the feelings as against an appeal to 3rea.son ; or as Schlegel said, the picturesque contrasted 'witli the statuesque ; or self-abandonment versus self- control ; individualism as opposed to the ideals of organized society ; associated ideas and subjectivity as oontrasted with objectivity and formal beauty ; the 03cot:ic, the bizarre, and the magical and mysterious xixoment, rather than the typical, the usual, the general ? Or shall we define it as suggestiveness, incompleteness, £LSp>i ration, and a preoccupation with the infinite, as opposed to definiteness, completeness, and precision of stiSLtiement ?
117
WORDS JND IDIOMS
It is perhaps all these things ; but if this is so, there
are both romantic and classical elements in almost every
work of art ; and the exaggerated opposition between
the two makes it necessary to distort the facts, if we
are to place poems and plays and pictures each separately
by itself in one or the other of these categories. The
facts are reaUy too complex to be summed up in any
one formula , and indeed, all the terms we have been
discussing tend to distort and caricature the phenomena
they attempt to account for 5 it would have been better,
perhaps, for English criticism if they had remained at
home, and by half-conscious adjustments, adapted
themselves, in the practical, empirical, muddle-headed
English way, to the new facts of aesthetic apprecia-
tion as they spontaneously arose. However, we must
take them as they come to our hands , if they are
ploughshares whidi have been beaten into swords, tools
which have been made into battle-axes, they are tools
nevertheless for which we have no substitutes, and we
cannot, if we wish to write of the aesthetic problems
which face us, do without them. These problems are
of two kinds ; there are those connected with the work
of art itself, and those which are more intimately con-
cerned with the artist who produces it. In every
representative of Nature which is a work of art, there
is to be found, as Prof. Courthope has said, something
which is pot to be found in the aspect of Nature which
it represents ; and what that something is has been a
matter of dispute from the earliest days of criticism.
This is the aspect of the problem which has most in-
t^ested the neo-classical critics ; those of what we
cSall romantic tendencies have paid more attention to
118
FOUR ROMJNTIC WORDS
its subjective aspect,^ the power of faculty in the artist
which has enabled him to add this unknown something
to his representation of Nature. What is it, they have
asked, which differentiates the artistic imagination from
the mere fancy, or from the imagination which produces
dreams or the illusions of illness or of madness ? If we
call it the “ plastic ” or the “ creative ” imagination,
we can then perhaps call its product a ‘‘ creation,”
rather than a finding ” or invention ” ; and the
power of the creative artist we many designate as
genius, as opposed to talent. Thus the artist himself
becomes a genius, and we are fitted out with a makeshift
vocabulary of terms for our critical discriminations.
But these terms are, as we have seen, the product of
much confused and over-excited thinking ; and they
denote rather than they define and explain the pheno-
mena they describe. If, however, we are unable to
use them scientifically, a knowledge of their history
may perhaps, as I have suggested, help to put us on
our guard against them when they patently distort the
fiicts. If we keep in mind the revolutionary origin
of our modern theory of genius, we may discount some
of the more overwhelming reverberations of this
portentous word, and more clearly perceive the element
1 The emergence of the words taste and aesthetic are other indications of this subjective trend in criticism. The use of taste to describe a ** special function of the mind " is generally attributed to the Spanish Jesuit Gracian (1601-58), and Addison ascribes the phrase “ the fine taste " to him (see Spingam, vol. i, p. xcii.). The first instance of its use in English is in the line, quoted by the O.E,D. from Paradise Regained, ** Sion^s songs, to all true tastes excelling " Jiv. 347). Aesthetic is an invention of a German critic of the^ eighteenth century, Baumgarten. It is first found in English in 1798 (O.E.Z).).
WORDS JND IDIOMS
of truth which it certainly does express. Now there
can be no doubt that the spontaneous, inspired daemonic
genius — or at least, since it is more a matter of degree
than of absolute distinction — that the genius who
possesses more conspicuously than others this character,
has existed in all the arts : El Greco in painting, Michael
Angelo in sculpture, Wagner in music, are analogues
of original poets like Shelley, Blake, or Walt Whitman ;
but the emphasis laid upon the t5rpe of genius possessed
by these great originators, and the depreciatory contrast
with mere talent, has tended, I think, to make us
forget that the daemonic genius is not the only kind
of genius, and indeed not by any means always the
greatest kind.
We tend to, relegate the undaemonic artists to the category of talent ; and if the antithesis between genius and talent is, as no doubt it is, a useful one, it might be well to restore to our vocabulary the other and older antithesis between the “ natural ” and the “ learned ” genius. For there are, poets and artists of the first rank who are endowed with no daemonic qualities. If Aesdiylus was, as Dryden said, a great genius, and always “ tearing it upon the tripos,” we cannot deny the appellation of genius to Sophocles, who indulged in no such contortions. So in every age of art we find the same contrast. It would be absurd to refuse the narne of genius to Milton or to Leopardi, and yet there were never more conscious authors 5 and, to take another instance, Charlotte Bronte is regarded by her admirers as a more inspired genius than Jane A^ten, but would they maintain that she is therefore a. greater writer? Is the inspired Blake a more 120
FOUR ROMJNTIC WORDS
important figure in English art than the laborious, learned, conscientious Sir Joshua Reynolds ? One of the great defects of our critical vocabulary is the lack of a neutral, non-derogatory name for these great artificers, these artists Who derive their inspiration more from the formal than the emotional aspects of their art, and who are more interested in the masterly control of their material, than in the expression of their own feelings, or the prophetic aspects of their calling.
For this kind of genius, and for the quality which distinguishes it, I should like to suggest an adjective and a noun which will at first certainly surprise, and perhaps shock, my readers, but which, both from their etymology and their earlier use, fit most exquisitely the meaning for which we so much need them. These are the words erudite and erudition^ which are derived from erudire {e^ ‘‘ out of,’^ and rudis^ “ rude,” rough,” or “ raw ”), a verb meaning in classical Latin to bring out of the rough, to form by means of art, to polish, to instruct. Eruditus has in Latin the meaning of “ accomplished,” “ skilled ” ; and in its earlier English use it kept its classical meaning. So also erudition was used for the process of training or instruction, “ the emdition of young children ” ; and also for the in- struction thus imparted, and for the state of being trained or instructed 5 and it was thus used by Shake- speare.^ It was also used of the perfect workmanship
“ Fam'd be thy tutor, and thy parts of nature Thrice-fam’d, beyond all erudition "
(Troilus and Cressida n. iii. 256-7).
So also Sir Henry Wotton writes of Essex, The Earl was of good Erudition, having been placed at Study in Cambridge very young ** (quoted O.E.Z).).
I2I
WORDS JND IDIOMS
or finish of a coin, Addison for instance writing that
“the intrinsic value of an old coin does not consist
in its metal but its erudition.” ^
If, then, we could restore erudite and erudition to their old meanings (they are now merely superfluous synonyms for “ learned ” and “ learning we should have fitting appellations for our great artificers, and for that quality of conscious artistry, of acquired technical accomplishment, which cannot, when carried, as by Horace, to exquisite perfection, be called mere talent. A name for this noble kind of genius, which would explicate and make clear and emphasize its nature and its methods, would I think be of special advantage in two ways. It would, in the first place, recall attention to the imitable qualities in high artistic achievement 5 for the erudite genius, with his acquired mastery of his material, can be most profitably imitated ; while, as Sir Joshua Reynolds pointed out, the imitation of the daemonic genius and his reliance on his inborn and untutored powers, is (save for other daemonic geniuses like himself) the worst possible precedent and example. Then also the fact that the daemonic genius is often a prophet as well, and is generally thought to have a mission (though what exactly were Shakespeare’s or Keats’s missions it might be difficult to say), has given rise to the notion that the true genius comes, like Wprdsworth or Shelley or Browning or Walt Whitman, with a messE^e for his age 5 and thus the genius who has no gospel, no scheme of salvation for the world, but
\ Quoted 0,E.D. So also the O.E.D. quotes from another vmt^, the Merit hpthof Intaglio's and Cameo's depends on KxuditiDn^ on the Goodness of the Workmansmp, and 'die Beauty of their Polish,"
122
FOUR ROMANTIC WORDS
simply a genius for pure art, suffers disparagement from
others, and perhaps discouragement in himself.
It would perhaps be better for our criticism if we were to use the word genius to describe the gift and endowment, rather than the person thus gifted and endowed ; or even, as a critic has suggested,^ for us to avoid using the term as far as possible, and to re- habilitate and restore the term inspiration. For inspira- tion, and the notion it suggests, is perhaps a better description than genius for the phenomena of artistic achievement. The word genius implies the permanent possession of magical power \ and all the works of a genius, being regarded as the products of this power, are accepted in a spirit of worship and without discrim- ination. Thus criticism is blurred, and the genius himself, believing in the unfailing potency of his gift, tends to work in a slovenly manner, and is tempted also to exaggerate and exploit the wonder-working personality to which are attributed such miraculous results. But artists even of the greatest genius are, as we all know, quite capable of producing work of the most deplorable and unblest description 5 their genius is at best but an intermittent energy, and the greatest artist or poet is simply the artist or poet who is most subject to the visitation of what we call inspira- tion — ^who is more frequently and more powerfully inspired than other men. Shelley, who was perhaps as richly endowed with what we call genius as any poet who ever existed, has well described the coming and going of the inspiration upon which, as he tells us, the poet must depend.
^ See The Times, May ii, 1914, p* 9^
123
WORDS AND IDIOMS
“ Poetry is not like reasoning, a power to be exerted
according to the determination of the will. A man
cannot say, ‘ I will compose Poetry.’ The greatest
poet even cannot say it 5 for the mind in creation is
as a fading coal, wnich some invisible influence, like
an inconstant wind, awakens to transitory brightness 5
this power arises from within, like the colour of a
flower which fades and changes as it is developed, and
the conscious portions of our natures are unprophetic
either of its approach or its departure.” ^
In the intervals of inspiration, the poet, Shelley adds,
becomes a man, and is abandoned to the sudden reflux of the influences under which others habitually live.”
If our attention were more habitually directed to the visits of inspiration, rather than to the genius it visits, although n. clear conception of what inspiration is might elude us, yet we could more accurately discriminate its traces, finding them not only in the works of the erudite as well as the daemonic genius, but also, now and then, in the productions of mere men of talent, to whom the name of genius, with its modern meaning, can hardly be applied.
The advance of modern psychology has, moreover, removed one difficulty, which to the older critics was involved in the theory of inspiration. If poetry, they asked, was a product of inspiration, if it was something whicii was ^ven from without, how could it be regarded as^an art which required — ^as poetry obviously did require^ labour, apprenticeship, preparation, study ? This diflflculty is met for us by the modem theory of the unconscious, and all the real, if loosely defined, notions which are associated with that con- ^ A Defence of Poetry.
124
FOUR ROMJNTIC WORDS
ccpt.^ Inspiration^ ns wc concciv’c it^ docs not come to us from without. It is not a gift of the stars or the Muses, but an impulse from sources that are inside ourselves. The Pierian Spring, the Fountain of Castalia, are still flowing, but their streams murmur deep within us ; and although our conscious intelligence has no direct control over these springs of power, yet by labour and study it can clarify and enrich them ; and can form standards and ideals which, long brooded over, may then sink down from the conscious into the unconscious strata of our mental eidstence, and mould and elaborate the unknown stores of energy which exist there, amorphous and concealed.
The modern cult of Genius, and the heated atmos- phere of revolution that gave it birth, have also tended to over-emphasize and endow with exaggerated import- ance the word originality, and the quality it denotes in works of art. Originality has no doubt its import- ance, but that importance is more historical than purely aesthetic ; for not only in the absence of documents are we unable to say how much originality is possessed by the works of ancient writers like Homer or Lucretius or Catullus,* but also, when we do possess the docu-
- " There is in genius itself an unconscious activity ; nay,
that is the genius in the man of genius." Coleridge, Essew on Poesy in Aft {Biographia Eiterariaf ed. Shawcioss, vol. ii. p. 258). "Talent differs from genius, as voluntary differs “yoluntaxy power.” Harlitt, The Indian Jugglers, Table Talk, vol. i. p. 195. " The definition of genius is that
it acts unconsciously ; and those who have produced immortal works, have done so without knowing how or why. The greatest power operates unseen.” Plain Speaker, i. p. 284.
2 How much ” originality ” we should find in the poem of Catullus, ille mi pat esse deo videtur, did we not know that this poem was a direct translation from Sappho 1 125
WORDS JND IDIOMS
merits, we often find that the greatest innovators in
the arts, those who have done most to create new forms
and utilize new material, are not by any means always
those of the highest and most permanent achievement,
Donne was a greater innovator than Shakespeare, and
had a^much more powerful influence upon the succeed-
ing generation, but he was not a greater poet ; Cara-
vaggio was one of the most original of Italian painters,
and has been called the first modern artist, the inventor
of realism, the begetter of Velasquez and Manet ; but
his work has for us little pure artistic interest. Rossetti
was a painter of Immense originality, but of small
artistic achievement ; Philipp Emanuel Bach, musicians
tell us, was a greater originator, and had a much more
powerful influence on the development of music, than
his father John Sebastian 5 while J ean-Jacques Rousseau
is by no means the greatest writer of that world of
modern thought and feeling which he did more than
any one to discover and create. The sense of original
discovery, of turning up new soil, is more of value as
an incentive and encouragement to the artist, than as an
aj^roved ingredient in, or characteristic of, his work.
Besides the word inspiration^ there is another rather
old-fashioned term which we might do well to furbish
up and restore to our critical vocabulary. This is the
painter’s term invention, which describes a quality of
real, if subordinate, importance, not only in painting
but in literature as weL Johnson declared that the
highest praise of poetry was invention, “ such invention
as, by producing something unexpected, surprises and
delights,” 1 It was by invention, he said, that new
^ Life of Waller,
126
FOUR ROMJNTIC WORDS
trains of events are formed, and new scenes of imagery displayed ” 5 ^ and this power not only of inventing new scenes and incidents and displaying^ new images, but also of contriving new moulds and shapes, metrical and other, for the purposes of new expression — this gift of invention, which Keats called “ the Polar Star of Poetry,” ® has been somewhat overshadowed and eclipsed by the use of the portentous word creation^ with which I shall conclude my remarks. The words creatBy creatioriy creatoVy creativey have become so vulgarized, and are so indiscriminately used — even in fashion-papers we read of ‘‘ creations ” in millinery — that careful writers try to avoid them, although they find that they cannot banish them altogether from their vocabulary. For the conception they embody is, of all the ideas expressed by the watchwords we have been studying, in fact the primary one ; it lies at the root of all the rest, and is the origin and source of the great change in our modern theory of aesthetics. The word invention was a word of compromise, an attempt to reconcile, by the idea of original copying, the old imitation-theory with the notorious need for something more than the repetition of the same effects in art. As this imitation-theory gradually broke down, the notion of invention began to be replaced by that of creation — the creation, in the first place, of fairy worlds ” by Shakespeare and Milton, but especially by Shakespeare, This conception was then enlarged to include the creation in drama and fiction of living characters, and
1 of Pope.
® A long poem is a test of invention, which I take to be the Polar Star of Poetry, as Fancy is the Sails and Imagination the rudder." Letter to Bailey, Oct. 8, 1817.
127
WORDS AND IDIOMS
afterwards with the inclusion of music, to that of whole
new and spontaneous worlds of feeling and relation,
which have little or no correspondence with the given
world of fact.
This idea, like the other ideas we have been study- ing, was immensely emphasized in the romantic revolts of Germany and France : to sanctify and deify art as the second creator was, Theophile Gautier tells us, one of the ideals of the French Romantics, and he quotes the famous lines :
Dans la cr&tion d’un bonheur sans melange Etre plus artiste que Dieu ! ^
This reverent and religious, or, as others thought it, irreligious, conception of the divine power of the artistic creator returned across the Channel, and is often found in the works of Coleridge, as when, for instance, he describes the imagination of the artist as an echo of what he calls the primary imagination, which is itself an analogue of creation, and its activity ** a repetition in the finite mind of the eternal act of creation in the infinite I AM,” ^ In other writers of this period, in Wordsworth and Keats and Shelley and Hazlitt, we find an almost equal glorification of the poet^s creative faculty, the notion that the artist, and above all the poet, has the power of creating a new heav^ and a new earth, a world more real perhaps than the actual one, a universe of the mind, concrete, autonomous independent, and peopled by living beings, created before they are represented — ^as Coleridge said
- Mistoire du Romantisme, p, 65.
- c 3 aap. yiiv
128
FOUR ROMJNTIC WORDS
of Shakespeare’s characters — out of the depths of the poet’s own mind, and, in Shelley’s words.
Forms more real than living man.
Nurslings of immortality.
There is something mystical in this doctrine, this faith, as of Keats, that “ what the Imagination seizes as Beauty must be Truth — ^whether it existed before or not.” And yet the notion that art is creative, that, in Pater’s words, it ‘‘ adds a new presence to the world,” or as Wordsworth puts it, “ Genius is the introduction of a new element into the intellectual universe ... an advance, or a conquest, made by the soul of the poet,” is a notion which deeply permeates all our criticism 5 and what we have come to value most in art is not the imitation of Nature, but the unprecedented and un- dreamed of harmonies it creates, the surprise and strange- ness of those authentic and yet unforeseeable visions — those worlds of beauty and truth and wonder — which it opens to the imagination.
Even in a phrase like :
Tiger ! Tiger ! burning bright In the forests of the Night,
we seem to recognize the character of something inevit- able, something that has a veracity of its own, that must exist, and has always existed, and from which we cannot withhold the name of reality.
And as often happens in the history of thought, our notion of this m)rstery of artistic creation has been made somewhat clearer by the method of antithesis. Just as romanticism has been more clearly defined by its opposition to classicism, genius by the contrast with w.i. 129 I
JTORDS JND IDIOMS
talent, aad itnagim-tion by that of fancy, so the notion
of creation has been sometimes contrasted wi'tli that
of invention, as when for instance a recent critic wrote
that Shakespeare of all men seems to have been in
comparison with his strength in Creation, the w^kest
in Invention,’**-
VI
In their human and most happy manner the ancient Greeks embodied in appropriate symbols their a.ware- ness of aesthetic facts and of the experience of the poet These symbols of Apollo, the lyre of thte God, and the piercing song of the Muses, their hauints on Helicon and Parnassus, their sacred springs of Hippo- crene and Castalia 5 the visits of these Immortals to the mortals who invoke them, and the divine fVxry and enthusiasm they inspire, have lived on in our literature, not only as hallowed and beantifiil ornaments^ but as true, though symbolic, expressions of the circumstances which give rise to poetry, and of tlie nature of the poefs sensibilities and gifts. To this inherited vocabu- lary the Romamtic Movement has added, partly from biblicd sources, the terms which have been occupying our attention. The whole body of these words, stncient and modem, represents and expresses the ^.esthetic experience of the human spirit 5 an experience which, though very real and profound, has been as yet very partially clarified into speculative theory. Bxrt these words have cctfue to be so indiscriminately employed, and are now so blurred in outline, that there is a great
^ TiwMs IMerary Svip^lemnt, Sept. 20, 1917.
130
FOUR ROMJNTIC WORDS
need to make definite, and prSciser — or why not say in purer English ‘‘ to precise ” — ^their meanings ; to bring into more clear-cut relief the phenomena they designate ; and by means of a nicer and more accurate use of this inherited vocabulary, to discriminate for instance in works of art their originality, their romantic or their classical ingredients ; or, in the endowments of the artist who produces them, their gifts of talent and erudition, or of unconscious and daemonic genius. And if, becoming aware of other qualities for which we have no names, we may be tempted to suggest new appellations, we would do well to follow, in this matter, the tradition of our older nomenclature, and be content, for the most part, like our predecessors, with designating or merely descriptive words. There is a tendency in the human mind to be impatient of anything it cannot understand, and to deny, if possible, the existence of phenomena for which it can find no explanation. Thus, as we have seen, the neo-classical critics denied the existence of inspiration, and the more mysterious powers of the imagination. This tendency leads men of science to prefer analytic and explanatory terms 5 but in matters like the phenomena of aesthetics, names which may suggest over-hasty explanations tend to falsify and distort the things they designate, and become premature and petrified definitions, which cannot readily grow and deepen with the growth and deepening of our knowledge. A chance appellation like romantic^ for instance, or a metaphor like inspiration^ are much more convenient names than a term like Coleridge’s “ esem- plastic power ” for the imagination, which attempts to explain its working.
131
JFORDS JND IDIOMS
The truth is that the phenomena of artistic pro-
duction are still so obscure, so baffling, we are still so
far from an accurate scientific and psychological know-
ledge of their genesis or meaning, that we are forced
to accept them as empirical facts 5 and empirical and
non-explanatory names are the names that suit them
best. The complete explanation of any fact is the very
last step in human thought ; and it is reached, as I
have said, if indeed it is ever reached, by the preliminary
processes of recognition, designation, and definition.
It is with these preliminary processes that our aesthetic
criticism is still occupied. We have recognized, and
we have named, the mysterious creative power of the
imagination, the genius of the poet or artist who
possesses it, and the inspiration by which he is himself
possessed. But what, stated in terms of scientific
psychology, these powers really are, and what are the
OMiditions which favour or impede their activity, though
they are problems whose solution is of the utmost
importance for dvilization, they are problems never-
theless about which we are still almost completely in
die dark. Perhaps the most profitable thing we ca-n
do at present is, leaving their ultimate analysis in
saispoBe, to discriminate their manifestations in the
imnaoise wealth of concrete examples to which our
atteiiri(»ijs being now so multifariously directed. Th.e
more adequate solution of these problems is a task which
■’sdll no doubt profoundly concern the critics, the
psfchdogbtSj and even the sociologists and meta-
fhj^idans erf the future ; it is not, however, a task
wMch can rigjitly he imposed upon the lexicographer,
peaceful role I now resume, and in which role
132
FOUR ROMJNTIC WORDS
I will complete my essay by a few relevant quotations
from some of our contemporary writers who have
touched upon these problems. Thus Mr. A. C.
Bradley says of poetry, Its nature is to be not a part,
nor yet a copy, of the real world (as we commonly
understand that phrase), but to be a world by itself,
independent, complete, autonomous.” And again, of
life and poetry, he says, ‘‘ the two may be called different
forms of the same thing ; one of them having (in the
usual sense) reality, but seldom fully satisfying imagina-
tion ; while the other offers something which satisfies
imagination, but has not full ‘ reality ^
In writing of Byron, Dr. Herford says :
“ Byron lacks supreme imagination. With bound- less resources of invention, rhetoric, passion, wit, fancy, he has not the quality which creates out of sensation, or thought, or language, or all together, an action, a vision, an image, or a phrase, which, penetrated with the poet’s individuality, has the air of a discovery, not an invention, and no sooner exists than it seems to have always existed. A creator in the highest sense Byron is not.” 2
In the writings of the least romantic of modern critics, Mr. Santayana, we can perhaps find the most rational statement of this modern theory of artistic creation.
A spontaneous creation of the mind can be more striking and living than any reality, or any abstraction from realities. The artist can invent a form which, by its adaptation to the imagination, lodges there, and
^ Oxford Lectures on Poetry, pp. 5, 6.
® Herford, The Age of Wordsworth, p. 236.
133
WORDS JND IDIOMS
becomes a point of reference for all observations, and
a standard of naturalness and beauty. . . . This method
of originating types is what we ordinarily describe as
artistic creation. The name indicates the suddenness,
originality, and individuality of the conception thus
attained.” ^
In another place Mr. Santayana says of the higher arts :
“ When the world is shattered to bits they can come and ‘ build it nearer to the heart’s desire.’ The ^reat function of poetry ... is precisely this : to repair to the material of experience, seizing hold of the reality of sensation and fancy beneath the surface of conven- tional ideas, and then out of that living but indefinite material to build new structures, richer, finer, fitter to the primary tendencies of our nature, truer to the ultimate possioilities of the soul.” ^
I will end with a relevant quotation from a living poet :
For beauty being the best of all we know Sums up the unsearchable and secret aims Of nature, and on joys whose earthly names Were never told can form and sense bestow ;
And man hath sped his instinct to outgo The step of science ; and against her shames Imagination stakes out heavenly claims,
Building a tower above the head of woe.®
^ The Sense of Beaviy, p. i8o.
- Poetry and Religion, pp. 269-70.
® The Poetical Works of Robert Bridges (1912), p. 191.
134
CHAPTER IV
POPULAR SPEECH AND STANDARD ENGLISH
I
We are all of us aware that outside the borders of what is called good English,” the standard language, spoken and written by the educated classes, there are other forms of speech in existence all about us — there are the special jargons of various trades and sports and occupations ; there are the rich vocabularies of slang, of imprecation, and of ribaldry — ^all full of vitality and interest ; and then there are the local dialects which are still to be found in almost all parts of England and Scotland. Exact and precise definitions and classi- fications of all these various forms of popular speech are hardly possible, so mixed are they, and so impercept- ibly do they shade one into another 5 they may, however, be all grouped together, in contrast to the standard language, under the name of popular speech, the essential difference being that they are all spoken, but not written vernaculars ; that they live and change and develop, or deteriorate, free from the conditions and the restrictions which are imposed, and necessarily imposed, upon any form of speech which has become a written language, and which, with its received
135
WORM JND IDIOMS
vocabulary and its obligatory grammar, is taught in
schools, and written and spoken by all educated people.
The formation of our standard English, its growth in
the course of centuries, is described in every history
of our language, and we are now witnessing its im-
mense extension — the way in which, by means of
quickened social intercourse, by popular education and
the press, it is spreading its domain ever more widely.
The influence of standard English on popular speech
is easy to observe ; but the reverse action, the influence
upon the standard language of those forms of un-
schooled and unwritten speech which have always
existed, and still exist, outside its borders, is a subject
which has attracted less attention, although it is by no
means without its interest and importance.
Of all the various forms of non-literary English, the local dialects have been most carefully documented and studied j glossaries of all, and grammars of some of them, have been published, and the material in these has been put together, with that collected by the Dialect Society, in six volumes of Dr. Wright’s immense Dialect Dictimary, which is not only one of the greatest lexicographical achievements ever performed by one scholar, but a work for the lover of words of inex- haustible fesdnation, enabling him, as it does, to explore at ease the wild regions of English which lie around the streets and suburbs of our polite vernacular.
II
There is much in the study of dialect of scientific importance to the linguistic student, and much too
136
POPULAR SPEECH
of more general interest which is not without jskvance
to the subject of this essay. One of the first things
that the lover of literature notices in the English
dialects is the number of ancient terms which are still
preserved in them, although they have become obsolete
in our standard language. It is well known, of course,
that a large part of the Anglo-Saxon vocabulary, driven
from the court and the hall by French invaders at the
Norman Conquest, has taken refuge in humble cottages,
and still preserves a vigorous life in village speech. A
list of these old Saxon words, unknown to modern
literature, but still spoken by the uneducated classes,
would fill many pages ; their interest is, perhaps, more
linguistic than literary, but it is worth noting that some
of these humble terms are among the most highly
descended words in our language, and go back, not
only to the Teutonic past which we share with our
German cousins, but even to the remotest Aryan
antiquity. “ Mickle,” for instance, is a cousin of the
Greek /xeydXoy ; the Yorkshire verb to frayne, mean-
ing “to ask,” is related to the Latin frecari^ the
Northern thoU to the Latin tolUre ; and when our
gardeners speak of healing plants, they are using a word
which, in its Latin and Greek forms, is to be found
in the works of Virgil and Pindar and Aeschylus. But
the feshionable French invaders which drove these old
words from our standard speech have, many of them,
suffered the same fate in the course of time— they,
too, have fiillen from the castle, and are now only to
be found in the cottage and the village street. Many
of these old English and French words are not under-
stood by educated people, or only known to them from
137
WORDS AND IDIOMS
the glossaries of old poets ; but we find among them a large number of literary and archaic words which are, perhaps, still used in writing, although they have perished from our spoken conversation.
Our standard language is always suffering a kind of impoverishment which is somewhat mysterious in its causes and perhaps impossible to prevent. There is a sort of blight which attacks many of our most ancient, beautiful, and expressive words, rendering them first of all unsuitable for colloquial speech, though they may be still used in prose. Next they are driven out of the prose vocabulary into that of poetry, and are at last removed into that limbo of archaisms and affecta- tions to which so many splendid words of our language have been unhappily banished. It is not that these words lose their lustre, as many words lose it, by hackneyed use and common handling 5 the process is rather the opposite j by not being used enough, the phosphorescence of decay seems to attack them, and give them a kind of shimmer which makes them seem too fine for conunon occasions. The fate of many beautiful old words like teen and rathe has thus been decided j they are probably now lost to the language, and can never be restored. Others like tryst and lea and/^7m and sooth and dight znd fell and blithe^ belong to our poetic vocabulary 5 words like woe and rue and foe 2 xvd fleet and chide and slay and mar and weep^ still are used in prose, but are seldom or never spoken 5 while there are certain other tainted words which still linger on in our speech with metaphorical, though no longer with their literal meanings ; we can still talk of dehnng into our minds, or dwelling in thought.
POPULJR SPEECH
but wc would never speak of delving in the garden or
dwelling in England \ we shun a thought, hut not a
bore, we can designate a punishment as swift^ but not
a bird, or an airplane, or a steamer 5 and we will call
people swine or hounds^ although we seldom use these
words for the animals they* more properly designate.
And yet all, or almost all, these beautiful old words are
still in literal use in various parts of the country ; the
other poetic words I have mentioned are still spoken 5
and the delight of meeting them, not as dim ghosts in
books, but as vocables of living speech, of hearing in
the familiar talk of workmen and of cottagers obsolete
terms that King Alfred used, and Chaucer made
famous, is not the least of the many surprises which
will reward anyone who will listen to dialect speech.
Why we cannot use them, the nature of the taboo
which keeps our lips from speaking words which our
uneducated neighbours can freely utter, is, as I have
said, a mystery,^ but the fact remains that with the best
will in the world we cannot speak of biding in the house,
or slaying pheasants j indeed, anyone who might make
the attempt would be likely to share the embarrassment
of the would-be sportswoman, who exclaimed in the
hunting-field, What a beautiful leap ! ’’ and found it
as well to leave the neighbourhood soon afterwards.
^ Mr. Robert Bridges, in his S.P.E. Tract 0 % English Homo- phones (pp, 24-26) , has painted out that some of these obsolete or obsolescent words, like nteedf dole, etc., are homophonic, that is to say, that they possess two or more meanings ; and be suggests that this ambiguity has been the cause of their decay. But this explanation accounts for the death of only a small proportion of our dead or dying words — the greater number of them were never homophones, and have possessed but one meaning, and yet, as Horace noted long ago, they perish like the leaves of the forest.
139
Jf^ORLS AND IDIOMS
Caji these lost treasures be recovered — is it possible
to revive these dying words and restore them to our
colloquial speech f Many of them which had become
so obsolete in the eighteenth century that they had to
be explained in glossaries, when poets like Chaucer and
Spenser were reprinted in that period, were revived as
literary terms during the Romantic Movement, and,
when we see them in books, they are familiar ro u.s all.
But we seldom, if ever, hear them spoken, they remain
in the limbo of poetic words, and never reach our lips-
Occasionally, however, a word of this kind will return
to tile standard language, not as a literary revival^ but
from some form of popular speech where it is still
spoken ; and then we too can speak it, and its position
is much more natural and assured. The word brand for
instance is a poetic term which we might write, but
would never utter for a burning log, or a mark of fire ;
its use however by workmen for the process of ‘‘ brand-
ing ” casks, enables us to speak of a “ brand ” of goods.
Car is another word which has been restored in much
the same manner ; for this important and historic word,
which was borrowed into late Latin from the Celts,
and which came through Nonnan-rrench into the
English language, had become by the eighteenth
century a poetical term for some splendid and im-
aginary vehicle, the Car of Night, or the Car of
Phaeton, and. seems to have fallen out of the standard
spoken speech. It was, however, preserved for h.ome-
lier uses in certain districts, for the jaunting car in
Ireland, and for the car ” or farm-cart in Scotland
and Devonshire ; andbeiag adopted in America for the
horse-car” and the railway car, and for the tram-car
140
POPULJR SPEECH
in England, it has now, from its use for motor ears,
become one of our most current words, happily
replacing the cumbrous term automobile,
III
But it is not only on account of the old words preserved in them that dialects are of interest. Being forms of speech which have developed in natural freedom, we can observe in them the untrammelled working of those processes by which our speech is being continually enriched. In writing of English sea-terms in a former chapter, I have already spoken of that assimilative power, thanks to which our lan- guage, in spite of its polyglot sources, has preserved its integrity of character and sound, i Owing to this reactive energy of popular speech, tlis instinctive and healthy demand for homely sounds in spoken words, terms of alien character are not current long in popular speech before they take on a native shape. Alien sounds are often too replaced by syllables which are already familiar 5 1 thus lumbago has been trans- formed into rumbago, bronchitis into hrownkitusy or hrowncrisisy and rheumatics into the expressive word screwmatics. These popular assimilations are ^called “corruptions,’^ but we must remember that ^ to, this happy, ignprance and philologcal unscrupnlousjiess of unlettered people, we already owe a number of useful and pretty words like mushroom^ loosestrife^ rosemary y zxiA^nnyroyaL It may be in the future, when the history ahcT^he analogies of the English language are better understood, that these popular transformations
141
WORDS Jim IDIOMS
will be regarded with more kindly eyes, and tha-t we will no longer banish from onr speech words like sparrou>grass and cozjucumler (which were once good English), and will welcome into that disgraceful depart- ment of our vocabulary — our names of garden-flowers — ^words like Tosydemdran^ polyann for polyanthus^ and peremdoll for campanid^a pyramtdalis. And when we have a new foreign term like char-h’-banc to assimilate, would it be a misfortune if, as Mr. de la Mare has suggested, popular et]nnology should transform it into the pretty form of cherry bang ?
Besides assimilation, other processes which have made our language what it is, can also be seen at work in the speech of the uneducated classes. We all know of course how many of our words have changed their meanings in the course of history^ and how in spite of the protests of all the purists, these changes are still going on in our standard language, But in the dialects these shifts of meaning are still more frequent and surprising. This is especially true of such learned words as find their way into the popular vocabu- lary. Unediaated people have a romantic fondness for “ dixonaries “ jaw-breakers,” or “ cramp-words,” as they are called, and show considerable origina^lity in the uses to which they put them. Thus moniment has come to mean a fool in Scotland, pedigree a long story or rigmarole in Yorkshire j rriraculous has clianged its meaning to very drunk,” stagnate to “ astonish,” and spiritual to “ angry.” Not many words of Greek origin are found in popular speech (though curiously enough the modem bonowing mus appears in almost all dialects)^ but those which are adopted undergo
142
POPULJR SPEECH
strange transformations, both in form and in significa-
tion. Thus logaram and logic have both acquired the
meaning of “ balderdash,’’ jometry that of magic ; a
hypocrite or hipocrtp signifies merely an invalid in some
places ; tyrant in other districts means “ capable,” as
in the phrase, “ a tyrant maid of all work ” ; fantome
or fantomy has become a common adjective for a poor
crop of corn ; catastrophes is a name in Scodand for
pieces of broken china, and the word comical has
acquired in different dialects such diverse meanings as
‘‘ bad-tempered,” “ impertinent,” dangerous,” or
ill.”
\ Words which are emphatic, and express feelings of wonder, admiration and surprise, are especially liable to change their meaning. Strong feelings not only need strong words, but they need new ones, when the strength of the old ones which have been employed is exhausted, and our colloquial terms awful^ ripping^ stunning^ etc., show how persistent is this need. In emphatic terms of this kind the dialects are extremely rich j j the weather may be audacious cold in Sussex, or lamentahle or heinous fine in other districts ^ and from various dialects have been collected many odd intensives — -fell or furious fond, mud or raving or black fat, shocking or desperate quiet, miserable or odious good ; a fierce {i.e. a lively) baby, a perfumed liar^ or a serious place for ducks.
IV
But there are still other linguistic processes, besides those of assimilation and change of meaning, which can be studied indialectspeechintheirfreeanduntrammelled
143
WORDS AND IDIOMS
working. Of these the most important are Ithe pro- cesses by which new words are created.| Popular speech contains thousands of words which find no place in our standard dictionaries. Many of these are of course locals but there are many which are spoken in all districts, although the educated classes have no acquaintance with them. Some of these are, as we have seen, ancient survivals, but the greater number are apparently new formations. | The p(^ular verna- cular are vast speech-jungles, im whidi old forms are ones continually springing into Hfe ; and this fermentation rSuTis in the creation of number- less new terms, which come to birth and live and die in tropical profusion. They are formed in living
moment 5 the greater number of them hardy survive the occasion that brought them forth 5 but others, on account of their expressive power and their usefulness, establish themselves, spread from district to district, and help to form that vocabulary of rustic speech which forms so vivid a mirror of the popular mind and its principal concerns and preoccupa- tions. Here we find, as we might expect, a great wealth of agricultural terms — ^words for the various processes of cultivation, in all their nicest details, and words also for all the varieties of our variable weather, the ydnds, the rains, the frosts and thaws which help or hinder the labourer in his toils. Here we find also a rich vocabulary of reproof and vituperation for those human failings which are most obnoxious to plain and hard-working people for laziness and lounging, for fine dressing and pretence and idle talk ; and their cc^Bccrions of half humorous, half indignant names
144
POPULJR SPEECH
for louts and slovens form one of the main features
of our Doric vocabularies. Many of these popular
words are too frank for polite usage, but this is by no
means their general character. Our dialects are often
rich in words expressive of nice observation — ^words
which are superior to those of our standard speech in
freshness and vividness, and which also often describe
acts and objects and feelings for which we possess no
names.^ «
What is the linguistic shape of these words, and by what processes are they formed ? Many are compound words ; for dialect speech, like the speech of sailors, has preserved that power of making compound words out of English elements which has become more or less atrophied in our literary language 5 and every now and then words of this kind, like makeweight^ shortcomings outpufs^nd the recent miner’s term, bedrock^ make their wav from popular speech into the standard language. The useful compound week-end^ originally a local term in the north and east of England, is one of the more recent of these additions.^ But by for the greater number of
^ To munge, for instance, meaning to eat in secret, to pomster, to treat oneself with quack remedies, the eveing of stones and walls when moisture collects on them with a change of weather, the dirlingoi one's elbow when one knocks it suddenly, the smeech of a smoky lamp, the gmhels, or little dams made by children, or the dilly -castles they build against the tide. I like, too, the Dorsetshire word clickmetoad for a traction-engine or steam-roller ; it is a happy invention, and would be a useful addition to our motoring vocabulary.
® Many of these compounds are the native equivalents for the Latin or Greek words in our standard vocabulary— a make- sleepy, for instance, for a soporific, moody -hearted for melan- choly, a dish-down for a disappointment, and day-lived for ephemeral. Other compounds are a moon-belief, a natural- hearted soil, the stmway or moonway on the waters, and weather-gleam for a clearing in the sky near a dark horizon.
w.i. 145 ®
WORDS AND IDIOMS
new words of popular formation are not made of old
material, but are new roots, fresh formations made out
of expressive sounds, and products of the true ono-
matopoeic faculty. The publication of the Oxford
Dictionary has brought to light the fact that our language
during the whole course of its history has been con-
tinuously enriched by “echo’’ words like hoot and
chatter^ bounce and bump^ hurry and hubbub^ thud and
thump and smash^ and by humorous formations like
cantankerous^ pernickety ^ rollicking, flabbergast^ higglede--
piggledy, and harum-scarum, and hundreds of others
of the same kind. Many of these have been traced
to dialect sources \ the origin of the others remains
obscure, but there can be little doubt that, if we knew
more about them, we should find that they too are
products of unschooled English, which abounds in
expressive words of this character.
There is yet another way in which popular speech makes use of the elements of sound in our language. The material of any language consists of course in those combinations of vowels and consonants which seem natural and easy to its speakers, and the words which are most easily pronounced are formed out of the simplest and shortest combinations of these sounds. Monosyllabic words abound in English, and do much to give oUr language its energetic character 5 and yet when we examine their employment, we find that it is, from an ideal standpoint, somewhat wasteful and capricious. A very large number of our mono- syllables are made to bear the weight of many meanings ; sounds like right, rain, rati, tick, list, and many others have from three to five significations, which as Mr, 146
POPULJR SPEECH
Robert Bridges has pointed out,^ seriously hampers their
usefulness as means of expression, while hundreds of
other simple vocables, like elite, pite, hain, nain,
thale, plick, Ust, thist, lie idle, like bits of unstamped
metal, in the treasury of our speech. But we have only
to open the Dialed Dictionary to see what a vast number
of monosyllabic sounds like belk, helve, bield, hirl, and
hundreds of others have been made use of and given
meanings. Many of these indeed have made their way
into our standard speech ; fad, fun, fog, nag, pet, hub,
blight, beach, bleak, freak, shunt, skid, swamp and
thud are probably all words of popular origin, and at
least four monosyllables from English dialects —the
words coke, tram, lunch and snob, have proved of such
value, that they have made their way into foreign
vocabularies as well, and are now current almost all
over the continent of Europe. The success of these
penny pieces of popular speech may perhaps point the
way to their more liberal use in the future ; if the
principles of nomenclature ever come to be better
understood, it will be seen, I think, that a simple,
monosyllabic, designatory word like gas, which can
easily form derivatives and enter into combinations,
is preferable as a tool of thought to the long, difficult
and learned explanatory terms which men of science
are so fond of forming out of Greek and Latin elements.
V
Words of the kinds I have been describing, obsolete terms and compounds, assimilations, echo words, 1 On English Homophones, S.P.E. Tract, No. II., I9t9-
147
fFORDS JND IDIOMS
monosyllables and words with changed meanings, are
continually finding their way from dialects and popular
speech into the literary language, drifting like air-borne
seeds over the barriers and walls which guard its
precincts, and by their freshness and energy they do
much to maintain our standard speech in health and
vigour. Writers on the subject of language often
speak of “ dialectic regeneration,” the enrichment of
the standard language by popular words ; but their
methods of entrance, the various ways by which this
enrichment takes place, have never been studied in
detail. As, however, they are processes which we not
only can see going on every day about us, but in which
we all of us unconsciously play our part, it will be of
interest to give a little consideration to them.
J The most easily-opened door through which words find their way from dialect to standard speech is by means of some special trade or occupation \ but this is so obvious and familiar to us, that it is not necessary to say much about it. We all know that when a business becomes of national importance its terms come to be generally familiar ; thus the workmen from the North who built the first railways added to our vocabulary, and indeed to the vocabularies of Europ^ dialect words like shmt^ bogie^ trolley^ and
- l miners have provided us with terms like coke
and nugget^ and hli^t and clover have come from the gardeners and fanners of various districts. Local sports, too, when they become widely popular, also add, in much the same manner, local terms to our vocabulary ; thus lasher is a word picked up by rowing-men in the Thames valley \ skid and hub owe their popularity to 148
POPULJR SPEECH
bicycling ; rink is a Scottish word, and also from Scot-
land has come that wealth of golfing terms which have
recently been added to the language.
But there are other ways, more important, but more difficult to trace, by which dialect words make their way into the different varieties of standard English. For our accepted language, the English familiar to the educated classes, is not absolutely uniform, but is made up of several forms of speech which vary somewhat in their vocabulary and grammar, and which are used on different occasions, according to their dignity and importance. Most familiar of all is the language of colloquial talk, with its expletives, easy idioms, and a varying amount of slang. Above this is the vernacular of good conversation, more correct, more dignified, and entirely, or almost entirely, free from slang. Above this comes the written language, which is richer in vocabulary and somewhat more old-fashioned in con- struction than the standard spoken speech. But this written, like the spoken language, is also of two kinds — for the English of poetry differs from that of prose, both in grammar and vocabulary. We have, therefore, at least four varieties of English, each with its set of special terms. Now, if we examine this linguistic ladder or staircase reaching from earth to the heights of poetry, we shall find that its lowest rung or step is fixed close to the soil of popular and vulgar speech. For our slangy and colloquial terms are almost always of popular origin 5 and among these are to be found a large number of words from dialects. These words find an easy entrance into the vocabulary of familiar talk ; sportsmen pick them up from grooms
149
WORDS JND IDIOMS
and gamekeepers, children learn them from servants,
masters from their workmen ; they drift from stables
and gardens into drawing-rooms ; and wherever the
educated and the uneducated meet and talk together
on easy terms, new words, fresh from the popular speech
are added to the vocabulary of the educated classes.
These words, whether they originate in cant, slang,
or in dialect, are at first regarded as vulgarisms, and
shock the nice ears of the polite. But they soon
undergo a sifting process. } Slang words, being generally
created, not to define a thing, but to say something
funny about it, keep as a rule their slangy character 5
while those among the dialect terms which are genuine
and useful definitions lose little by little their vulgar
associations, and, once firmly fixed on the lower steps
of the linguistic ladder, push themselves upward, one
rung after another, j They are used in talk, then* in
familiar letters, then in easy prose, and some of them
at least make their way into the vocabulary of the
highest poetry, |The character and value of these
words shift, dierefore, almost from day to day \ and
yet we all know at any given moment the class to
which any of them belongs. We should all, for
instance, agree that the words beach, billow, swamp and
dwindle could be used in any appropriate context 5
and that gambler^ which Dr. Johnson described as a
cant term, has its place in literary English. These
are aU believed to be words of dialect origin, which have
come in the course of time to be generally accepted.
Next below them is a class of dialect words which have
only so reached the stage of good colloquial ”
English — ^words which anyone might use in talk, but
150
POPULJR SPEECH
which would seem out of place in the most dignified
writing. Among words of this class may he mentioned
fuHy clever^ cantankerous^ fad^ bother^ fogy^ stingy^ and
the verbs to dawdle and to nag. Of these nine words
Dr. Johnson only includes three in his Dictionary ;
cle^er^ which he calls a ‘‘ low word,” and/z^« and stingy^
which he condemns even more strongly as “ low cant.”
C/every fun, stingy — no one would now consider these
words “ low,” and their advance since the time of
Dr. Johnson is a striking proof of his own remark
that “ no word is naturally or intrinsically meaner than
another j our opinion therefore of words, as of other
things arbitrarily and capriciously established, depends
wholly upon accident and custom.”
Next to these good colloquial ” words comes an- other class of dialect expressions, which are at ‘present on a lower rung of the linguistic ladder, and have not yet lost their slangy associations — words like lollipop, cantrip, dotty, and the verbs to potter, to flabbergast, to take a scunner. These words, though still “ low,” are sometimes used in colloquial talk, and will not shock the polite, in the manner of the next class (for which I must beg them to brace their nerves) — ^words recently adopted into the slang vocabulary, like codger^ geezer, piffle, gab, swank, and the verbs to cop, to bash, to flummox, and to diddle. These are undoubtedly “ low ” at present, but their lowness is merely a matter of association ; between them and the others there is no essential difference, and some of them are probably of a nobler descent than many respectable words, well received in the best society. Diddle^ for instance, is perhaps a survival from Anglo-Saxon times ; to cop
151
tFORDS JND IDIOMS
has been traced through old French to the Latin
capere ; geezer^ a recent word of the music-halls, is
a dialect variant of the pretty old name, guiser^ for a
masquerader.
The process of ascent in all these cases, the rise of vulgar words into good society, is as interesting to watch as the adventures of those social strugglers, whose fortunes are the theme of many novels. And while these words of rustic origin are advancing up- wards, they pass others on the way, which are slowly descending the linguistic staircase \ words like pate^ cocksure, hugger mugger^ and (speaking with all respect) the word guts^ which was once in dignified use, and was employed by Sir Philip Sidney when he sang of his soul and his guts in his translation of the Psalms. Among other tragc downfalls from high to the lowest place, the unfortunate and familiar adjectives blooming and bloody are deserving of a sympathetic mention.
But the process of ascent is not always the slow and tedious one which we have described. Certain dialect words there are which, owing to the patronage of some illustrious person, have been received at once on their merits, and almost without question. These patrons are famous writers of provincial origin, who add to the literary language words from the dialects of the districts where they have spent their early years. Spenser, it is well known, made use of words from Lancashire and the North, but it does not seem that his dialect introductions found much favour with his contemporaries. Scottish writers have been more fortunate, and have introduced many Northern words into Southern speech — ^not only words of literary 152
POPULAR SPEECH
formation (for Scotch was for some centuries a standard
and literary language), but popular words as well, like
and outcome which we owe to Carlyle, and croon,
eerie, flunkey, and gloaming, with which Burns’ poems
have made us familiar. But by far the greatest trafficker
in this kind of merchandise was Sir Walter Scott, who
was endowed with a keen sense of the value of words,
and who has done more to enrich our language with
picturesque terms than any other modern writer. Not
only did he revive and give a new lease of literary life
to many beautiful words which he found in book^ but
he gathered them even more abundantly from living
and local speech. He had always a sovereign or two
ready in his pocket to give any wayfarer he met, or any
humble acquaintance with whom he talked, in return
for a good word or phrase which was new to him ; ^
and these he would introduce into his poems or novels,
for the most part in the dialogue ; and thus a whole
world of dialect expressions became more or less familiar
to his many readers, and many of them became natural-
ised in our colloquial and our literary language.
Among the colloquial words which are found in
Scott’s writings are rampage, bogle^ and scunner ; while
others, like daft, astir, sleuthhound, glamour, gruesome,
and the phrase to dree one^s weirdy found an immediate
welcome in the literary language. Among these the
1 Scott gives a picture of his own method when in the Antiquary (chap, xxx.), he describes the visit of Mr. Oldbuck to the aged Elspeth in. the fisherman's hut. He found her singing an old ballad in which occurred the line :
" With a chafron of steel on each horse's head."
- ' ‘ Chafron 1 ' exclaimed the Antiquary — * equivalent, perhaps,
to ckeveron — the word's worth a dollar ' — and down it went in his red book."
153
WORDS JND IDIOMS
word glamour is of special interest, not only owing to
its derivation from grammar^ but because it has come
to embody the very spirit of Romantic Movement, in
which Scott played so important a part. Glamour in
Scotland simply meant spells or magic, and was used,
and is still used, in the phrase to “ cast the glamour
over someone 5 but it soon acquired, in literary English,
its present meaning of “ magical beauty,” for which no
other language possesses an exact equivalent. 'The
phrases Celtic glamour,” and Celtic twilight,” have
become somewhat vague and hackneyed, and Lowland
Scotch is not especially Celtic in origin or character.
And yet we certainly have derived from Scotland
a remarkable vocabulary, expressive of gloom and
mystery ; and in- words like murk, gloaming, glamour,
gruesome, fey, freit, bogle, warlock, wraith, eerie,
eldritch, uncanny and second sight, we find good examples
of expressive power in local dialects, and learn how a
standard language may enrich itself by drawing on their
resources.
But the diakct words which have come to us through literature are not all of northern origin. Both Dickens and Thackeray were fond of using popular and dialect words, and to Thackeray we owe, for instance, the current use of the word snob, which has now, with characteristic energy, pushed its way into society all over Europe. Other dialect words have been intro- duced by American authors 5 for the American settlers took with them not only the standard English, but many local terms as well. Hub is an instance of this 5 it is a dialect word both in England and America, which was brought into literature first by Oliver Wendell 154
POPULJR SPEECH
Holmes, who described the dome of the Boston State House as the “ hub of the solar system.” Boston soon acquired the humorous designation of the ‘‘ Hub of the Universe,” and the term came into more general use, as we have seen, with the popularity of the bicycle. These words, snob and hub^ are among those mono- syllables which do so much to give the English language its concise and vivid character ; and, as I have shewn, a large number of similar terms, little penny-pieces of our speech — ^words like pety blight y traiUy furiy nag — have also been coined in the admirable mints of the local dialects.
Tennyson, Edward FitzGerald, and Stevenson are among the nineteenth-century lovers of dialect words, which Tennyson used so vividly in his dialect poems 5 and our living writers, Mr, Thomas Hardy and Mr. Kipling, have made effective use of the provincial vocabularies.
In this manner, therefore, men of letters have aided, and still aid, the less conscious processes by which popular and dialect words make their way into the standard vocabulary. To many readers the use of local terms is often tiresome, and they reluct at works containing dialect, and do not see why, with the great and copious vocabulary of standard English at their command, writers should fill their books with uncouth words and unfamiliar grammar. And yet the instinct which leads so many authors to echo and reproduce popular and dialect speech is a sound and healfcy one ; for both the peasant and the literary artist employ, after all, much the same kind of language ; both are con- cerned more with life and idiom than with dictionaries
155
mORDS IDIOMS
and the rules of grammar. Both wish to express their
feelings when they speak, and strive to clothe theif
thoughts with flesh and blood and make them visible
to their hearers. A writer cannot create his own
language 5 he must take what society provides him,
and in his search for sensuous and pictured speech he
naturally has recourse to the rich and living material
created by generations of popular and unconscious
artists. Here he finds an energetic and picturesque
language, rich in images and irony, and full of a zest,
a joy in life, which are of priceless value to him.
This zest, this eager interest, is embodied in hundreds
of terms and phrases of good-natured contempt and
humorous vituperation ; in expressions of surprise and
amazement and wonder 5 and it is owing to their
irresistible good spirits and rude energy, the rollicking
way they have with them, that so many “ low ” words
find their way into our drawing-rooms. But popular
speech possesses another quality — that of imagination
and poetry — ^which is of even greater value to the
literary artist. For just as musicians have discovered
in labourers’ cottages a wild growth of beautiful folk-
music, so an almost equal beauty of folk-poetry is to
be found in the same haunts — ^imaginative speech, grow-
ing, like the music, out of the heart of common life,
and racy of the soil from which it springs. That
- incomparable sweetness in its clownishness,” which
Dryden noted in the Doric dialect of Theocritus, “ like a feir shepherdess in her country russet, talking in a Yorkshire tone,” ^ is a note of wild music which
^ Prefaxie to Sylvae (Dryden's Essays, ed. W. P, Ker, vol. i. p. a 65 ).
156
POPULAR SPEECH
poets have often tried to recapture, and have found by their return to rustic speech, that contact with the earth by means of which they have renewed their strength.
But it is hardly necessary to insist upon this point ; W'ordsworth, Burns and Scott (to mention no others), bave shown us the value of the popular vernacular 5 and we know how much our Romantic Movement owes to Percy’s publication of old ballads, with their rich vocabulary of popular words and phrases.
We are all, moreover, familiar with the surprising and beautiful discoveries which have recently been made by those who have studied the peasant speech of Ireland. Synge has told us how he learnt his vocabulary from herds and fishermen, beggar-women and ballad-singers, and he adds : “ When I was writing the ^ Shadow of the Glen,’ ... I got more aid than any learning could have given me from a chink in the floor of the old Wicklow house where I was staying, that let me hear what was being said by the servant- girls in the kitchen.” Is there talk like this, one wonders, in our English houses ? Could English writers, who sit in their studies and, in Synge’s scornful phrase, deal like Ibsen and Zola “with the reality of life in joyless and pallid words,” find equal treasures, should they lie, note-book in hand, with their ears to chinks in the floors above their kitchens ? The picture suggests itself to the mind, only to be dismissed ; neither the chinks could be found in English houses, nor the language which Synge heard in the wild parts of Ireland. And yet, as our dialect glossaries show, there is much of interest and
157
WOJRDS JNL IDIOMS
literary value to le learaed from rustic speech in England j and Edward Fit'zGerald, in his Suffolk Sea Phrasesy has shown us how much even an amateur can collect who will take the trouble. Anyone, indeed, who has the opportunity, and who is a lover of good English, will find it well worth his while to make, as FitzGerald made, a collection of rustic words and phrases. But access to these treasures is, unfortunately, by no means as easy as it used to he. For although most country people still talk their own dialects, they have now learnt at school another form of English, which they use with greater or less success when speak- ing to people of education 5 and they are not readily drawn out by anyone they look upon as a gentleman. They have become more or less bilingual, speaking among themselves their old vernacular, but talking to us a pale School Board copy of our own language. Rare words, like rare birds, are diiEcult of observation. Patience is necessary ; we must be ahle to talk on easy terms with oar neighbours 5 we must listen carefully and ask no linguistic questions, nor beg to have a word repeated j uneducated people will seldom admit that they know of^ or have used, dialect expressions. But if we have ourselves some knowledge of the dialect, and can address our neighbours in their own language, they will soon la^e into their native and natural way of speaking.
This study of dialect, and the hunt for out-of-the- way terms, seems to have been more popular forty or fifty years ago than it is now 5 and in the proceedings of the Philolc^cal and the Dialect Societies, and in the ple&ces to old provincial glossaries, will be found now 158
POPULAR SPEECH
and then hunting anecdotes,” showing the zest and pleasure of the pursuit. I find, for instance, in a communication made in 1876 to the Philological Society by that well-known student of language, Prince Louis Lucien Bonaparte, a quaint account of an expedition he made to Somerset to look for survivals of the old Ic or Ich for 1 , I began my researches,” he writes, “ at Cannington, west of the Parret and east of the Quantocks, and there I was informed by the Rev, Mr. Bristow, its Rector, that one Edward Wills, sometimes called Thorne, had stated to him that he, Edward Wills, was well acquainted with the word utchy for / ; that he had used it himself, and that it would also be used at present, but rarely, amongst old peasants, I lost no time in visiting myself this respectable patriarch of ninety-four years, and he repeated to me the above statements.” ^ The Prince adds that at another village near Crewkerne he had been very fortunate in finding the desired words utchy and utch 5 and he adds, in regard to i%e for J, ‘‘ I know a man who still maintains its existence about Bideford.” Another French collector tells with enthusiasm that he found in the talk of an old woman in Auvergne, when she was telling how she had pushed a calf into her cowshed, a survival of the great classical word urgere^ which all philologists had till then believed to have been dead for centuries in the popular speech of Europe, And even when a glossary for a certain district had been compiled, there was the interest of correcting or adding to it “ Many, too, of these glossaries, on which much labour has been expended, will still bear supple- 1 English Dialect Society Miscellanies, 1877, vol. i. pp. 22-24,
159
WORDS AND IDIOMS
menting,” another enthusiast writes. “ A curious
illustration of this occurred to ourselves when lately
staying in a country village. The ground had been
twice worked over by two different collectors. The
later, too, had gleaned a thousand words, which his
predecessor had neglected. The spot did not therefore
seem very promising. We, however, in the course of
the month, bagged some hundred and fifty new speci-
mens. This ^ves an average of five a day, which may
be looked upon as very fair sport.” “We are sorry
to add,” this collector remarks, “that an excellent
clergyman and an energetic schoolmaster are committing
irreparable mischief by teaching the people to read.” ^
This was written in 1865 ; since that time “ excellent
clergymen and energetic schoolmasters ” have certainly
waged a war on local words not unlike that war waged
by gamekeepers on many species of wild birds 5 but
in both cases the result has been not so much to ex-
tinguish rare species, as to make them more shy and
difficult of observation j and anyone who wishes to
form a vocabulary of local terms can still make an
excellent collection if he be wary and careful. He can
hardly hope now (although this, too, is just possible) to
find^ like the first collectors, an ancient jewel of Saxon
language, unrecorded since the time of King Alfred,
or some bit of unknown Dutch or French gold ; but
he can discover many quaint old words and usages, and
many new terms, fresh-coined in the ever-active mint
of popular speech. And the knowledge he acquires
of the way his neighbours use words, and the meanings
they attach to them, will sometimes be of practical
- ComMll, xii. 1865, p. 32.
160
POPULAR SPEECH
importance. One collector tells us of a lady* in York-
shire who got into unnecessary trouble through ignor-
ance of the meaning attached to the word “ idle,” in
the district where she lived. She told the church-choir
they were “ idle,” whereupon half of them resigned,
as they thought she had accused them of leading vicious
lives. Another states that he was able to save a man
from a heavy sentence by explaining that the neife with
which he admitted he had struck his neighbour was
not a “ knife,” but simply an old dialect word for
“ fist” I was myself once saved by the Dialect
Dictionary from a comic misunderstanding ; I was
dozing in the chair at- a small political meeting in the
country, when I was alarmed and startled by hearing
a local orator declare that they of that district had no
desire to see Tariff Reformers fawnicating about the
village.” I felt that as chairman I ought perhaps to
make a protest against the use of this vocable. As,
however, the respectable audience received this remark,
which was frequently repeated, without surprise, and
even with applause, I decided to wait and consult the
Dialect Dictionary^ in which, on my return to my
books of reference, I found that the word “ fawnicate ”
meant no more in local usage, than to behave in a
deceitful or intriguing way.
VI
Such are the adventures and humours of word- collecting. But the pursuit deserves to be more than the fed or amiable hobby of a few enthusiasts — ^it is one which shoidd interest us all. Since our language
w.i. i6i ^
WORDS JND IDIOMS
seems to be growing year by year more foreign, abstract
and colourless in character, it stands in greater need
than ever of this vigorous and native reinforcement.
Not only writers, but everyone of us who speaks
English, could help in this, were we not paralyzed by
that superstitious feeling of awe and respect for standard
English which is now being spread by the diffusion
of education. We are becoming more and more the
slaves of schoolmasters and proof-correctors j and it is
perhaps more than a coincidence that the two writers
of the nineteenth century who have perhaps done the
most to enrich our language, Carlyle and Sir Walter
Scott, were both born and educated in a part of the
country where standard English had not yet succeeded
in establishing a tyrannical supremacy, or in banishing
dialect from the speech of educated people.
If we ask why the standard language, the English of the educated classes, should find it necessary to draw so largely on dialect, and popular, and what we call incorrect speech, for these needed elements, instead of providing them out of its own resources, it is not difficult to find an answer. For it is inevitable that when any form of speech becomes a standard and written language, it diould as a consequence lose much of its linguistic freedom- All forms of speech have of course their rules and usages, but in a written language these rules and usages become much more settled and stereotyped j they are re^stered in grammars and dictionaries, they are taught in schools ; and words and idioms ar^ }udged, not by their expressive power, but by th^r ‘‘correctness,” that is to say by their agreonent with accepted standards.
162
POPULJR SPEECH
Such an attitude or state of mind tends of course to fix
grammar and pronunciation, to discourage assimilation,
and to cripple the free and spontaneous powers of word-
creation. These powers indeed can never be entirely
suppressed, but they are driven into the outlawed
regions of slang, and manifest themselves for the most
part in grotesque or humorous perversions of form or
meaning — ^perversions whose value is lessened or de-
stroyed by the conscious desire to shock or surprise
which inspires them.
A standard language moreover is, under modern conditions, a written rather than a spoken language. The printed word becomes more and more the reality, the spoken word an echo or faint copy of it. This inversion of the normal relation between speech and writing, this predominance of the eye over the ear, of the written symbol over its audible equivalent, tends to deprive the language of that vigour and reality which comes, and can only come, from its intimate association with the acts and passions of men, as they vividly describe and express them in their speech. Freed from the necessity of using terms which can be easily spoken and understood, and more concerned with abstract thought than feeling, the written lan- guage, when it finds new terms are necessary, supplies its needs by borrowing learned words, or by making long compounds out of Greek or Latin elements. It is by means of these mechanical or dead words that it tries to make up for its lack of original power 5 and their abundant use, and the mechanical ease by which they can be formed, tend in their turn to cripple still further what creative powers the language may still possess. 165
WORDS jiND IDIOMS
It is not my object hoTvever to attack Standard
English, or depreciate its value and importance. Such
an accepted form of national language, with its varied
vocabulary, all its nice distiactions of graimnar, and all
the enrichments and adornments it has received from
past generations, is undoubtedly the most precious
inheritance of any people— the depository of its noblest
memories, the treasare-hoixse of its ideal possessions.
It is a patrimony which we feel, and rightly feel, must be 3 ealously guarded 5 and the instinct is ess^tially a sound one which makes us shrink from any offence against its accepted usages and rules. But the position of the King’s English is a sure one, and is founded on the firm basis of social need. Since it has long since become a class dialecrt, the vernacular of the governing social order, a knowledge of its usages, and an un- deviating obedience to its laws, have become almost a necessity for those who would share in the privileges of the educated dasses. More and more, too, this standard speech, and the respect for its usages, is being extended, and there is not the slightest danger at the present day that its autkority or dominance will be quesdoned or cdsregardecL The danger lies rather in Ae other direction — ^that in our scru,pulous and almost superstitious respect for correct English, we may forget that other and freer forms of spoken English have also their value^ and make useful contributions to our speech.
For after all a standard language never exists entirely on its own. capital 5 in its origin one among many dialects^ it becomes supreme^ bat it never really crushes out its competitors, "Nor would it be to its advantage
1S4
POPULAR SPEECH
to do sOy for from these competitors, made subordinate
but not destroyed, it is able to draw valuable elements
for its own enrichment. The regions of popular speech
have always formed, and still form a vast district, full
of wild, uncouth, and extravagant growths, perversions,
vulgarisms, and degradations of all kinds. They are
the products of that exuberant soil, but they are by
no means the only products. In the beautiful ancient
words which still preserve their life there, and in the
vivid new terms, monosyllables and compound words
which would be useful additions to our vocabulary,
there much can be found that might enrich our standard
speech with a homely element which it can hardly
provide out of its own resources. If a sense of the
importance of this element were more widely diffused
amongst us, if we realized more clearly tiie value of
popular speech, we might hope for a change of linguistic
taste which might benefit our language, and help to
correct some of the less happy tendencies. It must be
confessed, however, that we are at the present moment,
far from this modification of taste, this linguistic change
of heart — the trend of fashion is quite in the opposite
direction, and our Standard English is growing more
and more learned and difficult and undemocratic. But
linguistic fashions are not governed by absolutely blind
forces ; they always depend to a large extent — ^and
now they more than ever depend — on the taste of the
educated classes. The duty of these classes is, under
normal conditions, one of conservatism, of opposition
to the popular tendencies 5 but when the forces of con-
servatism become too strong, they may do well to relax
their rigour, and lean more to the democratic side.
165
WORDS JND IDIOMS
For human speech is after all a democratic product,
the creation, not of scholars and grammarians, but of
unschooled and unlettered people. Scholars and men
of education may cultivate and enrich it, and make it
flower into all the beauty of a literary language ; but
its rarest blooms are grafted on a wild stock, and its
roots are deep-buried in the common soil. F rom that
soil it must still draw its sap and nourishment, if it is
not to perish, as the other standard languages of the
past have perished, when, in the course of their history,
they have been separated and cut off from the popular
vernacular — from that vulgar speech which has
ultimately replaced their outworn and archaic forms.
I66
CHAPTER V
ENGLISH IDIOMS I
WheS writing of the enrichment that our standard language derives from popular, free and unschooled English, I confined myself in the last chapter to single words, about whose history we have more or less definite information- But there is another element of enrichment which is of greater importance, although it is more difficult to trace, which comes from the same sources, is produced by the same powers, and makes its way through more or less the same channels into our literary language. This element is composed of what we call ‘‘idioms” ; but, as the word has various meanings, I must define its use in this connection. “ Idiom ” is sometimes used, in English as in F rench, to describe the form of speech peculiar to a people or nation. We also use “ idiom ” for the meaning ex- pressed by the French word idioiisme^ that is to say, those forms of expression, of grammatical construction, or of phrasing, which are peculiar to a language, and approved by its usage, alAough the meanings they convey are often different from their grammatical or logical signification. As we have no longer a word
167
WORDS JND IDIOMS
in English corresponding to idiotisme^ I shall use
“ idiom ” in this chapter in its narrower sense, mean-
ing the idiosyncrasies of our language, and, above all,
those phrases which are verbal anomalies, which trans-
gress, that is to say, either the law's of grammar or the
laws of logic.^
Writers on the English language make many references to English idioms, but I have not been able to find any complete collection of them, or any exhaustive treatment of the subject ; there is, how- ever, much useful information in Professor Earle’s chapter on Idiom in his English Prose ; ® Dr. Abbott’s Shakespearian Grammar contains much about English idioms of great interest ; and several dictionaries of English phrases and idioms have been published.^ But
1 Idiotisme, whicli is a sixteenth-century borrowing through, late Latin into French from Greek, was naturalized as " idiot- ism ** in English in the seventeenth century, but has now ahnost disappeared. As it implies vulgarity by its etymology, and suggests idiocy by its relation to " idiot," it is not a happy word ; but the distinction it marks is a useful one, and it is a pity that we have no term like, for instance, the Spanish modismo for it.
- .Mthough some of the words of our vocabulary are idio-
matic phrases which have become compounds, and other words are sometimes used idiomatically, I confine myself almost entirely to phrases, as the Oxford Dictionary defines the phr^, that is to say “ a small group or collection of words expres^g a single notion, or entering with some degree of unity into the s-txucture of a sentence."
® English Prose, its Elements, History, and Usage, by John Eaxle, MJV. (1890).
- The best of these are English Idioms, by James Main
X^on, M.A. ('Ihomas Nelson and Sons) ; A Desk-Book of I^oms and Idiomatic Phrases, by Vizetelly and de Bekker ^ Wagnalls Company), 1923; Brewer's Dictionary of ^rase and Fable, and Cassells Booh of Quotations, by "W. Gurney B^ham (CasseU & Co., Ltd.). But none of these is at aU complete, and the histories and derivations of the idioms 168
ENGLISH IDIOMS
the main source for any study of the subject is, of
course, the Oxford Dictionary^ which, with its enormous
collection of instances, its historical method, and its
naany pages of subtle analysis, has brought together
an inunense wealth of material for the linguistic student.
An adequate study of our idioms, based on all this new
material, will no doubt be made one day by some one
much more competent than I am to deal with the
subject. In the meantime, however, there may be a
place for a preliminary sketch, written by a reader of
this Dictionary, who has made for himself a large
collection of idioms, and who has arrived at certain
conclusions about the idiomatic element in our speech,
and its place in literary diction, which seem to him not
devoid of general interest.
Of the idiosyncrasies of our language, the usages of syntax and grammar which are peculiar to it, without being grammatical or logical anomalies, I shall say but little ; the subject is too vast a one to be surveyed in a single essay — ^nor indeed am I competent to make such a survey. It may be noted, however, that the idios)mcrasy of English, like that of other languages, is perhaps most strikingly exemplified in the use of prepositions. Prepositional usage in all languages
they quote should be checked by reference to the OxfoH Dictionary, There are three collections of French phrases ■which are useful, French Idioms and Proverbs , by De V. Payen-Payne (Oxford Press), 1924; Recueil de locutions fran- gaises, par Armand-Georgss Billaudeau (Paris, 1903) ; and Macmillan's Selection of French Idioms^ by Plan and Roget (1922). Macmillan also publish an excellent Selection of German Idioms^ by Myra Taker (1900). For Spanish idioms, see A New Spanish-English and English-Spanish Idiom and Phrase-Book, by G. R. Macdonald (N.ID.), and Spanish Idioms, by Becker and Mora (1886).
169
JFORDS AND IDIOMS
contains, as Professor Jespersen points out, much that is
peculiar and arbitrary ; the relations to be expressed
by prepositions are often so vague and indefinite, that
many times one might seem logically just as right as
anotiier, and it is only “that tyrannical, capricious,
utterly incalculable thing, idiomatic usage,” which has
decreed that this preposition must be used in this case,
and that in another*^
A few instances will illustrate the arbitrary character of our use of prepositions ; we tamper with^ but we tinker at ; we find a fault in a person, but find fault with him 5 we act on the spur of the moment, but at a moment’s notice 5 we are insensible to^, but are un- conscious of; we say for long, but at length — ^not at long, although “ at long ” was once an English idiom* So we now say on earth, when in earth was the older usage, as we see in the Lord’s Prayer : “ Thy will be done in earth, as it is in Heaven.” ^
Prepositional usage not only varies from age to age, but it is also |^en different in different classes, and also in the various countries where English is spoken. Thus the choice between “ in a ship,” or “ on a ship,” is a difference between sea- and land-usage. In America they speak of getting on or off train, in England of getting in or out of it 5 up to time ” is the English
^ Jespra^, Progress Language, p. 22. See also The King* s English, 161-70.
- I)r, Abbott giv^ in his Shakespearian Grammar many
mstances of prepositional usage which are now oTosolete. "The shades of meaning," he says, “which suggest tbe use of difierent prepositions are sometimes almost indistinguisbiable. We say a canal is full 0/ water.' There is no reason whiy we should not also say ‘ full with water,' as a garden is * fair vMh fiowers ' " {p. 93).
' 170
ENGLISH IDIOMS
idiom, “ on time ” the American. The difference is
one of usage ; cither is correct from the point of view
of grammar.
More interesting are the cases where a difference of usage is not really arbitrary, but may express a shade of meaning which we are ourselves perhaps unconscious of. A curious instance of this is the way we use the prepositions in and at with the names of places. We say some one is in London, in Rome, in Paris, but usually at Oxford, at Rouen. The general rule is that we use in for large cities and capitals, at for smaller places. There is, however, a notable exception : we commonly use in rather than at even for a small place if we ourselves are there, probably because then it bulks more largely in our imagination.^
One of the largest class of English idioms consists of terse adverbial phrases formed by the collocation of a preposition with a noun or adjective, phrases like at hand,” “at length,” “at leisure” 5 ‘^by chance,” “ by fits,” “ by far ” ; “ for once,” “ %r ever,” “ fpr good,” “ for instance” 5 “ in fact,” “ in general,” “ in truth ” ; “ of course,” “ of late ” ; “ on hand,” etc.
Some of these phrases and combinations which are in constant use, as “indoors,” “downstairs,” etc., have
1 Shakespeare used at London, when, as Dr. Abbott points out, London was a smaller place than it is now. The French idiom would be h Londres, k Paris. Professor Dannesteter, in comparing the use of the French preposition with the English equivalent points out that Si would, in French, replace in and with and by in the English phrases to be m Paris,'* " to work with a machine," " to work by the light of a lamp." " The French mind," he says, " more mobile than the Saxon mind, allows itself to be drawn aside by the most delicate relations, and complacently follows the turns of a subtle analysis." (A. Darmesteter, The Life of Words (English translation), 1886 (p, 90).
171
WORDS JND IDIOMS
become fused together as compounds, and are printed
as one word, “ Instead ” is sometimes a compound
word, but sometimes in his stead,” etc.) the elements
are still separable. The verb “ atone ” is derived from
the adverbial phrase “ at one.”
^Even more numerous are the idiomatic collocations of verbs followed by prepositions, or by prepositions used as adverbs. Collocations of this kind, “ phrasal verbs ” we may call them,^ like “ keep down,” set up,” “put through,” and thousands of others,® are not only one of the most striking idiosyncrasies of our language, but, as we shall have occasion to note later on, they enter as well into a vast number of idiomatic anomalies — ^phrases with meanings not implied by the meanings of the words which compose them. These phrasal verbs correspond to the compound verbs in synthetic languages. Thus “ fall out ” has the meaning of the Latin excidere^ the German ausf alien ; ‘‘ take away ” of absumere or airalpeiv. As a matter of fact we have in English both compound and phrasal verbs, often composed of the same elements — “ upgather ” and “ gather up,” “ uproot ” and “ root up,” “underlie” and “lie under,” In these instances the meaning is the same in each, but in other cases the meaning is changed by the grouping of the different elements :
^ The term phrasal verbs ** was suggested to me by the late Dr. Bradley ; not, as he wrote, that he was satisfied with it, or would not wdcome any alternative that he could teti to be an improvement. But, as he said, one ^cannot verbs without some workable description ; ^d although the word phrasal*' is perhaps objectionable ID. lonnatlon., it fills a want, and is sometimes indispensable.
- 1 some phrasal verbs with two prepositions :
te t^e up with,*’ " to make up to,*’ “ to get on with,” ” to go an for,’* etc, ir © »
172
ENGLISH IDIOMS
“ undergo ” and “ go under,” “ overtake ” and take
over,” have not the same signification ; and “ upset ”
and “ set up ” are almost exactly opposite in meaning.^
Like the adverbial phrases, these phrasal verbs some-
times form compound words, nouns like “ break-
down,” “setback,” “drawback,” “go-between,” “turn-
out,” “ show-up,” “ talking-to,” and adjectives like
“ grown-up,” “ put-up,” “ done-for,” and many others.
II
Among the idiomatic idiosyncrasies of English are
a large number of phrasal collocations or doublets, in
which two words are habitually used together for the
sake of emphasis. Some of the commonest are :
At beck and call.
To cut and run, Down and out,
Dust and ashes. Enough and to spare. Far and away,
Far and wide,
Fear and trembling,
Fits and starts,
Free and easy,
For good and all. Hammer and tongs, Hard and fast. Heart and soul.
1 Professor Earle relates an anecdote of a German resident
in England who spoke English perfectly for ordina^ purposes,
but who, not having mastered the idiomatic differences of
meaning between upset and set up, recommended some wine
to a guest with the remark, " You might drink a bottle of it,
and it would not set you up.” (English Prose, p. 144.)
Another foreigner, wishing to recommend a tonic, wrote that
it had ” quite upset him,” In the German separable com-
pound verbs like ausfallen, aufgeben, etc., the adverb in simple
tenses becomes separable and follows the verb — ich gebe es
auf, etc. (See Bradley, The Making of English, p. 122O We
have in English one curious case where English phrasal verbs
enter into compounds like the German. In phrasal verbs
with out, like " cast out,” ” speak^out,” ” lie out,” the parti-
ciples become ” outcast,” ” outspoken,” outlying.”
173
WORDS AND IDIOMS
High and mighty. To pick and choose,
llole ^nd corner^ Rough and tumble.
Hue and cry. Sackcloth and ashes.
By leaps and bounds. Six of one and half-a-dozen
A man and a brother, of another,
Null and void. Stuff and nonsense.
Odds and ends, Tooth and nail.
Out and away. Waifs and strays.
Over and above, . Ways and means,
Over head and ears, Well and good.
These are sometimes merely emphatic repetitions of the same word :
Again and again.
By and by.
Miles and miles.
More and more.
Neck and neck,
On and on.
One by one.
In some cases the emphasis is helped by alliteration, as in :
Bag and baggage. Rough and ready.
To chop and diange. Safe and sound,
Hununjing and hawing. At sixes and sevens.
Light and leading. Slow and sure.
With might and main. Spick and span.
Part and parcel. Sticks and stones.
Rack and ruin. Then and there-
Sometimes rhyme adds to the effect :
Art and part. Out and about.
Fair and square, Scot and lot.
High and dry. Wear and tear.
By hook or by crook,
Out and out,
Over and over.
Round and round.
To share and share about, Through and through.
To turn and turn again.
m
ENGLISH IDIOMS
Other habitual collocations of this kind are formed
by the contrast of two alternatives :
Heads or tails,
Hit or miss,
A jot or tittle,
To kill or cure, For love or money. To make or mar. To mend or end, More or less.
Neck or nothing.
Neither here nor there. Neither rhyme nor reason. Now or never.
Rain or shine.
To sink or swim,
Sooner or later.
To stand or fell.
Sometimes two alternatives are joined together to
make inclusive phrases ;
Ever and anon,
Fast and loose,
First and last,
Give and take,
From head to heels. Here and there.
Hide and seek.
Hither and thither.
Ins and outs.
The long and the short of it,
Now and then.
Off and on.
One and all.
To right and left, Through thick and thin. Time and again,
To and fro,
From top to toe.
Touch and go,
Ups and downs,
Between wind and water.
To these may be added some of those habitual com-
parisons whith are so numerous in popular speech,
and of which a good many are established in the
standard language ;
As bold as brass.
As cool as a cucumber. As cross as two sticks, As dead as a doornail, As deaf as an adder,
As dull as ditchwater.
As fit as a fiddle.
As good as gold,
As hard as nails.
As large as life,
As like as two peas,
As mad as a March hare,
175
WORDS JND IDIOMS
As meek as a lamb. As sound as a bell,
As old as the hills. As steady as a rock.
As plain as a pikestaff, As slippery as an eel.
As pleased as Punch, As stiff as a poker.
As right as rain. As thick as thieves-
As safe as houses,
Certain proverbs and proverbial phrases are also so firmly embedded in our colloquial speech that, like the figurative proverbs and phrases which I shall mention later, they may perhaps, without stretching the defini- tion too fer, be regarded as English idioms :
Alps well that ends well. More haste, less speed. Better late than never. The more the merrier. Extremes meet. Necessity knows no law.
Familiarity breeds con- Nothing venture, nothing tempt, win.
No fool like an old fool. Out of sight, out of mind, A friend in need is a Penny wise, pound foolish, friend indeed. In for a penny, in for a
Handsome is as hand- pound,
some does. Seeing is believing.
He laughs best who Two heads are better than laughs last, one.
Least said, soonest Where there’s a will there’s mended, a way,
A miss is as good as a While there is life there is mile, hope.
Our speech is full of habitual phrases like when all is said and done,” “ if the worst comes to the worst,’’ “ all right,” “ you are right,” “ how do you do ? ” which, if translated into a foreign language, must be rendered in some equivalent phrase, not in a word-for- word translation^ This test of a translation is a good 176
MNGLISB IDIOMS
touchstone, of idiom ; a lo^cal phr^e, “the man is rich,” can he r^dfered word for word, hut if we say “rile man is ‘ well off,’ or ‘well to do,’ ” some other expression mhst be found. Even the amplest phrasal cdlloCafion like “ far and- away ” would lose its idio- matic force in a word for word translation, while other phrases would present a most awkward appearance. Thus our common greeting, “ How do you do i ” sounds oddly enou^ in Voltaire’s translationj rwa/amf faites-^ms faire ? The English expression, “you are, right,!’ cannot, as Professor Earle points out, “ be rendered word-for-word into good French, German, or Latin. . In French it would become P'ous a-uez rahm ; . in German, \n l,i£n. Recti diets. It
would be un-English to say ‘ you Have reason,’ or ‘ you have right,’ or ‘ you speak rightly’ ; it is, according to English idiom to Stiy you are li^t.’ " -V
III
These, then, are a few of the idicsyncrasies of our lan^age ; but idiosyncrasies are of double interest when they are anomalies as well, when there is pr&ent in an idiom, not only some peculiaritjt of speech, but some irre^larity, some violation of, or infringement upon, what are considered the laws of fenguage; These idio- . marie riansgressidns are of two kinds, the hdra of grammar may be hrokeh, or the rules of l<%ic. Of these, the first kind, the ungrammatical phrases made acceptable by usage,- are the most chviOus, and in any old-fishioned book on good English will be found lists \ English Pfose, p, 255.’
W.l. ‘ 177 - M
WORDS JND IDIOMS
of these wild creatures of talk, nailed up, like noxious
birds and vermin, by the purists and preservers of our
speech. The phrase “ it’s me ” is a familiar instance ; ^
other instances are “who did you see ? ” “ than whom,” ^
“very pleased,” “try and go” (for “try to go”),
“ different ” or “ averse ” to, the split infinitive, the use
of the superlative when only two objects are compared
(“ the best,” instead of the “ better of the two ”), and
phrases like “ less than no time,” “ more than pleased,”
“ as tall or taller than you,” etc.
Grammar, in the sense which we usually give to the word, that is to say not a mere neutral registration of what our speech-forms are, but a regulative ideal of what according to the laws of logic and analogy they ought to be, — ^grammar in this sense is the natural enemy of idiom, and continually preys upon it The tendency of modern grammarians is to accept usage, and
1 Professor Sonnensclieiii says that “ it's me " is not in- correct, althLough it is uncertain what the explanation of the usage is. . . . Perhaps the form ' me ' may be due to the same reason as leads the French to use * moi ' in sentences like ‘C'est moi.* Both the French ' moi ' and the English
- me ' were originally accusatives ; but ' moi ' has come to be
used as a special form of the pronoun in various constructions, sometimes for the nominative, sometimes for the accusative, and sometimes for the dative. And the same may be true of the English * me.' " {A New English Grammar , iii. p- 52*)
- The phrase than whom " is a great stumbling-block in
the path of the purists. It is universally used, it is authorized by Milton :
- Which when Beelzebub perceived, than whom,
Satan except, none higher sat, (P. L., ii. 299,) ' and yet can one regard " than " as a preposition ? But its convenience is so great, and " than who " so impossible, that perhaps, as the authors of The King*s English put it, to rule it out " amounts to ^saying that man is made for grammar and not grammar for man " (p. 64). But then, what about
than me," " tha^ " than her " ?
178
ENGLISH IDIOMS
to explain it by means of history and psychology 5 but the older grammarians conceived that they had a higher mission. F rom the study of Latin, and from a com- parison of different European languages, they arrived at a conception of universal grammar, based upon the laws of logic and the constitution of the human mind ; and this the grammarians of each country tried to impose upon their own language — to “ refine it,” as Dr. Johnson said, “ to grammatical purity ” ; to banish as far as possible its local idiosyncrasies, to do away with its anomalies and exceptions, and to impose regularity upon it within its own domestic economy. Owing to the efforts of these grammarians a number of English idiomatic usages have been stigmatized as incorrect, and driven from our standard speech. Of these, perhaps, the most conspicuous is the double negative, which was perfectly correct in the time of Chaucer, lingered on till the age of Shakespeare, and is still current in the speech of the vast majority of English people . Owing, however, to the logical (but most unpsychological) notion that doubling a negative destroys, instead of strengthening it, this idiom, although it was correct in Greek, and is found in French, Spanish, and Russian, is regarded as a gross vulgarism in modern English.^ So also the double comparative and the double super- lative, as we find them in Shakespeare, “ more better,”
1 See Jespersen on the double negative in S,P.B, Tract No. XVI, p. 9. In the form of ‘'not . . . neither/' the double negative lingered on in standard English through the eighteenth century, and was used by Lamb, though perhaps as a conscious archaism. “ I was suddenly transported, how or whither I could scarcely make out, — but to some celestial region. It was not the real heavens neither." {The Child Angel, in Last Essays of Elia.)
179
WORDS JND IDIOMS
- more nearer,” most boldest,” “ most unkindest,”
are now considered most incorrect. But anomalous constructions of this kind are, as Dr. Abbott puts it,
‘‘ merely the natural results of a spirit which pre- ferred clearness and vigour of expression to logical symmetry.”
Another idiom which was once correct, but which grammarians have succeeded in stigmatizing as a vulgar- ism, is the expression ‘‘ these kind ” and these sort ” of things, although it is found up to the nineteenth century in many good authors, and although by this means ” is still regarded as good English. ‘‘ For to ” joined with the infinitive is now a vulgarism, although it is found in the Bible, what went ye out for to see ? ” and in Shakespeare’s line, “ Forbid the sea for to obey the moon.” ^
Whether we regard the elimination of these old idioms as a benefit, or as a detriment, to the language, the loss or gain in any particular instance is not perhaps of great importance. In one point, however, the attempt to enforce an ideal of “ grammatical purity ” on our language has inflicted upon it, as Professor Earle suggests, a serious injury. The point I refer to is the notion that it is illiterate and incorrect, or at least in- elegant, to place a preposition or adverb at the end of al' clause or sentence. It was Dryden, himself one of the most idiomatic of our writers, who first expressed this notion ; and in reprinting his Essay on Dramatic
" This he&pte {oelui-d) is now regarded as a vulgarism, but was once in good use. With an interposed noun (as in “ tto man here '’)Ht is still current coUoquiaUy, though rare in literature ; it appears in Cowws, line 672,
And first b^old this cordial julep here.’*
180
ENGLISH IDIOMS
Poesy he took pains to eliminate idioms of this kind,
changing “ the end he aimed at ” into “ the end at
which he aimed,” and “ the age I live in ” to “ the
age in which I live,” etc. This notion, that the pre-
position should precede the word it governs ; that it is
better to say “ the man to whom I had written ” than
“ the man I had written to,” became little by little
almost universally accepted, and Hallam, writing
towards the middle of the nineteenth century, said that
this “ Anglicism,” as he called it, had of late years
come to be reckoned inelegant and proscribed in
all cases.^ This notion still persists, although the
idiom is perfectly good English, and has only been
condemned because it was not found in Latin, or
in languages derived from Latin. How consonant
it is with our English speech-rhythms, the vigour
and conciseness it adds, when skilfully used, to our
phrasing, can be appredated in many a good English
sentence :
“ Houses are built to live in, and not to look on ”
(Bacon).
“ Revenge is a kind of wild justice, which the more a man’s nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out ” (Bacon).
“ Odd and uncommon characters are the game that I look for, and most delight in ” (Addison).
“ It [the sundial] was the measure appropriate for sweet plants and flowers to spring Iw, for the birds to apportion their silvery warblings by, for flocks to pasture and to be led to fold by ” (Lamb).
1 Hallam, Literature of Europe, 1830, iv. pp. *?^^**! HallAm
ventures to defend tWs idiom, as being ” wmelies emphat^
and spirited. Nothing but Latin prejudice," be adds, can
make us think it essentially -wrong."
181
WORDS AND IDIOMS
“Was this the face — ^manly, sob^r, intelligent —
which I had so often despised, made mocks at, made
merry with ? ” (Lamb).
“ The sun has no purposes of ours to light us to. Why should we get up ? ” (Lamb).^
Fortunately the prejudice so incongruously expressed in the schoolmaster’s phrase that “ the preposition is a very bad word to end a sentence with,” has not com- pletely succeeded in banishing this “ Anglicism ” from our language.
Several useful idioms have also succeeded in establish- ing themselves in spite of the opposition of purists and grammarians. The “compound possessive,” as it is called, “ some one else’s ” instead of “ some one’s else,” the double genitive, “ a picture of the King’s ” (which has a diiBFerent meaning from “ a picture of the King ”), are now accepted as useful additions to the resources of our language. So also the passive construction, “ the house is being built ” (for “ the house is builing ”) has become good English, although grammarians pro- tested against this “ irregular ” collocation of the present partidple “ being ” with the past participle “ built.” At present the battle rages about the split infinitive, which horrifies the old-fashioned grammarian, but is more dispassionately regarded by linguists of the modern school.*
In addition to phrases of this kind, in which the laws
^ Mr. H. W. Fo'wler gives a further list of sentences of this kind, drawn from the best English authors in 5.P.E. Tfact No. XIV. ^
- The struggle that is always going on between idiom and.
cramm^ is ra-ought daily before our eyes in two connexions. On notice-boards ^vertising that a house is ” to let, this phr ase is coining, inore and more to be changed into what 182
ENGLISH IDIOMS
of grammar seem to be openly flouted, many slighter
anomalies are to be found in our idiomatic speech.
Most of our idioms come from the popular vernacular,
which still preserves that grammatical freedom which
was a characteristic of the older history of our language.
Thus, in idioms, as in Elizabethan English, almost any
part of speech can take the place, and perform the
function, of any other part. The transformation of
adjectives and nouns into verbs is a normal -process in
our speech ; in many idioms adverbs and prepositions
appear as nouns (“ whys and wherefores,’’ “ ups and
downs,” ins and outs ”) j prepositions change into
verbs (“ to out with,” “ to up and and verbs into
nouns (“ on the go,” ‘‘ in the know ”). Sometimes
a transitive sense is given to intransitive verbs, as “ to
go it,” “ come it over,” and a passive meaning attaches
to an active tense, ‘‘ much to seek,” it makes up well ”
— ^but indeed there is hardly any limit to these freedoms 5
a phrase like ‘^but me no buts ” is a characteristic
example of this idiomatic licence.
Ellipsis is another characteristic of idiom ; all constantly repeated adverbial phrases like “ last night,” ‘‘ this week,” tend to lose their prepositions ; in some like “ no doubt,” “ no wonder,” and “ murder will out,” the verb is omitted ; in others like “ at best ” “ at least,” the definite article drops out. Words like “to-day,” “to-night,” “to-morrow,” “ o’clock,” are terse idiomatic phrases which, owing to
house-agents seem to regard as the more correct es^ression, to be let.*' So also in the birth-notices in The Ttfnes, the old idiom of a son " (or daughter) is now being more and more replaced by other phrases which parents seem to regard as more elegant and more correct.
183
WORDS JND IDIOMS
their constant use, have come to be regarded and pro-
nounced as compound words.
One curious characteristic of many of our commonest idioms is the survival in them of obsolete words — words which are never used except in some special phrase. Examples of these fossil words are :
Hue and cry. At loggerheads^
Humming and hawing^ By rote^
Rank and file^ In abeyance^
Waife and strays^ In behoofs
To chop and change. In malice prepense^
To leave in the lurch^ In a irice^
To take in the toils^ Of yore ,
At hay, Not a whity
At heck and call, A pig in a poke.
In the phrases “ spick and span^' “ tit for tat^^ jot or Uttle^^ two words which are meaningless by them- selves combine together into idioms which all of us understand.
In other phrases, archaic and poetic words which otherwise would never pass our lips are preserved for us in our colloquial speech :
Hither and thither y A great deal.
To and fro. For the sake of.
Use and wont. On one’s mettle.
Might and nlainy At one fell swoop.
Rack and ruin, To hound on,
Kith and Jdn, To set at naughu
Many obsolete meanings of familiar words are pre- served in idiomatic phrases. Mind once meant “ memory,^ and this meaning survives in th6 phrases “ to keq> in mind,” “ to call to mind,” time out of mind.” It a^o had the signification of purpose or 184
ENGLISH IDIOMS
intention, which survives in the phrases “ to know one’s
own mind,” “ to change one’s mind,” “ to be of two
minds,” “ to have a great mind to.” The word
blush preserves, in, the phrase “at the first blush,”
the meaning of “glimpse” or “sight” ; pain used
to mean “ punishment,” also “ trouble,” “ effort”
These meanings live on in the phrases “pains and
penalties,” “ under the pain of death,” “ to be at the
pains to,” “ to get for one’s pains,” The word brown
preserves its old meaning of “ gloomy ” in the phrase
“ a brown study ” \ the meaning of the idiom “ by
degrees ” comes from the old use of degree for
“ step.” A few archaic grammatical forms like
“ bounden duty,” “ on bended knee,” also survive in
idiom.
IV
These, then, are some of the grammatical and linguistic anomalies which are found in our idiomatic speech. Logical anomalies, phrases in which “more is meant than meets the ear ” ; in which the meaning conveyed by a phrase is other than the meaning of the words which compose it — locutions which, if literally translated into another language, would have a different signification, or sound like nonsense — idioms of this kind are still more numerous in English, and form one of the most curious and characteristic idiosyncrasies of our speech.
The way in which words take on metaphorical mean- ings is one of the best-known of linguistic phenomena ; the same thing happens to many phrases, which also acquire figurative meanings, and are used for acts or circumstances more or less analogous to those which 185
JTORDJS^FJD IDIOMS
gave them birth.^ Often these figurative idioms are
more or less transparent; to “sail too near the vsrind,’’
to “keep one’s head above mter^”to‘be “left stranded/’
are lively metaphors from the speech of sailors, of which
the original significations are sufEdently clean So
too, “ an axe to grind,*” the ‘‘ thin end of the wedge/'
to “beat about the hush,” to “ run with the hare and
hunt with the hounds,” are metaphors from other
occupations which clearly convey their meaning. But
many of our most arrent idiomatic phrases we use
with little or no consciousness of their original use and
signification^ TThe meaning of the nautical expression
“takenabaclc,”ofthemilitary idiom to “pass muster,”
the origin of the phrase to “ burn the candle at both
ends,” might be more or less familiar to most of us ;
but probably only a special student could explain such
phrases as to “hold at bay,’^ to “ curry favour,” to
leave in the lurch.,” to *‘run riot,” to “show the
white feather^” to have a white elephant on one's
hands.’* Indeed, there are a nunnber of idiomatic
Pignmtive idioma are constaatiy being invent©d ; some
wMi a place for a "wliLle m thie j argon of fa.milies or soclaJ
and are then foxgottea — only one out of many tbous-
^d3 IS added \o the general vocabulary. Edward FitzGerald
'this Mnd of inventioii, when, letters, speakungr of a littla wh on which
if it is never published, I know what tha.t
r|najT- y,| , ^ell tliea ; my Grandfather had several
^ ajad Talents : one oi them ('Billv/
^lyji^upliisfeatliersm wiat my Graidfath^ Compaay were praising the ^^‘8 say— ‘ -Ton -will hurt poor
owl, my deaxl' Veu ’^-P?^<iere4. Gentleman doing jas o^gfcter— ttyiiother-^teOiii? of it. Jaid so
Faw} pf^'4 F PitiGeroad to
‘ ‘ 186
ENGLISH IDIOMS
phrases for which even specialists have not been able
to find a completely certain explanation, as for instance,
to “ beat hollow,” to “ go the whole hog,” to “ pull
some one’s leg,” to peter out,” to “ fight shy,” to
“ take heart 6f grace,” to “ send to Coventry.” Equally
obscure are the phrases “ by hook or by crook,” “ in
the wrong box,” ‘‘ in a scrape,” to “ pay on the nail,”
to rule the roast,” “ the bitter end,” a “ grass widow,”
a “ game leg,” although they are none the less ex-
pressive for their apparent absence of logical meaning.
This expressiveness of irrelevant phrases is a curious
feature of many of our idioms, and seems to show
that there is a certain irrelevance in the human mind,
a certain love for the illogical and absurd, a reluctance
to submit itself to reason, which breaks loose now and
theft, and finds expression for itself in idiomatic speech.
We like our words to have a meaning, for we like them
to be vivid 5 but we sometimes seem almost to prefer
inappropriate meanings, as if their very irrelevance
appealed to the imagination and added to their vividness
and charm.
Although we use the oddest idioms with little or no consciousness of their origin, and without stopping to ask ourselves what they really mean, it is possible with the help of dictionaries, and especially with that of the Oxford Dictionary^ to trace most of them to their sources.^
^ Sometimes these sources are not at all what we might expect. Thus to spoil a ship for a ha’porth of tar/* was originally to spoil a sheep/* and came from tarring sheep, or from treating them with ointment. So the phrase as plain as a pikestaff '* would seem to be drawn from a pikestaff or metal-pointed walking-stick. It was, however, in the original form plain as a packstaff/* meaning as unadorned as the staff on which the pedlar supports his pack when resting. So, too, the idiom to
give the cold shoulder '* probably meant, not to turn the
187
WORDS JND IDIOMS
Metaphorical idioms, and, indeed, many grain-
matical idioms also, come to us in great numbers from
humble occupations and popular forms of sport. Each
kind of human activity has its owivypcab^ary, its terms
to describe its materials, its methods, difEculties,
and its aims ; and from these vo&ibularies not only
words, but idiomatic phrases often make their way into
the standard language. Our speech is never adequate
to express the inexhaustible richness of life, with all its
relations and thoughts and feelings 5 the standard
language is hampered, too, by many impediments in
the always difficult process of word-formation, and is
therefore ready to seize on any of the special terms
which are already current, and to which it can give
the wider significance it desires. Then, too, the
idioms and happy phrases invented by people engaged
in popular sports and occupations being terse, colloquial,
vivid, and charged with eager life, are just the kind
that are sought for and welcomed in animated speech.
Sailors at sea, hunters with their dogs, labourers in the
fields, cooks in their, kitchens, needing in some crisis
a vigorous phrase of command or warning or reproba-
tion, have often hit on some expressive collocation of
. words, some vivid and homely metaphor ffom the
objects before them ; ^ and these phrases and metaphors,
striking the fancy of their companions, have been
human shbnlcier to-wards some one, but to put the cold shoulder of mutton before an unhonoured guest.
1 Chaque profession, en efiEet, nourrit sa matii^re de bons esprits qui trouvent, dans 1^ sujet habituel quails ont en main, des expressions heureuses, des termes Jiardis et naturels, dont _un bon 6cxiyain pent f aJre ensuite son profit, mais dont seuj il ne se serait pas avis^." (Sainte-Beuve^ Causeries ds Lundif vol. iii. p. 256.)
188
ENGLISH IDIOMS
adopted into the vocabulary of their special sport or
occupation. Soon a number of these phrases are found
to be capable of a wider use ; often for convenience,
often with a touch of humour, they come to be applied
to analogous situations ; a sailor applies his sea-phrases
to the predicaments in which he finds himself on land ;
the fisherman (as indeed we see in the Gospels) talks
of life in terms of fishing 5 the housewife helps herself
out with metaphors from her kitchen or her farmyard ;
the sportsman expresses himself in the idioms of his
sport ; and little by little the most vivid and most useful
of these phrases make their way, by the means which
have been described in a former chapter, from popular
speech into the standard language, and come to be
universally understood.
V
In any analysis of the sources of our English idioms those which come to us from the sea will be found to be especially numerous. The vigorous expressive speech of sailors is rich in technical idioms of its own, and many of these have passed, with metaphorical signification, into the speech of Englishmen on land. The sea origin of the following is sufficiently obvious : To turn adrift. To lay an anchor to
To cut adrift from, windward,
To set afloat. To be in the same boat
To touch bottom, with,
To steer clear of, To clear the decks,
To drop the pilot, To nail one’s flag to the
T9 launch into, mast.
To launch a person. To hoist, or lower, one’s To take, or have in tow, flag, or colours,
189
WORDS JND IDIOMS
To show one^s colours. To weather, or ride out To take the helm, i*. the storm,
To put in one’s oar^ At a low ebb.
To rest on one’s oars,. All at sea,
To cut the painter. Between wind andj^vater. To take in a reef. In the oiling.
To sail in. In full sail.
To sail before the wind, In the wake of,
To sail near the wind,^ In deep water,
To strike sail to, In low water.
To take the wind out On one’s beam ends, of the sails of some On the rocks, one. On the top of the wiave.
To trim cxne’s sails to On the wrong tack^ ' the wind, Over head and ears^'
To pump ship, Out of one’s dept^,
To leaTe, or rat from, A sheet anchor, thesinldng ship, The cut of one’s jib,
To make shipwreck^ The man at tbie ^heel.
To keep in watertight Breakers ahead, , compartments. Cross currents,
•To sink or swim. Leeway’ to make up,
To keep one’s head Plain sailing,
ahowe water. Three sheets in the wind,
To keep one’s weather- Not a shot in the locker, eye open, Signals of distress, ,
To go with or against Half seas oyer, the stream, , High water mark,
To stem the tide. Left strandeci^ ,
To take the tide. Shipshape and « Bristol
To tide over, fashion,
To look out for squalls, V Tell th3;t ^ ta , tfces horse To Wow from another marines*,
quarter, , When one’^ fcomes
To poiiroil on troubled home,
waters.
ENGLISH IDIOMS
The following are less obvious in their nautical
origin, which is indeed in a few cases doubtful.
It is not always possible to trace idioms to their
sources ; and in these and the following lists, I
have placed a question-mark after the more doubtful
attributions.
To bear a hand.
To bear down upon. To box the compass. To break the ice.
To carry on (?),^
To come down with a run.
To cut and run,^
To fell foul of.
To find one’s bearings. To forge ahead,®
To give wajr,
To giyfe a wide berth to. To go ahead,
To go by the board, To hold water (?)
To keep abreast with. To keep aloof,
To knock the bottom out of,
To know lie ropes.
To make Headway,
To make way,
To overhaul.
To pipe the eye.
To pull together.
To put about.
To be first, or second- rate.
To rig out.
To run high [of the waves].
To see how the land lies.
To sheer off.
To speak by the card.
To take it easy.
To throw over [board]. To turn in.
At close quarters.
On the look-out.
On the stocks.
Under way.
By and large.
Hard and fast,
High and dry.
^ “ To carry on/' •with the intransitive meaning, " to con-
tinue one's course," comes perhaps from the nautical phrase
" to carry on without reefing,"
- " To cu#iind run," i,e. to cut the cable and make sail
without waitings weigh the anchor.
- The nautical word forge is a perversion of force,
191
WORDS JND IDIOMS
Touch and go (?) ^ Hard up [of the helm].
All hand^ A snug, or easy, berth.
All told, The lay of the land,
Hand over hand, The coast is clear.
Hard lines, There’s the hitch.
“ Taken aback ” was originally used of square sails suddenly pressed against the mast by a hea^ wind ; the phrases a “ round robin ’’ and a “ lump sum,” and the idiomatic verb “to skylark,” are first found in the' nautical vocabulary.
The following., may be classed as inland and fresh- water phrases :
To shiver on the brink. Not to touch with a. To go in at the deep barge-pole, end. On thin ice.
To make a splash, , A stepping-stone to, .
To clutch at a straw, The jumping-off place.
To let in, or let in for Much water has flown [from breaking ice], under the bridges.
To open the sluices, Still waters run deep.
To stem the torrent.
A certain number of phrases connected with fish and
fishing have also acquired figurative meanings :
To cry stiriking fish. To give line enough.
To drink like a fish. To give play to.
To fish for, To hook fast,
To fish ou^ To jump at the bait.
To fish in troubled To nibble at,
waters, ^ To throw a sprat to
To get a ri^ out of, catch a herring.
► is an idio/n wMch is first fonrid ixt
^ Its present meaning of ' ' a narrow esc ap e ^
may come ixom its nautical nse of a slup touclxing roclsB ox*
tfie ground with her keel> and then sailing on without damag'©.
192
ENGLISH IDIOMS
In the swim,
A fish out of water,
A big fish in a little pond,
A pretty kettle of fish,
A queer fish,
A big haulj A red herring,
The hook without the bait,
Other fish to fry.
All’s fish that comes to his net.
As slippery as an e e^ here’s as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it.
Straight oiff the reel (?).
From the speech of soldiers also are derived many
idiomatic phrases :
To take alarm.
To take up arms for. To lay down one’s arms. To mask one’s batteries. To offer battle.
To beat up.
To beat a retreat,
To throw a bomb into. To stand in the breach, To bear the brunt of. To return to the charge. To stick to one’s colours [? or nautical].
To come off with flying colours [? or nautical]. To bid defiance to,
To die in the last ditch. To dig oneself in.
To turn face-about.
To hold the field.
To draw some one’s fire.
To change front.
To run the gauntlet.
To let loose the dogs of
war.
To gain, or give, ground. To stand one’s ground. To mount guard.
To spike some one’s guns. To stick to one’s guns, To cry halt,
To make a halt.
To fall into line.
To steal a march on.
To be at the mercy of.
To muster up,
To pass muster.
To make a stand.
To sell the pass,
To give, or show, quarter. To send to the right about.
To lay siege to.
To make a stand,
To raise the standard of revolt,
»To take by storm,
193
w.i.
N
WORDS AND IDIOMS
To poison the wells^
To mark time,
Between two fires.
By dint of.
In defiance of,
In free quarters.
In open war,
On the alert.
On duty,
On the qui vive. Under arms.
Under false colours. Up in arms,
A false alarm,
A pitched battle.
A running fire,
A spark in the powder magazine.
The plan of campaign, The second line of defence, The tug of war,
‘Bag and baggage. Marching orders,
Rank and file,
Shoulder to shoulder,
All along the line.
Armed at all points,
As you were,
Half the battle.
True to one’s colours.
“ A forlorn hope ” is an adaptation of the Dutch
phrase verloren hoopy a lost troop ” 5 the phrases to
be in or out of ‘‘ touch ” with, to keep or lose “ touch ”
with, probably originated in their use in military
drill, “ touch ” meaning the contact between the
elbows of a rank of soldiers. The curious idiom,
to fight shy of” is difficult to explain 5 it has been
suggested that it meant originally to lose confidence in
battle.
“ A flash in the pan ” comes from the old flint-lock gun ; other phrases from fire-arms are :
To miss fire, To have a shot at some-
To hang fire, thing.
To fire away, Not worth powder and
To go oflF at half-cock, shot.
Like a shot, Lock, stock and barrel.
Some of these combative idioms are derived from
tilting and personal contests of various kinds ;
194
ENGLISH IDIOMS
To stab in the back.
To look, or speak, daggers, ^
To let daylight into,
To bid defiance to.
To throw down, or take up, the glove or gauntlet,^
To get past some one’s guard,
To get one’s knife into.
To go to the wall.
To stand with one’s back
to the wall.
To break a lance with, or for.
To measure swords with, To enter the lists.
To run full tilt at,
To win one’s spurs.
At daggers drawn.
At the sword’s point.
On, or off, one’s guard. Up to the hilt,
A passage of arms.
War to the knife.
VI
From the chase, from hounds and horses, many
phrases have come to enrich our colloquial speech, and
of all animals the dog and the horse play largest parts
in idiom. A few of the canine idioms come from dog-
fighting, more from the domesticated animal at home :
To dog the footsteps of.
Not to have a dog’s
chance.
To be dog-cheap, dog- lazj, dog-tired.
To die like a dog,
To lead a dog’s life.
To die a dog’s death. To give a dog a bad name and hang him, To go to the dogs.
To have a hair of the
dog that bit you.
To have a bone to pick with.
To help lame dogs over stiles.
To keep a dog and bark oneself.
To let sleeping dogs lie.
To teach old dogs new tricks.
^ ** Gauntlet ” in the phrase “ run the gauntlet is another
word, beiag a corruption of ** gantlope from the Swedish
gatlofp, formed from gaSa, lane,” and lopp, ** course.”
195
WORDS AND IDIOMS
To bristle up,
To set by the ears (?), To fly in the fe.ce of, To turn tail,
To go off with one’s tail between one’s legs,
A dog in the manger, A lucky dog,
A sly dog,
A hang-dog look.
Top dog.
Under dog.
Any stick good enough to
beat a dog with.
Love me, love my dog> Every dog has its daVi _ Scornful dogs will eat dirty puddings,
A bone of contention.
His bark is worse than his bite,
Too old to learn new tricks,
Not to have a word to throw to a dog.
To “ stave off ” comes from bear-baiting 5 from the
use of dogs in hunting and the chase come the
following :
To come to heel,
To hold in leash.
To slip the collar,
To give the slip to.
To hound on.
To hit it off [the scent]. To hunt down,
To have a good, or bad, nose for,
To run to earth.
To run with the hare and hunt with the hounds.
To throw to the pack.
To throw off the scent,
To make a dead set at.
To be on the track
To keep, or lose, track
To cover one s tracks [r;> In full cry.
In at the death,
A red herring.
Hue and cry.
“ At feult,” “ at a loss,’' “ to cast about,” were
originally hunting temas referring tp the loss of scent 5
to “ run riot ” was to follow any scent without discrim-
ination ; to “ run counter ” was to follow the scent
in the reverse direction, to hark back ” 'lyas to return
ig6
ENGLISH IDIOMS
and find the scent, to “ draw blank ’’ was to find no
scent at all. The idiom at bay,” in the phrases to
hold ” or “ stand at bay,” is a half-translation of the
old French idioms fenir a bay^ “ to hold in suspense,”
and tire aux ahois^ “ to be at close quarters with the
barking.”
Even more idioms have come to us from horses :
To take the bit in one’s To go the pace (?), teeth, - To keep pace with.
To come a cropper, To put through his paces, To ride to death, To set the pace,
To draw up. To pull in, or up.
To prick up one’s To drop the reins,
ears. To give rein, or a loose
To gallop through, rein, to,
To turn out to grass. To saddle with.
To have the upper or To put the saddle on the whip hand of, wrong horse,
To hold hard, To sit loosely to (?),
To eat one’s head off. To spur on,
To eat from one’s To win one’s spurs, hand (?), To trot out.
To flog a dead horse, At the end of one’s To give some one his tether (?), head, In horse-play,
‘^To lock the stable door In the saddle, after the horse is On the high horse, stolen, • On the spur of the
-To look a gift-horse in moment,
the mouth, Out of hand,
To swap horses while With a heavy hand, crossing the stream, Without turning a hair, To get on one’s hind A horse laugh, legs (?), A mare’s nest.
To give a leg up. Heavy in hand,
197
WORDS AND IDIOMS
Well in hand, ^ You can take a horse to
Hairy about the heels, the water, but you can-
Neck and crop (?), not make him drink,
My withers are un- • One man may steal a wrung, horse, but another must
The grey mare is the not look over the hedge, better horse, • Moneymakes the marego.
To “ curry favour,” which is one of the oddest of our idioms, was originally to curry “ Favel,” the fallow- coloured horse — ^a proverbial type of fraud and cunning.
“ To keep to one’s own line,” “ to strike out a new' line,” “ in at the death ” or “ finish,” ‘‘ to take cover,” and perhaps “to come to grief,” are idioms from the hunting-field ; those from the race-track are more numerous :
To back the wrong To win at a canter, horse. To win hands down,
To carry weight, To have a run for one’s
To curl up, money,
To give the tip, or a •From start to finish, straight tip, In the running.
To jockey out of, A dark horse,
To leave at the post, A dead heat.
To make the running, A walk over,
To pull it off, The rest nowhere.
To ride for a fall, ’Neck and neck.
To run hard. Also ran.
To suit one’s book.
From harnessed horses, from carts and coaches come the following :
To kick over the iTo die in harness,
traces, *To put the cart before
To work like a horse, therliorse,
198
ENGLISH IDIOMS
T7o oil the wheels, To take the rough with
To put on the brake, the smooth (?),
To put one’s shoulder To drive a coach and four to the wheel, through.
To put a spoke in some A slow coach, one’s wheel, 'Uphill work,
At a deadlock (?).
From other tame animals, from cattle, sheep, swine and cats, are derived the following :
Cattle
To kill the fatted calf. To bull the market,
To chew the cud, A bull in a china shop,
To herd together, A red rag to a bull.
To take the bull by the • A cock and bull story, horns, * Calf-love.
Cats.
To put up one’s back, • To have as many lives as To rub the wrong way, a cat,
To draw in one’s claws. To have room to swing a To put out a claw, cat,^
To bell the cat, A tame cat,
To fight like Kilkenny *»A cat may look at a cats, klug,
To let the cat out of the •-All cats are grey in the bag, dark,
To see how the cat •Care killed the cat, jumps, 'When the cat’s away the
To have nine lives, mice will play.
Sheep.
To follow like sheep. To bear the bell [from To make sheep’s eyes, the bell-wether].
To look sheepish, •To fleece some one,
Possibly to swing a cat-o'-nine-tails.
199
WORDS JND IDIOMS
^To go wool-gathering, A black sheep,
To pull the wool over As meek as a lamb, some one’s eyes. You might as well be To tar with the same hung for a sheep as a brush [from tarring Iamb,
sheep].
Swine,
To go the whole hog, «To kick the bucket (?),^ To pig it. To get the wrong sow by
To pig together, ^ the ear,
To bring one’s pigs to You cannot make a silk the wrong ^rket, purse out of a sow’s ear. To buy a pig in a poke, Please the pigs.
‘^To rain cats and dogs,” ‘•to lead a cat-and-dog life,” refer to the traditional enmity between these two domestic animals.
‘‘ To make an ass of,” “ to play the goat,” “ to butt in,” seem to be the only phrases derived from goats and donkeys.
Wild animals have not provided us with many idioms. The phrase “ heart of grace ” has been explained as ^‘hart of grease,” but the explanation is at best a doubtful one; Phrases in which wolves appear, like to throw to the wolvis,” “ to take the wolf by the ears,’^ are generally of foreign derivation 5 “ to keep Ae wolf^from the door” seems, however, to be an idiom of English origin. Other phrases from wild creatures and their pursuit are the following :
To ferret out. To sleep like a dor-
To start a hare, mouse,
alleged, as a possible explanation of this curious is a name in Noif olt for the beam upon f ^ suspended after it baa been slaughtered, ^ee
200
ENGLISH IDIOMS
To run with the hare To fall, or walk, into the
and hunt with the trap,
hounds. To poach on some one’s
T 0 give the go-by [from preserve,
coursing ?J, .To make a mountain out
As mad as a March of a mole-hill, hare. As blind as a mole.
First catch your hare, As blind as a bat.
To rat from. As deaf as an adder.
To smell a rat, ‘As poor as a church
mouse.
Wild birds provide more idioms :
-To kill two birds with -A bird’s-eye view, one stone, A swan’s song,
•To put salt on a bird’s A wild-goose chase, tail, As the crow flies.
To have a crow to pick At one fell swoop, with, A little bird told me.
To flutter the dove- ♦ A bird in the hand is worth cotes, two in the bush,
To be in fine, or full, or •The early bird catches the high feather, worm.
To knock some one • Birds of a feather flock down with a feather, , together.
To know a hawk from ‘Fine feathers make fine a handsaw (? hern- birds,
shaw). When the sky falls we
To feather one’s nest, shall all catch larks.
To foul one’s own nest. One swallow does not To plume oneself upon, make a summer.
To scare off (?), There are no birds in last
To clip the wings of, year’s nests,
A bird of passage, What a lark !
To “ beat about the bush ” is from the netting of birds s the word toils,” in the phrase “ taken in 201
JP^ORD^ JND IDIOMS
the toils,” means “ nets ” or “ snares,” from the French
toiles^ and is not related to “ toil ” in the sense of work
or drudgery.
The following are terms of falconry :
To fly at higher game, To turn tail,
To fly at a higher pitch. To have one’s gorge rise To lure away, at.
To stoop to. Pride of place.
To be “ cock of the walk,” “ to live like a fighting- cock,” “ to be game for,” “ to die game,” are phrases from cock-fighting 5 from cock-fighting also comes the phrase to show the white feather,” a white feather in the tail of a gamebird being a sign of bad breeding.
From domestic poultry and their eggs come the following :
To be no chicken, A lame duck.
To count one’s diick- An ugly duckling, ens before they are A nest egg,
hatched, A bad egg.
To crow over, As full as an egg.
To cut the comb of, To walk upon eggs.
To come home to roost. To have all one’s eggs in To henpeck some one, one basket.
To take like a duck to To teach one’s grand- water, mother to suck eggs.
Like water off a duck’s To say “ bo ” to a goose^ back. All his geese are swans.
The curious phrase to play ducks and drakes with ’ ’ is a metaphor at two removes : used first for the pastime of skipping flat stones on the surface of the water, it acqtdred the metaphorical meaning of squandering one’s resources.
202
ENGLISH IDIOMS
Phrases in which snails, worms and insects figure are
mostly from old fables, or translated from F rench ;
To go at a snail’s pace. To weave spider’s webs, To draw in one’s horns, In a bee-line,
To bring a hornet’s A bee in one’s bonnet, nest about one’s ears, A flea in one’s ear,
To singe one’s wings, A fly on the wheel,
To strain at a gnat, A wasp’s nest,
To worm out of. The early bird catches the
To break a butterfly on worm,
the wheel. The worm will turn.
Of many of the aspects of wild nature idiom takes no notice ; there are, however, a few phrases derived from woods and trees :
To be out of the wood, •Through thick and thin Not to be able to see [thicketand thin wood], the wood for the Up a tree, trees. The top of the tree,
To scrape through (?), •Hearts of oak.
To get into a scrape (?), Root and branch.
T o bow to the storm ( ?),
F rom the wind and rain and weather, from clouds, the sun, the moon and the stars, come the following :
To blow hot and cold, A bolt from the blue,
To blow over, ‘Castles in the air,
To clear the air. To be in the clouds,
To get the wind up, To be under a cloud,
To know which way A break in the clouds, the wind blows, -Every cloud has its silver It’s an ill wind that lining,
blows nobody good. To throw, or put into the ‘Something in the wind, shade.
To praise to the skies, To leave out in the cold. Out of the blue, As right as rain,
203
WORJDS AND IDIOMS
It never rains but it
pours,
Not to know enough to come in when it rains. Rain or shine,
To snow under.
To walk on air,
In the air.
Under the weather. Like lightning.
To worship the rising sun,
From other are derived :
To have a place in the
sun,
To cry for the moon.
To shoot the moon,
To think the moon is made of green cheese.
Once in a blue moon,
To bless one’s stars,
To be born under a lucky star,
His star has set.
open-air scenes and objects the folio w'ing
To suit down to the
ground,
To cut the ground from under some one.
To go downhill,
To stick in the mud, To be in a hole.
To throw mud at.
To smack of the soil, tTo leave no stone un*^ turned,
•To be on thorns.
To make one’s way. To pave the way to. To show the way.
To see one’s way to. To put in the way of. To explore an avenue. To t^e the wrong turning.
•To stand on the edge of
a precipice.
To live on the edge of a volcano.
To dance on a volcano. To be an extinct volcano. In a cleft stick.
In a rut,
On the road to,
A royal road to,
A stone’s throw away.
The beaten way,
As cross as two sticks,
As deaf as a post.
As dull as ditchwater.
As old as the hills.
As steady as a rock,
It’s a long lane that has no turning,
- A rolling stone gathers no
moss.
204
ENGLISH IDIOMS
To these must be added a number of idioms from farming :
To live in clover, To put one’s hand to the
To lie fallow, plough,
^To let the grass grow To take, or strike, root, under one’s feet, To be on the straw,
To break fresh ground. Not to care a straw.
To make hay of^ Not to be worth a straw,
•To make hay while the To thresh out, sun shines. Out of heart,
To hedge in. Under the harrow.
To grasp the nettle, A long row to hoe.
To sow one’s wild oats, A ring fence around,
To plough the sands. The lonely furrow.
“To sit on the fence,” “ to come down on the right side of the fence,” are idioms from America, where fences take the place of hedges.
There are a few phrases also connected with the fruit and vegetable garden :
To make two bites at a The apple of discord, cherry. The pick of the basket.
To play gooseberry, Common or garden.
To eat the leek. Stolen fruit.
To pick and choose (?}, Rotten to the core.
To call a spade a spade. As cool as a cucumber, To upset the apple cart, *As like as two peas.
“ Cut and dried ” is a phrase from the herbalist’s shop : the idioms from the flower garden are not numerous :
To lay up in lavender, A bed of roses.
To nip in the bud, A rose between two
To run to seed, thorns.
To feel, or look, seedy, 'No rose without a thorn, The pink of. Under the rose,
20 $
WORDS AND IDIOMS
VII
There are a number of idioms connected with houses
and building, though, save for the phrase ‘‘ not in the
same street with,” little that seems definitely derived
from life in towns and cities.
To darken the door of,
To lay at the door of.
To force an open door,
To open the door to.
To show the door to.
To he at home in.
To bring hone to,
To qoine hone to,
To strike hone,
To set one’s house in order.
To be able to see through a stone wall, To run one’s head against a stone wall, To throw the house out of the windows.
To make bricks with- out straw,
To drop on like a cart-load
of bricks.
To lay it on with a trowel,
A.S safe as houses,
A.t death’s door.
By degrees [from steps], Next door to,
Off its hinges,
On the threshold of,
On the carpet.
Not right in the upper storey,
-•People who live in glass houses [houses with glazed windows] should not throw stones,
Walls have ears.
From the furniture of the house, and from household
occupations (other than cooking) come the following :
A skeleton in the cup- To fall between two hoard, ^ stools,
To be laid on the To be born on the wrong shelf, side of the blanket,
A peg to hang some- •To get up on the wrong thing on^ side of the bed,
206
ENGLISH IDIOMS
•As a man makes his
bed so he must lie
on it,
In the twinkling of a bedpost,
Between you and me and the bedpost,
To bolster up.
To give a curtain lec- ture.
To put back the clock.
To go like clock- work.
To get on like one o’clock,
The swing of the pen- dulum.
As stiff as a poker.
As right as a trivet,
Not to touch with a pair
of tongs,
To burn the candle at both ends.
To snuff out,
Not worth a rush [? from the rushes on the floor which preceded carpets] A new broom,
A clean sweep.
New brooms sweep clean, A drop in the bucket,
To wash one’s dirty linen in public.
To throw out the baby with the bath.
That won’t wash.
To sponge on.
Homely phrases from the kitchen, kitchen utensils,
and figures and images from cooking are vivid and
numerous :
To boil down.
To boil over,
To make the pot boil. To keep the pot boiling. To bubble over with (?), To butter up,
To have other fish to
To cook some one’s goose for him.
To settle some one’s hash.
To make hash of,
To put the lid on,
To make mincemeat of. Not to mince matters,
To have a rod in pickle. To have a finger in the pie, or every pie,
To go to pot.
To skim off.
To be in a stew,
T o stew in one’s own j uice. To have on toast,
-To be half-baked.
In apple-pie order,
207
WORDS JND IDIOMS
In hot water, The pot calls the kettle
Out of the frying-pan black,
into the fire. Done to a turn [of the
The fat is on the fire, spit].
Idioms derived from fire may be conveniently added here, although they are by no means all connected with the kitchen fire :
To catch, or take fire, To flame up.
To play with fire. To add fuel to the flame. To set fire to. To burst into flame.
To set on fire. To burn one’s fingers.
To strike fire. To go up in smoke,
To go through fire and To end in smoke, water, To stamp out.
To heap coals of fire on, To throw a wet blanket To get on like a house on,
afire. To throw cold water on^
To set the Thames on On fire,
fire, *»No smoke without a fire.
Many figurative phrases come from food and eating :
To bite off more than To look as if ^ butter one can chew, would not melt in one’s
To make no bones of, mouth,
To make one’s bread by. To share one’s last crust
- To take the bread out with,
of some one’s mouth. To take the cake.
To quarrel with one’s To sell like hot cakes, bread and butter. To cut and come again.
To have one’s bread To eat din,
buttered on both To be neither fish, flesh
sides, nor good red herring.
To know on which side To fork out,
one’s bread is but- To take the gilt off the tered, gingerbread.
208
ENGLISH IDIOMS
•To live from hand to To be given the cold
mouth, shoulder [? of mutton].
To catch it hot (?),^ To be in the soup.
To be meat and drink To be born with a silver to, . spoon in one’s mouth.
To eat humble pie. To make a spoon and spoil To keep one’s breath to a horn, cool one’s porridge. In a nutshell.
To drop like a hot "A hard nut to crack, potato. The cream of.
To take pot-luck. Hot and hot.
To take with a grain One’s daily bread,
of salt, As different as chalk from
To be not worth one’s cheese, salt,
“ To cry over spilt milk,” is perhaps a phrase originating with the female thinkers of the kitchen, who have expressed much profound wisdom and observation in a large number of kitchen proverbs :
- You cannot eat your cake and have it ;
Half a loaf is better than no bread 5
Enough is as good as a feast j
Hunger is the best sauce 5
The proof of the pudding is in the eating ;
What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander 5 One man’s meat is another man’s poison ;
Fine words butter no parsnips ;
A watched pot never boils 5
Let not the pot call the kettle black ;
Too many cooks spoil the broth ;
The burnt child dreads the fire ;
He needs a long spoon who would sup with the Devil,
Little pitchers have long ^rs 5
Every tub must stand on its own bottom ;
You cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs. 209
w.i.
o
WORDS JND IDIOMS
Drinking, curiously enough, is less fertile in idiom \
phrases and reflections from the tavern are scanty and
thin, lacking in depth of thought, compared with the
apophthegms of the kitchen.
To set abroach. To think no small beer of,
To be on tap. To knock under,^
To drain to the lees. To ladle out,
To draw it mild. To water down.
To bottle up. To be cocksure,®
To chronicle small A half-way hous^ beer. Mischief is brewing,
are phrases which come to us from the public-house, or from liquor brewed and consumed at home. “ That life is not all beer and skittles,” and that it is folly to cast up one’s own account for oneself, or to reckon without one’s host,” are bits, however, of wisdom from the tavern which in fairness should not be omitted. From tobacco we have the phrase up to snuff,’^ and the not very polite injunction “ put that in your pipe and smoke it” From tea-drinking comes the meta- phor of “ a storm in a tea-cup.”
More numerous are the figurative phrases derived from the mill, the blacksmith’s shop, from handicrafts,' and the use of various tools :
To put through the To bring grist to the mill, mill.
To see through a mill- All is grist that comes stone, to the mill,
^ From “ to knock underboard/' i.e, to succumb in a drinking-bout. (0,F.I>.)
- Probably referring to the security or certainty of the
action of a cock or tap in preventing the escape of liquor. (Ibid.)
210
ENGLISH IDIOMS
♦ To strike while the iron Not to put too fine a
is hot, point on,
♦ To have too many irons To give a handle to,
in the fire. To get the hang of [a tool],
To hammer out, To be not fit to hold a
To go at it hammer and candle to (f),^
tongs. To be on tenterhooks
Between hammer and [for stretching cloth],
anvil, To hammer at.
On the anvil, To hammer an idea into
In a white heat, some one’s head.
In full blast, To hit the nail on the
To throw on the scrap- head,
heap [of scrap-iron]. As hard as nails.
To put in the melting- As dead as a doornail, pot, A nail in one’s coifin,
To have an axe to ♦One nail drives out an- grind, other,
To keep some one’s To stick to one’s last, nose to the grind- To sift out, stone. To put through the sieve,
A chip of the old The thin end of the blocl^ wedge.
To throw the helve The entering wedge, after the hatchet, * A square peg in a round To take the edge off (?), hole,
Toblunttheedgeof(?), To clinch the matter^
To play with edged To screw up one’s courage, tools. To be in a groove.
From the implements of sewing, from pinning and stitching and mending, are derived the following phrases :
♦ To look for a needle in To be as sharp as a
a haystack, needle,
^ Probably from holding a candle to some one to assist him in his work.
2II
WORDS JND IDIOMS
•To be on pins and To take up the thread needles, of,
To pin down. To be not a patch upon,
• Not to care a pin for. To take a ply from (?},
Not to be worth a row The seamy side,
of pins, *A stitch in time saves
To be at a loose end, nine.
To lose the thread of,
Machinery and more modern implements have not given rise to many idioms. The current expression “ fed up ” is probably derived from the “ feeding ” of agricultural machines j other modern expressions are “ to get up steam,” “ to blow oflF steam,” ‘‘ to shut off steam,” “ to have a screw loose,” “ to reverse the engine,” “ to throw out of gear.” Mines have added a few idioms to the language, to crop up,” ‘‘ to crop out,” to pan out,” “ to peter out,” to peg out,” to get down to bed-rock.”
It will have been seen how largely our figurative and idiomatic phrases are of popular origin, are drawn from the interests and occupations of humble life. The phrase-making, like the word-making, faculty belongs pre-eminendy to the unlettered classes, and our best idioms, like our most vivid and living words, come to us, not from the library or the drawing-room or the gay parterre,” but from the workshop, the kitchen and the farm-yard.^
^ An immense number of picturesque images and _ local idioms are collected in tbe English Dialect Dictionary ; it is a mine full of the golden ore of language.
212
ENGLISH IDIOMS
VIII
Popular sports have given rise also to a number of idioms, “ To hit, or miss^ the mark,” “ to go beyond the mark,” “ to be beside the mark,’’ are probably from archery : more certainly from this source are the following :
To draw the long bow, To let fly.
To draw the bow at a To have shot one’s bolt, venture. To the top of one’s bent.
To have two strings to A fool’s bolt is soon one’s bow, shot.
To “ try a fall,” to “ catch tripping,” to “ have some one on the hip,” and also, perhaps, to wipe the floor with,” come from wrestling contests. The idioms from pugilism are more numerous :
To bring to the scratch, To knock out,
To chuck, or throw up To polish off,
the sponge. To take it lying down (?),
To clear the ring. Up to the scratch.
To come up smiling (?), Straight from the shoulder, To double up, A facer.
To hit out. Rough and tumble.
To hit below the belt, Down and out (?).
A large number of idioms have been derived from various games. Some, like “ to play fair,” “ to play the game,” two can play at that game,” the looker on sees most of the game,” cannot be traced with certainty to any special form of game ; in others, like ** to play hide and seek with,” ‘‘ to sleep like a top,” 213
WORDS AND IDIOMS
the source of origin is more obvious. “ From pillar to
post ” (originally “ from post to pillar ”) comes from
Court-tennis ; the phrase “ there’s the rub ” from
Bowls ; “ to knuckle under,” “ to knuckle down ”
are from Marbles. To ‘‘ put on side,” “ to play for
safety,” are from Billiards ; ‘‘ not by a long chalk ”
is derived from the use of chalk in the scoring of
various contests. “ To take up the cudgels ” is from
Cudgel-play. “ To have the ball at one’s feet,” ‘‘ to
keep the ball rolling,” are phrases from some kind of
Football. The vocabulary of Cricket is rich in
technical phrases, and a number of these have been
adopted, with figurative meanings, into the general
vocabulary ;
To be bowled over,
To be bowled out.
To have one’s innings.
To play off one’s own bat.
To keep one’s end up,
The process of giving figurative meanings to technical terms, and assimilating them into colloquial speech seems to require time. It is only the old and long-established sports which have enriched the common vocabulary 5 from more recent sports and games, from Lawn-tennis and Golf, from Bicycling, Motoring, and Aviation, though each of these has its special vocabulary, few or no idioms have acquired wider meanings.^
Card-games have been played in England for many
^ “ To toe the maxk," however, and to get one’s second wind/* axe probably from onr modem athletic contests.
214
To back up.
To catch out.
To stop the rot,
To score heavily (?)^ It isn’t cricket.
ENGLISH IDIOMS
centuri^j s-iid from these and other forms of indoor
games a,re derived the following phrases :
To sweep the boards To have the game in one’s To be above-board, hands.
To have a card up one’s T o play a deep, a winning, sleeve, or a losing game,
-To hold the trump card. To spoil some one’s game. To pa-ck the cards To force the hand of, against, To play into the hands
♦To play one’s cards of,
badly^ To follow suit,
- Xo play one’s last card, T ostand pat [from Poker],
To put one’s cards on -To turn up trumps, ^ the table. The game is up,
To show one’s cards, or 'The game is not worth the one’s hand, candle.
To give points to, A house of cards.
To score off,
On the cards” is probably from fortune-telling by means of cards. ‘‘To hold in check,” to make a good, or bad move,” come from Chess ; to leave in die lurch” is from the old game of Lourche^ resembling Backgammon, and the phrase “ to turn the tables ” comes from games of this kind.
From dicing and from gambling and games of chance are derived the following :
To be at stake, To play with loaded
To play one’s last stake, dice.
To have a stake in. To bank on,
To have an eye to the To be no great shakes (?). main chance.
The noun by^ in the phrase “ by the by ” has been explained as being originally a dicing term, and the
215
WORDS JND IDIOMS
word “ deuce ” for the throw of two, enters into nmany
phrases, and is often used as a euphemism for the Devil.
“ To foist upon,” “ to play fast and loose ” are from
some old forms of cheating games.
IX
The arts provide a certain number of idioms, especi-
ally the arts of music and dancing, but they are drawn
for the most part from the popular forms of these
entertainments ;
To play first, or second,
fiddle,
To be as fit as a fiddle. To harp on (the same string),
To blow one’s own trumpet,
To sing small,
To sing to another tune, To change one’s tune, or note,
To pay the piper (and call the tune),
To buy for an old song,
To ring the changes on.
In tune.
Out of tune.
To the tune of,
As sound as a bell,
To open the ball.
To dance attendance, To lead the dance.
To lead some one dance.
To lead up to.
To lead off.
More definitely polite are the idioms which have been derived from painting, and from the theatre :
Painting,
To tone down, In, or out of, keeping.
To touch up, A blot on the landscape,
To touch in. The dark side of the
To put the finishing picture,
touches to. Not so black as he is
To draw the line painted.
To rub in (?),
216
ENGLISH IDIOMS
Theatre.
To fill the bill. To act a part,
To be in, or out of, ’To be behind the scenes, character. To shift the scene,
To give the cue for, To make a scene.
To ring down the To be in the limelight, curtain. To pull the strings, or
To be before the foot- wires,
lights. The scene of action.
To play to the gallery, A change of scene.
To face the music (?), * A stage whisper.
There are two expressive idioms from the theatre, “ to put it over,” “ to get it across,” which are now popular in America, and which will probably soon make their way into our speech in England. The phrases “ a side-show,” “ to run the show,” ‘‘ to give the show away,” “ to dance on a tight-rope,” are from popular shows. “ To bring down the house ” is from the theatre, or perhaps from public meetings. “To take the floor,” and the American phrase, “ to take a back seat ” are, with “ the order of the day,” also from public meetings ; “ it’s all over but the shouting,” is an echo from popular elections.
Of the learned professions, that of Medicine has given rise to the following phrases :
To doctor something, To take the temperature To kill or cure, of.
To take one’s own To feel the pulse of, medicine, A bitter pill to swallow.
To gild, or sugar, the A fly in the ointment, pill, A good dose of.
To swallow the pill, A dose of his own medi- T o sweeten the draught, cine,
217
jrORD£ IDIOMS
The followng phrases are legal in their origin :
To haYe neither art nor 'To pay oner's scot, part in, TTo plead guilty to,
To take one’s Bible T?o sit on, oath. At issue,
To go bail for, In malice prepense,
To hold a brief for, A matter of fact.
To make out one’s case, A moot point.
To ontruntlieconstable, The merits of the case,
To laugh oat of court, l^ull and void,
To pat out of court, Scot and lot.
To join issue with, Scot free,
To‘ raise, or shirk, the Special pleading,
issue, * Possession is nine points
To lay iavfn the la\y, of the law.
To leave a loophole (? 3,
Terms of businejss are, as we might expect, numerous ia the speech of a mercantile and shopkeeping nation. Some of these are derived from simple forms of barter, others from wholesale business and the Stock Exchange :
To hold the balance. To give a blank cheque To strike a balance, to,
To turn the balance, To chop and change,
To weigh in the hal- To raise, or lower, the anc^ credit of,
To strike a bargain, To do a deal with.
To get more thaa one To queer the pitch bargained for, []? place of sale],
- To no^e the best of a To tarn the scales,
bad bargain, To score up against,
T o send some one about To talk shop, his business, To shut up shop,
To make capital of, To be sold,
218
ENGLISH IDIOMS
To take stock of, A bad bargain.
To have no truck with, A heavy bill to pay,
To trade on, An ugly customer.
To bring to terms, A drug on the market.
At a discount, A large, or tall, order.
At a premium, A turn over,
Below par, The hall-mark of.
In the balance. Dirt cheap.
Into the bargain, Damaged goods.
On the score of. Plain as a pike-staff [pack-
Out of sorts, staff].
The word “ lot ” is an auctioneer’s or shopkeeper’s term, and appears in the phrases “ lots ” of, a bad lot.” The word “ account ” (earlier “ accompt ”) is a business word which has entered into a number of idioms, many of which are to be traced, with more or less certainty, to a commercial origin :
To bring to account, To render an account.
To call to account. To take into account.
To turn to account, On account of,
To find one’s account On one’s own account, in, On no account.
To leave out of account,
“To hang out ” is, perhaps, derived from the hanging out of shop signs 5 ‘‘ up the spout ” comes from the lift, so-called, up which pawned articles were sent for storage. “To nail to the counter ” is derived from the old custom of nailing bad coins to the counter. Coins and metals appear in the following :
“ To pay some one back To turn up, like a bad in his own coin, penny,
To turn an honest To cut off with a penny, shilling.
219
WORDS AND IDIOMS
To paY’Some one back A penny for your thoughts,
in his own coin. Penny wise, pound foolish,
Not to care a rap [a. A penny dreadful, small Irish coin], A penny-a-liner.
Not to be able to make A shilling shocker, heads or tails of. To ring false, or true,
In for a penny,in for a Not worth a brass farthing, pound. To be worth one’s weight
A pretty penny, in gold.
To put to the test,’ ’ or “ to the touch,’ ’ comes from testing precious metals. Prom diamonds come the phrases, of the first mter^” eighteen carat,” and “ diamond cut diamond.”
Up to date ” was originally a book-keeping term, meaning entered up to date.” “ To bring to book,” to be in a person’s ‘^good” or black hooks,” are phrases perhaps of commercial, perhaps of legal origin. From other Mnds of books, from newspapers, and from reading, come the following :
To speak by the book^ To read a lecture to,
To speak like a book, 'To rea.d between the lines. To give chapter and To speak volumes for,
verse. To spell ruin,
^ To turn over a new A dead letter, leaf^ A back number.
To take a leaf out of A good press, some one’s book, A chapter of accidents.
To gloss over, To the end of the chapter.
“To play truant,” ‘‘out of bounds,” “ to put to school to,” to give a bad mark to,” “ to tell tales out of school,”** to nnind one’s P’s and Q’s,” “ to dot one’s I’s,” **to put a period to,” “ to smell of the 230
ENGLISH IDIOMS
lamp,” without rhyme or reason,” are phrases derived
from schools, or from writing and literary composition.
Geography and History play little part in idiom,
but the names of places and foreign nations appear in
the following :
To talk Billingsgate,
To be shipshape and Bristol fashion.
To grin like a Cheshire cat,
To fight like Kilkenny cats,
To send to Coventry,
To beat the Dutch,
K hear garden,” to see the lions,” embody relics of old London, “ True blue ” comes from the times of the Covenanters, who adopted blue as their colour in contradistinction to the royal red, and “a crowning mercy ” was Cromwell’s description of his victory at W'orcester,
To talk double Dutch,
- To take French leave, ^
Dutch courage.
To do at Rome as Rome does,
•Rome was not built in a day,
• All roads lead to Rome.
X
Old religious allusions linger on in the phrases :
To haul over the coals, To die in the odour of To curse with book, sanctity,^ bell and candle, To do penance,
^ rhe same taeaaing is expressed by Vcmglaisi iu
French.
- From the French ode^r de saintetS, the sweet odour stated
to be exhaled by the bodies of saints at their deaths or on STihsequent digiritemieat {O.E,D.).
221
WORDS AND IDIOMS
To rob Peter to pay On the rack,
Paul, Not a penny to bless one’s
To put the screw on, self with,
To give short shrift to, Not fit to hold a candle To go to the stake for, to.
The phrase ‘‘ to save the mark ” (from “ God bless,” or *‘save the mark”) comes probably from an old formula for averting an evil omen. “ A month’s mind,” common in Ireland and in English dialects, meant originally the commemoration of a deceased person by saying masses a month after his death.
“ To take for gospel,” “ to give chapter and verse,” are probably Protestant idioms ; the curious phrasal verb *‘to hold forth” originated among the Non- conformists at the time of the Commonwealth, , as a more or less cant term for preaching.^
The Parson makes no appearance in idiomatic speech, but the Devil, or his euphemistic substitute, the Deuce, plays an active and imporant part.
To beat the Devil The Devil a one, round the bush. The Devil to pay.
To give the Devil his The Devil take it,
due, The Devil take the
To shame the Devil, hindmost.
To show the cloven The Devil is not so black hoof, as he is painted.
To play the deuce The deuce is in it, with, The deuce knows.
Between the Devil and Where the deuce,
the deep sea. As the Devil loves Holy
The Devil and all, Water,
^ To “ hold forth ” seems to be a translation of in
the Greek Testament, PhiL ii. i6 (O.J5.D.).
222
ENGLISH IDIOMS
It’s the very Deyil, He needs a long spoon who
Like to the Devil, would sup with the Devil,
He needs must go that Talk of the Devil, and he the Devil drives, is sure to appear,
A printer’s devil.
The phrase “ much cry and little wool ” comes from
an old legend of the Devil shearing hogs ; the origin
of the phrase *** pull Devil, pull baker ” is not known.
The immense influence on our language of the English translations of the Bible has often been re- marked on 5 for centuries the Bible has been the book which has been most read and most quoted in England ; not only many words, but many idiomatic phrases (often the literal translations of Hebrew or Greek idioms) have been added to our language from its pages. Indeed, so numerous are the Biblical phrases which have entered into the texture of our speech, that it would be a labour of some difficulty to collect and enumerate them all. Among those of which the Biblical origin is most obvious are :
Apples of Sodom,
Balm in Gilead,
Bowels of mercy.
Deep calling to deep, Fear and trembling. Feet of day.
Gall and wormwood. Line upon line.
Lines fallen in pleasant places,
Loaves and fishes,
Milk and honey, Sackcloth, and ashes.
Safe and sound,
Vials of wrath.
All things to all men. Daily bread,
•Egyptian darkness. Filthy lucre.
New wine in old bottles. No respecter of persons, Not a jot or a tittle. Weighed in the balance, Whited sepulchres,
"A broken reed,
A cloud of witnesses,
WORDS JND IDIOMS
A crow^n of gloy, -The good Samaritan,
A drop in the hiiclcet, ,iXhe handwriting on the An eye for an ej^e, ' wall,
A fly in the ointment, The Holy of Holies,
A howling wilderness, The law of the Medes A labour of love, and Persians,
A lion in the way. The Mammon of un- An olive branch, righteousness,
A proverb and a by- The little leaven that word, leavens the whole lump,
A soft answer, The old Adam,
A stirring of the waters. The old leaven,
A thorn in the flesh. The prodigal son,
A tinkling cymbal, The promised land,
A voice in the wilder- The root of all evil, ness. The root of the matter,
A wolf in sheep’s doth- The salt of the earth, ing, , The shadow of death,
A word in season, • The sweat of one’s brow. The apple of the eye, "The wages of sin.
The beam, the mote in The weaker vessel, the eye, The widow’s cruse,
The blind leading the The wings of the wind, blind. The writing on the
The breath of the wall,
nostrils, Their name is legion,
The burden and the # After one’s own heart, heat of the day, As one man.
The camel and the In the flesh,
needle's eye, In the land of the living,
The children of this -In the twinkling of an world, eye.
The chosen people. Of the earth, earthy.
The eleventh hour. Off the jface of the The flesh-pots of Egypt, earth,
The gift of tongues, With clean hands,
224
ENGLISH IDIOMS
A prophet is not with- If they do these things in
out honour sav^e in a green tree, what shall
his own country, be done in the dry ?
»The spirit is willing. In vain is the net spread but the flesh is weak, in the sight of the
•Can the leopard change bird,
his spots ? '•No man can serve two
" Whal:ever a man sow- masters,
eth, that shall he reap, ^ Pride goes before a fall,
- Evil communications Quit yourselves like men,
corrupt good man- With the pure, all things ners, are pure.
In addition to these substantive, adjectival, adverbial and proverbial phrases, many verbal idioms come to us from the Bible :
•To beat the air. To spoil the Egyptians,
To entertain an angel To see eye to eye with, unawares. To grind the faces of
To draw a bow at a the poor,
venture, To set one’s face against,
To cast one’s bread To find favour with,^ upon the waters. To heap coals of fire on, To make bricks without •To answer a fool ac- straw, cording to his folly,
•To kill the fatted calf, To strain at a gnat.
To worship the golden To fall on stony ground,
calf, To serve God and
To turn the other Mammon,
cheek, To wash one’s hands of.
To darken counsel, To search the heart.
To take counsel, To smite hip and thigh,
To hear one’s cross, To proclaim from the
To shake off the dust of house-tops,
one’s feet, To set one’s house in
. To have itching ears, order,
WJ.
225
p
WORDS JND IDIOMS
\To go to Jericho, Xo call in question,
Xo bow the knee to, Xobow down in the house Xo hide one’s light of Rimmon,
under a bushel, * Xo spare the rod,
Xo gird up one’s loins, Xo be built upon sand,
Xo have no lot or part 'Xo laugh to scorn, in, Xo give short shrift to,
Xo cast in one’s lot Xo change one’s skin, ^ with, Xo possess one’s soul in
Xo have some one’s patience,
mantle fall upon, Xo cast the first stone,
Xo fill up the measure Xo beat swords into of, ploughshares,
Xo be of one mind, Xo escape by the skin of Xo condemn some one one’s teeth,
out of his own Xo go from strength to mouth, strength,
Xo take some one’s Xo gnash the teeth,
name in vain, Xo sit under one’s vine
Xo cast pearls before and fig-tree,
swine, Xo lift up one’s voice,
Xo dig a pit for, Xo return to one’s vomit,
Xo touch pitch, Xo turn one’s face to the
Xo have pity on, wall,
Xo put one’s hand to -Xo sow the wind and reap the plough, the whirlwind,
Xo kick against the Xo spare one’s words, pricks, Xo be at ease in Zion.
Forbidden fruit,” ‘‘Job’s comforters,” “a Judas Idss,” “a dead letter,” are phrases which contain Biblical allusions.
Xo “ hope gainst hope ” is an adaptation of “ who against hope beheved in hope” {Rom, iv- i8), and
- wheels within wheels” probably comes from the
226
ENGLISH IDIOMS
phrase in Ezekiel, “ A wheel in the middle of a
wheel ” (i- Some of these phrases have acquired
meanings which are due to misunderstanding, and are different from the real meanings of the phrases in scripture,^
The phrases ^‘from the bottom of the heart,” ^^for better, for worse,” ^‘to have and to hold,” pomps and vanity,” ^^the world, the flesh and the devil,” come from the Book of Common Prayen
XI
After the Bible, Shakespeare’s plays are, as we might expect, the richest literary source of English idioms, and the following phrases are familiar to us from Shakespeare ;
» To make assurance To wear one’s heart on double sure, one’s sleeve,
To chronide small To out-Herod Herod,
beer, _ To have on the hip,
- To cudgel one’s brains, To eat out of house and
To speak by the card, home,
To screw one’s courage To eat the leek,
to the sticking-point, ^To win golden opinions. To speak daggers. To give pause to,
. To give the Devil his To be hoist with one’s due, own petard,
To flutter the dove- -To do yeoman service, cotes. To shuflJe off.
To gild refined gold. To lay it on with a trowel. To know a hawk from To lay the flattering a handsaw, unction to one’s soul,
1 To see eye to eye mth," " to be of one mind with/' etc. See Bradley, Making of English, p. 225.
227
WORDS AND IDIOMS
Cakes and ale.
Caviare to the general. Fancy free.
Hit or miss.
Metal more attractive. Pride of place.
Sermons in stones, Shreds and patches. Sweets to the sweet, Trifles light as air, Curled darlings.
Every inch a king.
Full of sound and fiiry. Germane to the matter, Good men and true, "Midsummer madness, '’Moving accidents, Neither rhyme nor reason,
.Ocular proof.
One touch of nature. Salad days,
A coign of vantage,
A foregone conclusion, A Daniel come to judgement,
A fool’s paraise,
An itching palm,
'A sea-change,
A Triton among min- nows,
‘ A towering passion,
A tower of strength, ♦The be-all and end-all. The beginning of the ^ end.
The cry is still they
come.
The head and front of, TThe milk of human kindness,
The green-eyed monster. The glimpses of the moon, The observed of all observers.
The pity of it,
The pound of flesh.
The primrose path,
The seamy side.
The sere and yellow leaf, The whirligig of time. The wish is father to the thought.
The world’s mine oyster, That’s flat.
That way madness lies. There’s tihe rub.
As good luck would have
it.
At one fell swoop.
From whose bourne no traveller returns.
How the world wags,
In the mind’s eye.
In good set terms.
In Sie vein for.
Of pith and moment,
“To the heart’s content.
To the manner born,
To the top of one’s bent, ,With bated breath. Comparisons are odorous^
22a
ENGLISH IDIOMS
More sinned against My gorge rises at It,
than sinning. Our withers are unwrung.
The phrase “ to scotch, not kill a snake ” comes from Theobald’s generally accepted emendation of “scotch’d for “scorch’d ” in Macbeth (m. ii. 13).
Phrases like these are more than mere quotations 5 the verbs are conjugated, the other words varied to suit our needs, and we use them often with no definite consciousness of their origin. They have, as Dr. Bradley puts it, “ entered into the texture of the diction of literature and daily conversation,” and may now “ fairly be regarded as idioms of the English language.”
While, however, these expressions are familiar to us from Shakespeare’s writings, it by no means follows that they are all of his invention 5 his plays are full of tags from popular speech j the phrase “ there’s the rub ” for instance, comes, as we have seen, from the game of bowls j the idiom, “ out of joint,” has been found three hundred years before the date of Hamlet, and the phrase “ much ado,” appears in Coverdale’s translation of the Bible. But many of the other phrases seem to bear the stamp of his invention, and considering how few other writers have added idioms to the language, it is a surprising proof, both of his linguistic genius and his popularity, that so great a number of familiar locutions are derived from his plays.
Our memories are stored with quotations from other famous English writers, but these, with very few exceptions, remain quotations, and are not fused as idioms into our colloquial speech. The phrase “ my better half” (itself an echo of Horace) is first found 229
jrORBS JND IDIOMS
in Sidney’s Arcadia ^ and from Milton ^ come a few
expressionts like “confusion worse confounded/’ and
“ a. dim religious light,” whicli may be considered as
hovering on the borderland between idiom and quota-
tion. “Vanity Fair,” ‘‘The Slough of Despond,’’
“ Xhe man with the nuckrake,” are from The Pilgrim s Progress, “ To steal some one’s thunder,” is said to have originated from a protest of the critic and dramatist John Dennis, who had invented for a play of his own anew kind of artificial thunder, which, after the feilure of his play, was used for a performance of Macbeth*
“ See how the rascals use me ! ” he rose in the pit and e^cdaimed with an oath, “ they will not let my playrun j and yet they steal my thunder ! ” ^ “ When
Greek meets Greek,” is a misquotation of Nathaniel Lee’s line :
“When Greeks joyn’d Greeks, then was the tug of War.”
“ Sweetness and light ” is a phrase of Swift’s made
cunent by Matthew Arnold, and Browning’s title
The Slot m the Scutche9n was probably derived from
Dryden’s phrase, “ a blot on his escutcheon.” T'o
&y off at a tangent,” is found in Humphrey Clinker.
“ Leather and prunella ” is from Pope’s Essay on Man ;
“the madding crowd” from Gray’s Elegy, “To
teadi the young idea how to shoot ” is a line of Xhoin.-
^Tiaepxorerb ^‘e-very doud has its silver lining/^ which
can hardly he of popular origin, may possibly derive from the
litres in Ccmvts :
Was Idecdved, or did a sable doud XuroL forth her silver lining on the night ? ”
- Bnt. vol. V. p, 103,
« 230
MGLISH IDIOMS
son’s which has almost become an idiom of our language,
and the phrase ‘‘to swim into one’s ken,” from the
famous sonnet of Keats, is undergoing the same process.
The same may be said of the line, “ to make the
punishment fit the crime,” from Gilbert’s Mikado,
“ To be on the side of the angels ” is a saying made
popular by Disraeli ; “ to drop the pilot ” comes from
a well-known cartoon in Punch ; and during the late
war, the phrase “ one’s spiritual home ” became famous
under circumstances familiar to us all. “ Dead Sea
fruit ” sounds like a phrase from the Bible, but it is
first found as the title of a novel of Miss Brad don’s.
Save perhaps for a few phrases like “ on one’s native
heath ” from Rob Roy^ “ to beard the lion in his den,”
from Marmion, Tennyson’s “ rift within the lute,”
Emerson’s “ man in the street,” ^ and “ hitch your
wagon to a star,” Stevenson’s “ Dr. Jekyll and Mr.
Hyde ” and Dickens’s “ King Charles’s head,” and “ in
a Pickwickian sense,” it is difficult to find any idioms
derived from nineteenth-century writers. It is possible
to invent a new word, it is possible to write a line of
poetry which will go to increase the stock of English
quotations, but to add a new idiom to the language
seems almost to require powers such as were only
possessed by Shakespeare — ^by Shakespeare, and by
thousands of illiterate men and women whose names
will never be known.^
1 This, however, seems to have been originally a racing- term. The O.E.D, quotes from the Greville Memoirs (1831), "^The man in the street' (as we call him at Newmarket).’’
- The phrase * ** Bag and baggage/’ is generally supposed
to originate in a famous speech of Gladstone’s about the Turks clearing ” bag and baggage ” out of a European province.
231
WORDS AND IDIOMS
XII
To return, however, t'<ridioms from foreign sources. In addition to the oriental idioms from the Bible, our language contains a large deposit of proverbs, gnomic phrases and figurative expressions which have been handed down from cl^ical times, and borrowed and adopted into the speech of those European nations which share in the common inheritance of Greek and Latin culture.
“ The Golden Age,” the apple of discord,” “ Pandora’s box,” come from Greek mythology ; and echoes from Homer are found in the following :
ilomeric laughter,
•uAn Iliad of woes,
A sardonic laugh,
Penelope’s web.
Winged words.
♦ Between Scylla and Cha-
rybdis,
•> On the knees of the Gods,
,, On the razor’s edge.
-‘A Pyrrhic victory,” “the Gordian knot,” ‘‘the
sword of Damocles,” “ to hang by a thread,” “ to
It is, however, an old military phrase, dating from the six-
teenth century, “ The skeleton in the cupboard " was given
currency by Thackeray, but, the Oxford Dictionary says, was
toown at an earlier date. ** Wait and see ” is a phrase which
is found in Defoe, and was used by Dickens. Three idiom#
are attributed by tradition to words spoken by three great
men. The iron hand in the velvet glove is supposed to
he a phrase of the Emperor Charles V. ; William of Orange
have eaj^ressed his determination to “ die in the last
ditdh,” rather than witness the overthrow of the Dutch
^mmonwealth; and that remarkable old man, Thomas
I^bb^, is reported to have said, as his last words, that he
^is about * to take a great leap in the dark ** — thus en-
^ language with an idiom on his deathbed.
- , "" 232
ENGLISH IDIOMS
appeal from Philip drunk to Philip sober^” are from
Greek history and legend- The ‘‘unwritten law ” is
a phrase of Solon’s ; “ to hand on the torch,” “ to
sacrifice to the Graces ” and “ Platonic love ” are from
Plato’s writings; “to beg the question” is from
Aristotle, who also quotes the Greek proveri>Sjf"“ One
swallow does not make a summer,” ancr“ There’s
many a slip ’twixt the cup and the lip.” The following
are from ^sop, or from other Greek fables :
To blow hot and cold. To cry wolf too often,
To add insult to injury. The lion’s share,
To kill the goose that The last straw [that laid the golden eggs, broke the camel’s To nourish a viper in back], one’s bosom. Sour grapes.
“ To take time by the forelock,” is from an illustra- tion to Phaedrus j “ the smell of the lamp,” “ to know where the shoe pinches ” are phrases femiliar to us from Plutarch ; the “ skeleton at the feast ” is from his account of the ancient Egyptians, and the idiom “ to call a spade a spade ” is a happy mistranslation, due to Erasmus, of an expression which Plutarch quotes, meaning “ to call a tub a tub,” or something of that kind. Euclid created an idiom when he warned the king of Egypt, Ptolemy Philadelphus, that there was no “ royal road ” to geometry. “ The dog in the manger ” is from Lucian ; other idioms of Greek origin are “ a swan’s song ” “ to burn one’s boats,” “to leave no stone unturned,” “to write in water,” and to “ take the wolf by the ears.”
“ To cross the Rubicon,” and “ the die is cast,” are from Caesar’s advance on Rome. “ A snake in the
233
mORDS jnu IDIOMS
grass,” and “ a sop to Cerberus ” are Virgilian phrases 5 “ a purple patch ” is from Horace, “ the sinews of wzr ” from Cicero 5 “ better late than never ” is found in Livy, and “ a pious fraud ” in Ovid 5 the phrases “ with a grain of salt ” and “ in a nutshell ” are from the elder Pliny’s writings.^ “The burden of proof” is a translation of the Law Latin onus pro bandL “To plough the sand,” “ to give the palm to,” “ to bear the palm,” “ to put off to the Greek Kalends,” “ to stick to one’s last,” and “ the horn of plenty,” are other idioms which come to us from Latin. Our phrase, “ a storm in a tea-cup ” is perhaps an adaptation of the Latin excitare fluctus in simpulo^ found in Cicero.
The culture shared by most European countries in the Middle Ages has left in our language a large deposit of figurative and proverbial phrases. “ The horns of a dilemma” come from the scholastic argumentum comutum ; “ a Roland for an Oliver ” is from the Chanson de Roland ; “ to make a catspaw of ” is from an Italian tale of the fifteenth century j “ to bell the cat,” “ the whole bag of tricks,” “ borrowed plumes,” are from medieval fables. The phrases “ to lick into shape,” and an “ unlicked cub ” are derived from the notion of European folk-lore that bears give form to their cubs in this manner 5 “ to hide one’s head in the sand” is from the supposed behaviour of em- barrassed ostriches ; “ crocodile’s tears ” comes from tfie belief that crocodiles shed tears while eating human being?.
The following figurative and proverbial phrases are ^ See Biichmann, Geflugelte Worte,
234
ENGLISH IDIOMS
found not only in English, but in French, and many of
them in other European languages as well :
Nautical.
To swim against the To break the ice, current, • To fish in troubled
To lower one’s flag, waters.
Military.
To be under arms. To throw down the To lay down arms, glove.
To mask one’s bat- To enter the lists, teries, To break a lance for,
To return to the To win one’s spurs, charge, A running fire,
To gain ground. At daggers drawn,
To beat a retreat. At the sword’s point.
Jnimals and birds and insects.
To take the bull by the When the cat’s away the horns, mice will play.
To take the bit in one’s To start a hare, teeth. To walk upon eggs.
To lock the stable door To put all one’s eggs in after the horse is one basket, stolen, A bird of passage,
Toeatfromthehand of, A hornet’s nest,
All cats are grey in the A flea in the ear, dark, A fly on the wheel.
Open air and agricidture.
A place in the sun,^ To take root.
The beaten road. To run to seed,
To make one’s way. To smack of the soil.
To show the way, On the straw.
To be on thorns, A man of straw.
' This famous phiaise is first found in Pascal’s Pensies.
235
jrokDS jm idioms
The House and Workshop.
On the carpet. To play with fire,
A new broom. To strike while the iron is
As a man makes his bed, hot,
so he must lie on it. To be between anvil and To draw a curtain, hammer,
To make the pot boil. To throw the helve after To take pot-luck, the hatchet.
'Games y Professions y Jrts and Trade.
To play with one’s To swallow the pill, cards on the table. To pull the strings.
To force some one’s To change one’s note, hand, To read between the lines,
The game is not worth T o put the dots on one’s I’s, the candle, A dead letter,
A house of cards, Neither rhyme nor reason,
To gild the pill, To hold the balance.
Idioms from the Human Body.
T 0 hold one’s head high, T o turn a deaf ear.
To turn some one’s To have one’s ears tingle, head, To make the mouth water.
To make the hair rise, To show one’s teeth,
To lead by the nose, To have on the tip of To see no further than one’s tongue, one’s nose. To hold one’s sides.
To throw dust in some To receive with open arms, one’s eyes. With a high hand,
To be all ears, Tied hand and foot.
Various.
To make two ends meet, T o lift the mask.
To rob Peter to pay To pass the time,
Paul, To have a good time,
T® throw a veil over. To take one’s time,
236
ENGLISH IDIOMS
To kill time, Castles in Spain,
- To walk on stilts. In the last resort.
When we find the same idioms both in French and English, it is not of course absolutely certain that the English are translated from the French — some of the more obvious of them at least may have sprung up independently in each language. That the French, who until comparatively recent years have not borrowed much from English, should have taken over many English idioms is not likely 5 but the German language has been more subject to the influence of English literature, and some at least of the following phrases, which are current in both languages, may be borrowings from English :
Not to be able to see the To get wind of,
wood for the trees,^ To have a screw loose.
To let the cat out of the To pay some one back in bag, his own coin.
To go to the dogs, Not to ruffle a hair.
To singe one’s wings, To get up with one’s
To draw in one’s horns, wrong foot foremost.
To have a crow to pick, Through thick and thin.
Other French phrases have been adopted into English by changing or modifying the figure :
Rire sous cape : To laugh in one’s sleeve.
Mettre la charrue devant les basufs : ^To put the cart before the horse.
Fairefausse route : To take the wrong turning.
Acheier chat en poche : To buy a pig in a poke.
Reveiller le chat qui dort .>To wake the sleeping dogs.
1 This phrase is said to have been translated into German by Wieland. Bilchmann, GeflugeUe Worte.
237
WORDS AND IDIOMS
Faire venir Veau d son moidin : to bring grist to one’s mill.
Payer rubis sur Pongle : To pay on the nail.
Avoir le drap et P argent : To have one’s cake and eat it.
Jouer sur le velours : To be on velvet,
Faire d*une pierre deux coups : kill two birds
with one stone.
Grossir un neant en montage : 'To make a mountain out of a mole-hill.
Mordre h Phamegon : To jump at the bait.
Porter aux nues .‘To praise to the skies.
Mettre en quarantaine .-To send to Coventry.^
Bee et ongles : Tooth and nail.
Un chien regard bien un Mque : • A cat may look at a King.
Le chien du jardinier : -The dog in the manger.
It will be noticed that these images are sometimes more striking and vivid in the English version 5 that the unknown benefe-ctors of our language, who have enriched our speech with these foreign coins, have, in the process of re-minting them in English, stamped them with a brighter sheen : our goose that laid the golden eggs” is a gayer bird, with its alliterative feathers, than the French poule aux ceufs d*or^ and “ to IdU two birds with one stone” gives a more vivid picture than faire dlune pierre deux coups. In other cases the change is due to the need for that assonance, alliteration, and happy rhythm and run of words which phrases of this kind must be given to make them current coin.
, ^ ^ The origin, of the phrase, " to send to Coventry/* has never satisfactorily explained. May not Coventry be a popnlax c^^ption of quarantaine ?
238
ENGLISH IDIOMS
Human speech is never adequate to express the rich-
ness of human experience 5 to give a name to any
fragment of it is a triumph for the mind, but it is
an even greater triumph when we can embody that
fragment in an idiom charged with eager life, which
will make it more actual to ourselves, and more vivid
to those to whom we wish to describe it. Even to
adopt and new-mint a foreign phrase for which we
have no equivalent, as when Sterne translated the
French saying, “ God tempers the wind to the shorn
lamb,” or Dr. Johnson gave an English shape to the
Spanish proverb, “ Hell is paved with good intentions,”
is to perform a service to the language of no small
value 5 and although our speech has been more enriched
than most of us imagine by captures from these foreign
reservoirs, I should like to suggest that there are still
“ as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it ” —
plenty of lively and glittering figures which we might
borrow and add to the resources of our own language
with considerable advantage. Even when we have an
idiom of our own to express a certain meaning, we shall
often find that meaning more vigorously rendered in
a foreign figure 5 or the foreign idiom may be more
poetic, and give to its meaning that enrichment, and
gild it with that gleam of beauty, which it is the privilege
of words to add to human experience. How much
prettier is the German phrase das Blaut vom Himtntl
lugen^ (to forswear the blue of the sky) than our ex-
pression, to swear that black is white,” and compare
“to sleep in the open air,” with coucher it la belli
itoile^ or the even more beautiful Spanish dormtr m
el mesin de la estrella — “ to sleep in the inn of the
239
WORDS JND IDIOMS
star.” But there is much that we can only describe
in lifeless words which is much more aptly and ener-
getically rendered in other languages — since each has
its store of happy discoveries — ^by means of images
and picturesque locutions. Some of these can be
literally translated into English — “ to beat down open
doors,” for instance, “ to promise mountains and
marvels,” which are French idioms, also the Italian
phrase “ to work under water,” or the Spanish, “ to
limp on the same foot with some one ” (to share the
same fault or failing), and the German expressions,
to talk to the wind,” “ to worry over unlaid eggs,”
“ to hurl some one out of his heaven,” and the descrip-
tion of something that has been forgotten, “ over that
the grass grew long ago.”
With the greater number of foreign idioms, however, a literal translation will not suffice 5 they must be re-embodied in the run and rhythm of our speech, given a metallic ring to make them current, and stamped perhaps for this purpose with another image. How can we describe in English un coup de balaiy tm rtre jaune, tm mauvais plaisant, or translate the useful phrases, au pied de la letfrcy ga coule de source^ dans lei petites boftes. les bom onguents ? Equally difficult to render in English are the following familiar locutions : ^ire dans sm amette^ filer doux, chercher midi d quatorvse heures^ reader pour rmeux sauter^ avoir h diable au ccrpSy and manger de la vache enragee.
The French language, as we might expect in the speech of so social and civilised a people, is especially phrases descriptive of nuances of social ■iswcotirse for which we have no equivalents 5 payer 240
ENGLISH IDIOMS
de belles paroles^ for instance, fentr le crachoir^ for
absorbiag the conversation, and rompre les chiens^ for
abruptljr changing the subject. These phrases are
probably femiliar to us all, but equally happy inventions
can be found in Italian and Spanish and German.
Although I do not possess much colloquial knowledge
of those languages, I have been reading through some
of the current handbooks of their idioms, and will give
a few of these locutions, adding in brackets their
literal translations and their idiomatic meanings.
Perhaps some of my readers with a gift for happy
phrasing may be able to embody these meanings, as
well as the meanings of the French idioms I have
already mentioned, in felicitous chimes of words, and
perhaps in different figures, which will give them the
English stamp they need to become current among us.
We find in Italian many picturesque and lively phrases in which animals and birds figure — ^here are a few of them, with several other vivid Italian idioms :
Disputar idV ombra dell^ mino : To argue about the donkey’s shadow j to dispute about trifles.
As^etUre il porco alia quercia : To wait for the pig at the oak-tree 3 to watch for the favourable opportunity.
Imitare l*orso die pere : To invite the bear to the pears j to urge some one to gratify his inclinations.
Guastar la coda al ja^iano : To spoil the pheasant’s tail i to spoil a story by omitting its point.
E sparito il merlo : The blackbird is flown ; the chance is gone.
Calarsi a un lomhrico .-To stoop to a worm 3 to take advantage of the smallest gain.
w i. , 241
Q
WORDS JND IDIOMS
Sap ere dove il diavolo tiene la coda .-To know where
the devil keeps his tail ; to be extremely cunning.
Toccare il cielo col dito : To touch the sky with one’s finger ; to attain one’s utmost wish.
Cercar tmglior pan che di gram .* To hunt for better bread than is made of corn 5 to be difficult to please.
Battere il noce : To pound the nut ; to weary one- self trying to convince another person.
Gonfiar gli orecchi : To make the ears swell 5 to flatter some one.
The Spanish language, which has been described as the only language to make love in, possesses some pretty lovers’ idioms, ** to drink the airs ” for some one {beher los aires\ for instance ; and what could be prettier for a proposal of marriage than decir su dolor — “ to tell one’s woe ? ” Spanish is rich, too, in idioms and images derived from Catholicism and its rites and symbols. “ I am not very Catholic to-day,” is the Spanish equivalent for being “ under the weather ” ; and there is much truth in the Spanish phrases “ behind the cross the Devil lurks,” and “ you cannot both ring the bell and walk in the procession.” Other vivid phrases are :
Buscar ires piis al goto : To seek three feet to the cat 5 to look for a difficulty where there is none j also to seek a quarrel.
Echar ckispas : To throw oflF sparks ; to be in a rage.
Meter se en camisa de once varas : To get into a shirt eleven yards long ; to attempt more than one can cope vnth.
Tomar por donde quema : To catch hold of the burning end \ to take in a wrong sense.
Quemar las cejas : ^To burn one’s eye-brows ; to study inten^y.
242
ENGLISH IDIOMS
Vivir dpema sue/fa : To live with one’s leg stretched
out j to live at one’s ease.
Llover sobre mojado : To rain on a person who is already wet ; to discuss a settled matter.
J lo hecho^ pecho : ^ One’s breast to the accomplished feet ; we must make the best of what is done.
Of all the languages of Europe, the German language seems to be the richest in poetic and imaginative phrases of popular origin. Durch die Blumen sprechen (to speak through the flowers) is a pretty description of speaking in hints ; and ‘‘ to make a blue mist before some one ” [einen blauen Dtmst vormachen) give a more poetic image than “throwing dust in some one’s eyes.” Sein blaues Wunder erlehen to live through one’s blue wonder”) is an imaginati-ve phrase for being struck with astonishment \ and the expression der Hitnmel hdngt bet ihm voller Geigen (“ a heaven full of harps hangs round him,” as we may freely translate it) is a picturesque description of some one in a fool’s paradise which cannot be equalled in any other language. I give a few other German phrases :
ijhr die Serge sein : To be over all the mountains ; to have utterly disappeared.
Die Faust in der Tasche ballen : To clench one’s fist in one’s pocket ; to control one’s rage.
Einen Stein auf dem Her%en ha hen : To have a stone on one’s heart 5 to be heavy at heart.
Der Teufel hat sein Spiel dahei : The Devil has his game in it 5 there is danger lurking in it.
Das ist sein drittes Wort : That is his third word — the phrase he is always repeating.
All these foreign idioms describe in figures more vivid than any we possess fects and experiences familiar
243
WORDS AND IDIOMS
to us all, and would be useful additions to our speech
could we translate or paraphrase them in chimes of
English words. But in the storehouse of foreign
locutions there are other idioms of even greater value,
phrases which we may call discoveries, since they
describe and place before our eyes something unnamed
and latent, some nuance of thought or feeling which
has hitherto escaped our observation, or of which, at
the most, we have been only dimly conscious. The
French phrases V esprit d^escalier (“staircase wit”),
plaider le faux pour savotr le vrat (“ to tell lies in order
to get at the truth ”), battre le chien denjant le lion
(“ to be afraid of the lion and beat the dog ” — “ to
pound the sack and mean the ass,” as they say in
German), the Italian poco popolo^ poca predica (“ scanty
people, scanty preaching ”), and the German mit der
Thur ins Haus fallen (“ to fall into the house with
the front-door”), are little discoveries of this kind
which have elucidated, for those who made them,
their own experience, and added subtle meanings to
their speech.
XIII
I have shown on a former page how many idioms we have borrowed from French j it may be of interest to add a list of some at least of those which we have derived from other sources. “To put a spoke in someone’s wheel” is a European idiom, which, although found in French, seems to have come to us from Dutch — ^the contemporary language from which, after
t rench, we have bc^rrowed most — for the word spoke^ "Bch, if we thought of it (only we seldom think of 244
ENGLISH IDIOMS
such things), we should see was curiously inappropriate, is probably a mistranslation of the Dutch spaai, which has the appropriate meaning of a “ bar ” or “ stave.” “ To tilt at windmills ” is, of course, from Don Quixote. “To make a halt ” is, like the word “ halt ” itself^ from the German Halt machen ; “ under the rose ” {sub rosa in modern Latin) seems also to be of German origin. “ An ugly duckling ” is from Andersen’s Tales ; “ open sesame ” and “ a Barmecide feast ” are from the Jrahian Nights. The phrase, “ of the first water ” is of Arabic origin. The slang phrases “ first chop,” “ second chop,” and “ not the cheese ” come from India j “ to run amuck ” is Malayan, “ white elephant ” is from Burma, whose kings were supposed to have been in the habit of punishing their courtiers by burdening them with one of these sacred and expensive animals. “ To save one’s free ” is a phrase used by English residents in China 5 1 “ to bury the hatchet,” “ to smoke the pipe of peace,” “ to put on the war-paint,” “ to go on the war path,” are derived, probably for the most part through Cooper’s novels, from the aborigines of America.
Many of our more recent idioms have come to us from the United States, but these can hardly be classed as foreign idioms. Linguistically considered, England, the Dominions, and the United States may almost be regarded as one speech-group, the interchange of phrase and vocabulary, the traffic of words across the oceans being so frequent and so free. In some cases, as “ log-
^ It is not, however, the translation of a Chinese .
the Chinese expressions are " to lose face," " for the sake of his face." (O.E.D.)
245
WORDS JND IDIOMS
rolling,” “ striking oil,” “ on the fence,” the American
origin is obvious,^ but most of us are probably unaware
that many of our common expressions like ‘‘ to make
oyer,” “ to do one’s level best,” “ to face the music,”
are of transatlantic origin. “ Near by,” and the phrase
‘‘to have a good time,” were once English idioms,
which, becoming obsolete in England, survived in
America, and then returned to England from that
country.
But the principal source of our foreign idioms is, as we have seen, the French language. So great indeed is our debt to French that we have borrowed from it, not only a large number of figurative phrases and European proverbs, but — ^what is much rarer for one language to borrow from another — ^grammatical idioms as well. “ It goes without sa}ring,” “ it gives to think,” a house “ gives ” upon Ae street, “ one knows very well,” are obvious “ Gallicisms,” as they are called. “ An accomplished fact ” is from m fait accompli^ and our word “ apart ” is a borrowing of the French idiom a part.
The following are also probably translations from French :
To make believe (jaire croire)^
To make a figure {faire figure)^
Not at all {pas du toui)^
Nothing less than [rien moins que),
^ As also, for instance, right a-way " for “ immediately.*' This is now understood hy Englishmen, but puzzled Dickens, who, when he arrived at an American, hotel and was asked whether he would have his dinner " right away,** replied, some thought, that he would prefer to liave it where
246
ENGLISH IDIOMS
English has not borrowed many^ other grammatical
idioms from other languages. Jespersen says that the
absolute constmction, as in “ everything considered,”
or “this being the case,” was introduced at a very
early period in imitation of the Latin construction ; ^
and our learned writers have sometimes made use of
Greek and Latin idioms in their writings. Milton,
as Addison pointed out, raised his language,” and
added to the richness of its texture, by a daring use of
Hebrew and Greek and Latin constructions,^ but none
of these have been woven into the texture of the
1 Growth and Stmcti^ye ofth& English Language ( 1912), p. 126.
- Instances axe the Vixgilian Musam meditan,
“ And. strictly meditate the thankless Muse ** {Lycidas). Post mben conditam :
“ Bacchus . . .
Aiter the 'Tuscan mariners transformM,
Coasting the Tyrrhene shore ” (Comus),
" Bor never, since created Man,
MEet such, embodied force ” (P. i. 572) .
“ Nor delayed the winged saint A.iter his chaxge received ” (Ibid. v. 248).
"He, after Eve seduced, unminded slunk Into the wood fast by " (Ibid. x. 332).
Ilk,
“ Which cost Ceres ail that pain To seek her through the world (Ihid, iv. 271).
Mi wiserttfn !
"He miserable I which way shall I fly lajanite wrath and infinite despair ? " (Ibidn iv. 73). Cwsu% est.
" Forthwith ou all sides to his aid was run By Angels many and strong " {Ibid. vi. 335).
The lines in Paradise Lest (iv. 323-4),
" Adam, the goodliest man of men since bom His sons, the fairest of her daughters Eve,"
are, asMCr.V^erity points out, " afamoua example of an idiom often used by Elizabethau, as it had been by Greek, writers. Its independent existence in Greek and English proves
247
irORDS ^ND imOMS
language — they are iiteraiy curiosities, pedantic
felicities, rather than enrichments of our idiomatic
speech.^
In addition to the idioms which have been translated into English, there are alarge number of Latin, French, and even Italian idioms which we have borrowed without assimilating them in any way. Phrases like ad interim^ in mdim vice ‘zjersa^ muiatis mutcindis^ aufait, au contrair^s pud-h^-terre^ coup Hat ^
dolce far ntante^ a,re familiar to us all, and there are hundreds of others. How greatly we need idioms for the purposes of expression is shown by the way we put up with these awkward a.nd unassinnilated phrases ; and by translating one of them into English, and noting how much meariiiig evaporates in the process, we realize the nature of idioms of this kind, the meanings they derive from their usage, and not from the logical signification of the words which compose them. A pied-d-terre is not the same thing a3 a ** foot on the ground ’’ j “ black beast or “ white card^’ are by no means adequate translations of bite noire or carte blmche.
The greater ruunher, however, of our borrowed idioms have been, assimilated j for they are drawn, for
that the idiom, thougli illogical, is aatmral — due perhaps^ to over-emphasis. , is just the sort of combinecl construction into ■which people slip in conversation.^' iMiitoit, Paradise Lost, ed-itei ty A.W. Veri'ty,M.A.., 1910, p. 462.) Mr. Verity gives in Ms notes mamy oiier instance s of Milton's use of foreign idioms.
1 One exiceptaon alionli, perhaps, be made. Our phrase, "to sa-ve appearances," is a traaslation of the Greet astron- omical phaSase, rfc ^aivt/uLeva., wbdcb. wa.s said of a
liypoth^sis -which satisfac-torily e^mlained the facts. In tbe form, to save tire phenoiaena,,'^ the phrase -wais used by
248’
ENGLISH IDIOMS
the most part, from the popular speech of Europe,
and are therefore easy to translate, being composed of
homely images, derived from objects and occupations
familiar to all the inhabitants of European countries.
Whether of foreign or native origin, these figures of
popular speech render the thoughts they express in
terms of common life, in vivid, concrete phrases which
every one can understand.
XIV
But besides the metaphors from various familiar occupations and objects, there are two sources of idiomatic speech which are both closer to the texture of life, and also much richer in figures and phrases than any which have been previously mentioned. Hitherto, indeed, I have but skirted the fringe of my subject j the real heart of idiom is to be found in two special classes of idiomatic phrases, which are closely connected with each other. The first of these great sources of idiom is nothing less than the human body itself. About almost every external, and many of the internal parts of the human body, are clustered whole constellations of phrases and figures of speech of extraordinary vividness and variety. Idioms of this
Bacon; the current form, "to save appearances," is first found in Paradise Lost.
" He His fabric of the heavens Hath left to their disputes, perhaps to move His laughter at their quaint opinions wide Hereafter, when they come to model heaven,
And calculate the stos ; how they will wield The mighty frame ; how build, unbuild, contrive.
To save appearances " (viii. 77-82),
249
WORDS JND IDIOMS
kind, “ to set one’s face against,” “ to turn a deaf ear,”
“ to put down one’s foot,” etc., I may perhaps call ‘‘somatic” idioms j their number is enormous, and I have collected in an appendix to this chapter many hundreds of them, in which about fifty parts of the human body, the head and its features, the arms and hands and fingers, the legs and feet and toes, the heart, the hones, the blood and breath within the body, are all put to vivid expressive uses. We find the same linguistic phenomenon in other languages ; a number of the somatic idioms in English are translations from the Hebrew or the Greek of the Bible, others have apparently been borrowed from French, which also contains many phrases of this kind> In this effort, however, to render human thought in phrases descriptive of the acts and attitudes of the body, English possesses one great advantage over the Romanic languages in what I have called its “ phrasal verbs ” — ^verbs whose full meaning is conveyed by the adverb or preposition which follows it, and which is often placed at some distance from it. For when we examine these phrasal verbs, we find that by far the greater number of them also render their meanings into terms of bodily sensation. They are formed from simple verbs which express the acts, motions, and attitudes of the body and its members j
1 In most Fr^clx dictionaries, ajid in aay book of French, pljrases, will be fatod many idiomatic expressions under the headings od hoiUbc, Was, ccsur, coud&, doigt, dos, face,
jamhe, main, nez, etc. In German and Italian and Spanish also are found many idionas connected with the same parts of the human body. The hand plays perhaps the largest part in the idioms of all languages. Ramon Cabeliero, in his DicdoTiazrio de Madismos (p. 1187), has collected nearly three hundred Spanish phrases m which it tigures.
250
ENGLISH IDIOMS
and these, combining with prepositions like “ “down,’* “over,” “off,” etc. (which also express ideas of motion), have acquired, in addition to their literal meanings, an enormous number of idiomatic significations, by means of which the relations of things to each other, and a great variety of the actions, feelings, and thoughts involved in human intercourse, are translated, not into visual images, but into what psychologists call “ kinaesthetic ” images, that is to say, sensations of the muscular efforts which accompany the attitudes and motions of the body.^ Idioms like “ on the rocks ” or “ under a cloud ” are visual images j phrasal verbs like “ to pull through,” “ to keep up,” are kinaesthetic metaphors, arousing imagined sensa- tions of muscular effort. These verbs of motion and effort possess so protean and self-multiplying a power of entering into combinations, and throw off idioms in so kaleidoscopic a variety, that, compared with the other inert elements of our vocabulary, they seem to possess, like radium, an inexhaustible store of life and energy.
The richest in idiom of these verbs are the follow- ing : “Go,” “come,” “run,” “faU,” “turn,”
“stand,” “get,” “take,” “look,” “put,” “set,” “lay.’* All of these are what I may perhaps call “ dynamic ” verbs, which express movement or attitudes of the body ; for “ stand,” which might seem, like “ lie,” a static verb, keeps, in its idiomatic uses, its original sense of maintaining an erect attitude, and is
^ Some of these verbs, like keep ” and " hold,” suggest onljr muscular effort, but not movement; in others, like "talce,” get,^' "pull,” *'put,” suggestions of movement and efiort are present, while a verb like ” fall ” implies only passive movement witiiout effort.
251
WOlUDS JND IDIOMS
therefore full of muscular suggestion. “To lie,” on
the other haad, remains for the most part a static
verb, and, save in. its dynamic use, lie down,” enters
into few' idiomatic combinations. The transitive verb,
however, ‘‘to lay” is strongly dynamic, and enters
into more than a hundred idioms. The same contrast
is to be found between the mainly' static verb “ to see,”
with the poverty of idiom, arid the idiomatic richness
of the vividly dynanic wb “ to look.” Other verbs
of mere thought and perception, like‘^ know,” think,”
“ feel,” arouse no muscular sensations, and enter into
few or no idiomatic phrases.
It will be seem that the verbs mentioned above are all, except extremely generalized in meaning i
and even nin,’* from, the sense of swift motion on the feet, has come to ejqpress a generalized idea of abstract motion. Verbs expressing more definite bodily acts, “ to hit^” ^‘to strike,” “to knock,’’ to kick,” “ to shake,” ‘‘to throw,” also enter into idioms, but not with the sa.me freedom as the more abstract verbs o^f action. It seems in fact to be a law of idiom that the more generalized a word of motor signification becomes, the more it is freed from visual images, and divested of all sensations save these of a purely kin** aesthetic mature, the readier it is to enter into idiomatic combinations of great richness and variety.^
^ The from. Latin, owing probably to
their longer histor^ST' as insirumeits of tbonglit; and the more subtle analysis to whicli theiLr vocabularies have been sub- jected, possess annmlDer of words whose purely kinaesthetic meanings cannot be dcteurately translated into English. Thus for instance, wtiile "we oan lender the French verbs venirt tenii^, jmrti "by 'theix eq[_Taally abstract fijxglish equivalents,
- conae»** '* " make/* we have no one word
252
ENGLISH IDIOMS
“ Take ” is a typical instance of a dynamic verb
which has been subjected to this process. From its
primary sense of touching with the hand, it came to
mean “ to lay hands on,” “ to seize,” and was then
generalized into an elementary notion of a motor kind
which seems to be incapable of further anal)^is. As
the Oxford Dictionary points out, it can mean to
“ give,” and also to “ go ” (“ he took across the field
and it can also mean to “ make ” (“ he ‘ took ’ a leap,
he ‘ took ’ a journey
“ Keep,” which seems to have had originally much the same meaning as “ take ” — “ to lay hold of with the hands ” — ^has also become very generalized in its meaning, retaining indeed little more than a suggestion of will and muscular effort. “ Go ” and ‘‘ come ” are abstract verbs of motion, so generalized that they are almost interchangeable in some of their idiomatic uses. A ship goes^ a box comes to pieces ; the sun goes behind a cloud, comes out from behind it. An unfortunate
to express the French word })attYB in all its applications, but
must translate it by means of more concrete words like
beat/* "strike,'* "thrash/* etc. In some of its idiomatic
uses, such as hattre le pavS, baitre la campagne, battre froid d,
we can hardly translate it at aU. So the French word coup,
which designates the result of battre, is much more generalized
in meaning than the English " blow," and enters into a
number of useful idioms such as coup d*ce%l, coup de th&dire,
coup d*Stat, coup d*essai, which we have had to borrow in
their French forms, for want of an exact equivalent of coup.
Other French words which, for the same reason, are difficult
to translate in their idiomatic uses, are the verbs toucher,
tirer, filer, piquer, jouer, and the nouns prise and mise and
trait. The Spanish verbs dejar, " to leave,’* Uevar, " to carry,*'
sacar, " to extract," and above all echar, ” to throw," are
much more generalized and purely kinaesthetic in their
meanings than their English equivalents, and enter into
many more idiomatic combinations,
253
WORDS AND IDIOMS
person my cQrne to grief, or go to the dogs, with equal
fi-cility in either direction.
And yet it is exactly from these abstract verbs, in conibiniation 'with adverbs and prepositions of abstract direction, that vre derive thousands of the vivid collo- quialisms and idiomatic phrases by means of which we describe the greatest variety of human actions and relations. W'ecan talcef^? people, take them up, take them down^ take them offy or take them in 5 ^ keep in with them, keep them, iovnt or off or on or tmder ; get at them, or round them, or get on with them ; do for them, do them or without them, and do them in\ make up4o them, make up with them, make off with then j set them up or down, or hit them off‘ — indeed, there is hardly any action or attitude of one human being to another which cannot be expressed by means of these phrasal verbs.
So readily do our bodily and muscular sensations lend themselves to the expression of meaning, that often 'we find one of these combinations will possess, accord- ing to the context, a great number of different significa- tions. Thus to ‘^goon^’ can mean to ‘‘ proceed,” to ^‘continue,” to “behave reprehensively ” (in fact to
carry on and it has recently come to mean “ to talk volubly” — (“how he did go on ! To “ get on is tc> nxouat, to hurry, to prosper, to grow old,
^ Tlie diifferen^^ between the liteial and the idiomatic meatningsoi 'wh.afO^VJolin.soa called ** the low, vulgar phrase " y to ta!ke in " is aniu singly illustrated by a bit of dialog^ue in Dr, Syntaxes Tow, wlieii the hostess presents the Doctor witii aa overcharged bill :
Hostess:, “J took you in, last night, I say.'*
Syntax : 'Xis true — and if this bill I pay,
Vou'U itike me in again to-day."
254
ENGLISH IDIOMS
be on good terms with some one. The Oxford cites fifty-two meanings of “ take up,” and sixty-sevi of “ set up ” ; and indeed “ up ” being of all our prepositions the most charged with motor tion enters most freely into combinations with ve^ of movement, and forms with them the greatest riety of kinaesthetic idioms.^ In fact, we often add » to verbs, in cases where, for the logical meaning, the reposition is not needed, as “wake up,” “ hurry up” ‘‘cheer up,” “fill up,” “clean up,” 2 etc It would almost seem as if these particles and verbs of action took the place in our northern speech of the gestures in which our intercourse is lacking, but which are so vivid an accompaniment to the speech of the Latin peoples, whose languages are poor in the em- phatic use of particles.
If, as I have been suggesting, we use these verbs to translate our thoughts into terms of bodily sensation, or, adapting Donne’s phrase, to make “the body think,” this would perhaps explain one curious char- acteristic of modern speech, our colloquial use of the phrase “ have got ” for the simple verb “ have.” If any of us will take note — ^by no means an easy thing
1 " Up/* and other prepositions, sometimes combine with other particles to form, without a verb, an idiomatic phrase, as up to ’* ** up against,** “ in for,** “ out for,** down on/* down and out,** etc.
- Dr. Johnson in his Dictionary notes more than once this
apparently pleonastic use of particles. fjDown/* he says,
“ is sometimes added to ‘ fall,^ and * up * is often used with
- fill/ without much addition to the force of the verbs.'* In
his note, however, on " beating up ** for soldiers, he seems to have hit, without knowing it, on the real meaning of this use, re m a rk i n g that though the word ** up ** seems redundant, yet it ** enforces the sense.** The dynamic use of particles could not be more admirably expressed.
2SS
WORDS JND IDIOMS
to do of his own talk, or that of his friends, he will,
I think, find that I’ve got,” or he’s got ” always,
or almost always, replaces “ I have,” or “ he has.” ^
Dr. Johnson noted in his Dictionary this use of got ”
as implying mere possession :
He has got a good estate^ does not always mean that he has acq^uired, but barely that he possesses it. So we say,” Dr. Johnson adds, the lady ha^ got black eyesy merely meaning that she has them.”
If my theory he right, the explanation of this curious, apparently superfluous, and not very beautiful idiom is simply that the verb “ have,” being used as an au^liary, has lost whatever kinaesthetic associations it originally possessed ; and since it now describes a static, or merely grammatical relation, “ got,” from the dynamic verb get,” has been added to it,^ to give it the vividness which comes from the idea of action, in however vague a form.® Thus, too, we might account for the idiom to make bold,” which Dr. Johnson con-
suggests, as an analogy of this use
ot got, the Greei naeaning to possess," literally
^ TO have ^-aired, ’ from KrdD/xaL, ** to procure for oneself," to get, to ga.in/' " to acquire/'
« * the modem colloquialism. " I have
^ meaning I am obUged " to do
and Fable quotes an amusing of uses of this ubiquitous verb
Ia-h-pI jy^thiji tea minutes after I got your
but f Cm-^bury I got a. chaise for town ;
Lf ,4/ ? ,*SS»gb, and have got such a cold that I shall ^ ^ Treasury about noon,
I got intelligence from a messenger tkat I sikruld get one next morning. As soon as
. 256
ENGLISH IDIOMS
sidered “ungrammatical,” suggesting that “ to be bold,”
would be better and more correct. This note in John-
son’s Dictionary brings into clear relief the difference
between logic and idiom 5 to “ be bold ” is certainly a
more logical expression, and was therefore approved of
by the linguistic taste of the eighteenth century, while
modern taste would prefer the more idiomatic and
vivid expression which Dr. Johnson condemned.
As we see in the above instance, it is not only in combination with adverbs and prepositions that these verbs of energy and motion give rise to idioms. They combine (as in “make bold”) with adjectives and adverbs — “ make good,” “ make sure,” “ hold true,” “run low,” “run short,” etc. They can combine also with other verbs (“ make believe,” “ come to pass,” etc.), or with nouns, “make peace,” “make love,” “ m^e friends,” “ make money,” ^ “ go bail,” “ keep time ” “ lay claim,” “ run risks,” etc. A reference to the Dictionary will show, moreover, that these verbs combine in great profusion with the names of the parts of the human body to form idiomatic phrases which seem especially charged with^vivid meaning. To “ hold one’s tongue,” to “ make eyes at,” to “ put one’s foot down,” to “ set one’s face against,” to “ get one’s back up,” to “ turn up one’s nose,” to “ take to one’s heels,”
I got back to my inn, I g:ot my supper, then got to bed, When I got up next moming, I got my breakfast, and, having got dressed, I got out in time to get an ansv^ to my memorial. As soon as I got it, I got into a chaise, and got back to Canter- bury by three, and got home for tea. I have got nothing for you, and so adieu,"'
^ Dr. Johnson also condemned the phrase to " make money/"
' Don't you see/" he said to Boswell, " Impropriety of it ? <ro make money is to coin it/" (Boswell, 1777,)
w.i, 257
R
WORDS AND IDIOMS
are instances of these animated phrases, and there are
many others.^
Having now examined the forms and sources of our
figurative idioms, it may be interesting to glance at
the uses they are put to, to examine what, in the
main, is their subject-matter, and what are the aspects
of life and experience to which they give expression.
Since our idioms, whether of English or foreign growth,
are, as we have seen, so largely of popular origin, we
should hardly expect to find abstract thought embodied
in them, or scientific observation, or aesthetic apprecia-
tion, or psychological analysis of any subtle kind ; —
and these indeed are almost completely lacking. The
subject-matter of idiom is human life in its simpler
aspects 5 prudent and foolish conduct, success and
failure, and above all human relations — the vivid
attitudes and feelings of people intensely interested in
each other and their mutual dealings — approval, hut 6r
more largely disapproval, friendly, but more often
hostile feelings, killings out and makings up, rivalries
and over-reaching, reprobation, chastisement, and
abuse.
There is muS^humour in our English idiom, ^ but there is litj^c thal^ romantic, or makes a direct appeal to the sense 5 expressions like the French
^ Pre^sitioiilmi^adTerbs^^ also form, without
verbs, idioms of mis bind, as see in the phrases “ do'wn in the mouth/' " ofi one's head," up to the eyes," out at elbows," etc.
- Humorous und^tetement, “not half," "I don't think,"
etc. is one cliaracteiis|ic element in English idiom.
258
ENGLISH IDIOMS
dorwir it la belle Stoile would sound strangely in our
popular speech, and poetical phrases like “no rose
without a thorn,” “ one swallow does not make a
summer,” still carry with them the stamp of their
foreign origin,^ Nor does our idiom waste breath on
refined ethical considerations. The ideals of Chris-
tianity find no reflection in its phrases 5 its values are
the values of this world, and its atmosphere one of
shrewd, hard, unromantic common sense. Success
and money are highly prized, and there are many
metaphorical phrases to express satisfection in them.
To be “ first fiddle,” for instance, or “ cock of the
walk,” to have the “ ball at one’s feer,” the “ game
in one’s hands,” to “feather one’s nest,” “to he in
clover,” “ to live like a fighting cock,” “ to have one’s
bread buttered on both sides,” etc.
Perhaps the most moral, as well as the most vivid and nuip.erous of English idioms are those which express what the admirers of the English race regard as one of its most admirable characteristics — determina- tion, unwillingness to give up and to admit defeat. “ To set one’s teeth,” “ to put one’s shoulder to the wheel ” and “ one’s back to Ae wall,” to “ go through fire and water,” to “ stick to one’s |tins,” to “ die hard,” “ to nail one’s colours to the mast,” are a few among
^ A few poetic plirases, however, caa l>e fqund in the diction- aries of the various dialects. ‘*To he over thfe moon with oneself/' for instance, " to wait till the mdon come never," and the phrase, as deep as .tiie North for a solemn
child. Edward FitzGerald, ^in'lxis SeaPh^c&es, collected from the talk of the sailors and' fishermen with whom he consorted, the description of hurrying clouds " running to a fair," of the sea beginning to show his ivory," and<^a conger eel stranded in winter “through blinding himself «by striking at the stars/'
259
W^OJiDS jm IDIOMS
the many metaphorical expressions of this ‘‘dogged ’*
characteristic. It fliids expression, too, in phrasal
verts like “hold out,” “keep on,” “pull through^’’
to “ go through mth,’ ’ and maay others. To “ muddle
through ” is a phrase v^rhich has almost been adopted
as a national motto ; and the ph rasal verb “tocarr)r on ”
which had already' so many uses, acquired still another
meaning in the European War,
But the main subject-matter of idiom is, as I have said, what is after all the subject of greatest interest to human beings, their relations to each other. There are many idiomatic synonyms to express meetings and visitings, “ to fall in with,” “to run across,*’ “to knock up against,” “ to call on3”“to look in,” “to turn up,’* to “ run ” or drop ” or happen in.” There are a certain number of idiomatic phrases which describe terms of disinterested friendship — “ to take to,’^ “ to cotton to,*’ “ to make friends with,” to hit it oflF,’* to get on like a hou.se on fire” } but the better feelings of human nature are not the ones which create the most vivid phrases, and our vocabijilary of dislike, of rivalry, hostility, disapprobation, is much more copioxis and expressive.
There are manj^ phrases to describe various way's of getting the better of others, aad unfriendly triumph over them, To catch tripping,’* “ to take in,” “ to get roun^^ do^outof,” “to steal a march on,’* to leave in tl^^l^pch,” “ to twist round one’s finger,’* to have the hand,” “ to crow over,” “ to owe
a grudge,” “ to hold at bay,” “ to keep at arm’s length,” “ to give the ^Id ^Soulder,” to be at daggers drawn,” to have a bone to pick with,*’ are a few among a 260
ENGLISH IDIOMS
great many idioms which express dislike and hostile
relations. Idioms which describe friendly conversation
are not numerous, while the vocabulary of reproof and
vituperation is extremely rich and expressive. ‘‘ To
jump on,” “ to pitch into,” “ to go for,” “ to go on at,”
“ to come down upon,” “ to catch it,” to get it hot,”
are a few of these vivid expressions. There are two
human characteristics which are more frequently
picked out for reprobation than any others. Listless-
ness, ineffectiveness, is the first of these ; to be “ good
for nothing,” “ rotten to the core,” a “ bad egg,”
“ not worth one’s salt,” “ neither fish, flesh, nor good
red herring.” The second is pretentiousness, boastful-
ness, ** giving oneself airs,” “ putting on side,” “ talking
big,” “ showing off,” “ putting it on,” etc.
Of human feelings beside those of friendliness or hostility, the one which figures most in idiom is ex- asperation — to be “ put out,” “ rubbed the wrong way,” “ touched on the raw,” to have one’s “ blood boil,” or one’s “ teeth set on edge.” Next to this is surprise and amazement, to be “ taken aback,” “ struck all of a heap,” to have one’s “ breath taken away,” or one’s “ heart in one’s mouth.” Phrases descriptive of low spirits, or of fear, are not numerous ; there are a number of phrases, however, like “ at a loss,” at sea,” etc., to describe mental bewilderment
I have already mentioned the sententiousness of the kitchen ; many similar phrases, hpmely, and as “ full ^ ” of observation and shrewd wisdom, come to
us from the farm-yard, the kennels, and the stables. These sometimes take the form o£ absurd images, like a mare’s nest,” “ a bull in a ^ina shop,” “ putting 261
WORDS jIND idioms
the cart before the horse,” or “ teaching one’s grand-
mother to suck eggs ’’ 5 sometimes the^ are embodied
in set proverbs, like ‘‘ a bird in the hand is worth two
in the bush,” every dog has its day,” “ you cannot
make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear,” etc. But these
have been already quoted under the headings of their
various sources.
In spite of its element of humour and gnomic wisdom, th^ great body of our English idioms can perhaps be described as expressions of determination, of exasperation, and vituperation. To take these, however, as fairly expressing the national character, to find in the exasperation and acrimony of English idiom a true representation of the spirit of a morose and contentious race, would be to misunderstand the part that idiom plays in language, and the occasions and circumstances in which, for the most part, it is used. According to one linguistic theory, language is the child of will, not of sensation, and had its origin, not in perception, not in the communication of in- tellectual concepts, but in action, in the utterances which accompany human action, and which are above all intended to stimulate social activity in human beings engaged together in a common task. Whether this he true or not of the origin of speech, it is certainly true of much idiom — -tod idiom has many of the characteristics of primitive speech. Its main object is not self-expressij^, but exhortation or reproof ; the person or persons spoken to are more important than the speaker j what they are to do, or to cease doing, how they are to a(^, fot what kinds of behaviour they are to be reproved, are the main subjects which con- 262
ENGLISH IDIOMS
cern it ; and its phrases, struck out in the practical
emergencies of some special pursuit, when success or
failure were hanging perhaps in the balance, are vivid
with the communicable emotions of incitement and
reprobation and abuse. There are good reasons why
idiom is especially fitted for this kind of excited inter-
course ; its images are forcible and vivid, and above all
its metaphors from the body, and its phrasal verbs, are
charged with energy and muscular associations^ and
it is thus enabled to convey its importunate meanings,
not to the intellect alone, but, by a short circuit, as it
were, directly to those centres of the nervous system
whence muscular action proceeds. We may for
instance persuade a companion to persevere in a task
we have undertaken together by producing in his mind
a logical conviction, by means of logical speech, that
such conduct is his duty, or is advantageous to him,
and that conviction may then filter down to the
centres which control his actions j or we may convey
the emotional suggestion directly to these nerve-centres
by means of vivid idioms, urging him to “ keep on,’’
to “bear up,” to “ hold out,” to set his teeth,’’ and
“ stand firm,” to “ fight tooii and nail,” to “ keep his
head up,” and “ hang on by the eyelids,” and by
emphatically impressing on him the ignominy of
“ hanging back” or “ giving* up,” of “ sneaking oflF,”
of “ going under,” “ turning taiy’ or “ taking to
his heels.”
263
WORDS JND IDIOMS
XVI
These then are the main uses of idioms in our colloquial speecii. Their forms and their principal sources of origin have already been discussed, but there remains still one more point for consideration — the place of idiom in Standard English, and the part it plays in our literary language. The taste of the eighteenth century on the whole condenmed it, regarding idiomatic phrases as vulgarisms, and as offences against logic and human reason. Even Addison, while employing idioms in his prose, warned poets against their use,^ and Dr. Johnson more ambitiously attempted to banish them from our language, often stigmatizing them as ‘‘ low ” and “ ungrammatical ” in his Dictionary, and declaring that he had laboured “ to refine our language to grammatical purity, and to clear it from colloquial barbarisms, licentious idioms, and irregular com- binations.” 2
Although this point of view is now an obsolete one, and we should all probably agree with Landor’s saying that “ every good writer has much idiom j it is the life and spirit of language,” yet laws when they have been repealed, and bygone proscriptions, even when they have been shown to be devoid of valid ground ^nd reason, still often leave behind a slight stigma of
^ " Since . . . phases . . . used in ordinary conversation become too familiar to the ear, and contract a kind of mean- ness by passing throTigb the mouths of the vulgar, a poet should take particular care to guard bimsfilf against idiomatic ways of speaking." ^SpecMor, No. 285.)
- Rmibl&Y, No. 208.
264
ENGLISH IDIOMS
disapprobation ; and so, I think, we are still a little
influenced by the eighteenth-century attitude towards
idiom, although we have ceased to believe in the
reasons for that attitude. This is certainly true in
regard to what are considered grammatical solecisms j
it influences also, as I have said, our feeling in regard
to prepositions at the end of clauses, and also, to a
slighter extent, it affects us with a prejudice against
phrasal verbs, and mahy of the colloquialisms and
homely metaphors in which popular speech is so ex-
tremely rich. These are often regarded as vulgar and
slangy, and many of them no doubt possess that char-
acter ; and others there are which have made good,^
and there are many which deserve a better use than they
are put to, and might be endenizened in our standard
speech with great advantage. The discrimination
between slang and idiom is one of the nicest points
in literary usage 5 and, like all such discriminations,
must he based on sensitiveness and literary tact 5 there
are no precise rules which are easy to apply to individual
cases. It is mostly a matter of usage, and of a delicate
sense of what is accepted and what is not. As the
writers of The King^s English put it, “The idiomatic
writer differs chiefly from the slangy in using what
was slang and is now idiom.” ® But usage, and the
tact which is sensitive to it, are not entirely arbitrary
matters ; reasons and principles (as we have seen ip
discussing the taste of the eighteenth century) do
1 Dean AJford, for instance, writing in 1864, jpeaks (ri the
idiom to come to grief as almost a slang
wMch liad but lately ceased to be slangy*. (The y
Ei^glish, p. 189.)
- The Kmg*$ English, p. 53.
265
WORDS JND IDIOMS
ultimately affect them 5 and if, as I think, we are still vaguely and subconsciously a little prejudiced against the use of idiom, I should like to put the case as emphatically as I can, even if it be somewhat to t e extent of what is called special pleading.
Of the dijferent kinds of idiom, the mere idiosyn^ crasies, the use of prepositions, etc., are, of coume, univei^ly accepted, and nothing need be said in favour 5 no one can write or ^peak good Englis without them. This is true also of most of the terse, elliptical adverbial phrases, although here, I thin , usage will be found to vary considerably, our idiomatic writers tending to make a more liberal use of like not at all,” just now,” the other day,’’ and by,” “ time and again,” “ all day long,” etc., whi 6 others, with no feeling for idiom, will tend unconsciously to avoid them.
Next in our classification of idioms, we come to the anomalies, both grammatical and logical. Is there anything to be said for the first of these, for the literary use of these grammatical solecisms which have estab- lished themselves in our colloquial talk ? Is it not possible to maintain that these little irregularities which custom has accepted, these authorized departures from the beaten track of speech, have a certain value and vividness of their own which we might compare, perhaps, to those slight irregularities and tiny flaws, which, in the aits and handicrafts, in painting, sculpture, architecture, in work in leather or glass or metal, preserve some sense of the material employed — -the ^bbom material that, while it yields half-reluctantly to the fonn imfxKed upon it, still preserves some element, 266
ENGLISH IDIOMS
tenacious and untamed, of its original texture, quality,
and life ? We have imposed our reason so rigorously
upon the imagination, and all the unreasonableness of
our human nature ; Ae tendency of our language sets
so strongly towards conformity of syntax, towards the
mechanical, the monotonous, the trite 5 our speech,
and above all our writing, is so apt to run into uniform
moulds of logical expression, that now and then a
queer spelling, an anomalous plural, a blunder or
hesitation, an irresponsible defiance of grammar or
logic, awakens our attention — does it not ? — ^and
conve)^ its meaning the more vividly by the very fact
of its irregular form and appearance.
Even the F rench purists of the seventeenth century, strict as they were in many v^ays, were still able (unlike our purists of a century later) to recognize the charm of grammatical solecisms ; the most eminent of them, Claude de Vaugelas, writing for instance, “ The beauty of language actually consists in this illogical way of speaking, provided always that it is authorized by custom.’^ ‘‘ It is noteworthy,” he adds, “ that all the ways of speaking which custom has established in contravention of the rules of grammar, should, fer from being regarded as vicious, and as errors to be avoided, be on the contrary cherished as an adornment of language, which exists in all beautiful languages whether living or dead.” ^
This charm of the exceptional and the irregular in diction accounts for the curious feet that we can enjoy the use of idiom even in a dead language which we do not know very well > and it also explains the subtlety
1 Br 6 al, Smmiics (1900), p. 27^- 267
fTORDS AND IDIOMS
4
of effect which Milton achieved by transfusing Greek or Latin constructions into his English verse. And who has not been aware of the vividness of those Anglo- Irish idioms which we find in modern Irish writers, the charm of vrhose enchanting speech is largely due to their use of Irish constructions which are unfamiliar in English ? These idioms, “ I took the hand of her,’’ “ is herself at home ? ” “ he interrupted me, and I writing my letters,” are, as Mr. Joyce points out, translations into English of idioms which are long- established and correct in the Gaelic language.^
The logical anoinalies of idiom, the figurative phrases with meanings different from the meanings of the words which compose them, hardly stand in need of any defence. These echoes of war and the chase, of the farm-yard, of kitchen gossip and vituperation, these vigorous egressions whi<i have come to us from popular speech, and which still seem to carry, like overtones, some sense of the acts and occasions which gave them births this hreath of the sea and the open fields, is a vmd, concrete, racy element in our language which we owe to innumerable, anonymous, and illiterate men and women of wit and linguistic genius, who, inglorious but not mute, have crystallized bits of their experience in shining phrases, enshrined them as it were in the amber of words, and coined them into images and embodied them in locutions which have passed into the mouths of all English-speaking people. Amid all the other learned accumulations of the English language, its echoes from Greek and Latin, from French and Italian sources, and from the writings of our own ^ W. J oyce, E^lish ds We Speak it in Ireland, ( 1910.)
» ^ 268
ENGLISH IDIOMS
famous phrase-uiakers and famous poets, this element
from the popular speech of England or the Continent
forms an element of our language which we could not
do mthout The images which it weaves intqi^the
tapestry of language are homely scenes of life in the
open, and the figures of familiar animals and birds.
They fly at no high pitch of thought, but they
have one advantage over the figures and quotations of
nobler source and range. They are made of durable
and homespun xnaterials, and they seem never to wear
out. Quotations from the poets weary us if too often
repeated, flowers from the garden of speech soon wither,
learned figures become trite and hackneyed, but the
pot and the frying-pan, the wet-blanket and the spilt
milk,, the cat ia the bag, and the pig in the poke, never
lose their moral application 5 nor can we ever tire of
the misadventures of those immortal rustics who count
their chickens before they are hatched, harness the cart
before the horse, fell between two stools, or most
injudiciously keep on throwing stones from the gla2ied
windows of the houses in which they live.
This radio-active quality of popular
to give out life and never lose it, is shared by those phrases from the Bible whidi are woven mto our speech, and which are also so lar^y drawn the peasant bfe,thehandicraft% a^to^^^^^2^ of the East. ^Still more becoming hackneyed are die duster about the features ai^
Dy phrasal ^
aesthetic it
WORDS JND IDIOMS
movement and bodily attitude and action. But with
regard to these, a critical note may not be out of place.
Owing to their close connexion with prepositions at
the md of clauses (and these terminal prepositions are
generally the detachable parts of phrasal verbs), they
have shared in the discredit which this English usage
has incurred 5 and when Dryden, in revising his prose,
moved back his prepositions, he also eliminated a
number of phrasal verbs, changing “ bound up ” to
“ limited,” “ brought in ” to ‘‘ introduced,” and
looking upon ” to regarding,” etc Dr. Johnson’s
attitude towards them Js easy to understand ; so
numerous are these phrasal verbs, and so vast their
range of meaning, that they are a burden to the life
of the lexicographer ; and wishing, as Dr. Johnson
wished, to do away vrfth ‘‘ grammatical irregularities ”
he naturally disapproved of these idiomatic combina-
tions,^ and found “ despicable ” in their diction the lines
in which the Chorus in Samson Agonistes commends the
paternal kindness of Manoah :
F athers are wont to lay up for their sons,
Thou for thy son.art bent to lay out all.^
Whether due to the disapproval of old-fashioned grammarians, or to the fact that their use is, for the
,, Didionary^ to come by/' meaning' to
^ obtain. This, Johnson says, seems ** an irregular and r finding it in Hooker, Shakespeare, Bacon, forced to admit that it ** has very powerful " originaUy, the 0 ;^/ord Dictionary nnpiied effort. Smce its kinaesthetic association has fad^^ay the Kfforn has more or less fallen out of use, and has been r^laced by get.*’
Roller. No. 140. The itaUcs of dis- approval are of oonrse Johnson’s.
270
ENGLISH IDIOMS
most part, more colloquial than literary, there still
persists a certain prejudice against phrasal verbs, and
many writers half-consciously avoid them. These
combinations are, it is true, almost always colloquial,
and being popular in their origin, they are often,
especially at their first introduction, condemned as
slang. But they are genuinely English in their
character ; they add immensely to the richness of our
vocabulary, ^ and they are full of energetic life, and
enrich our consciousness with the half-conscious associa-
tion of many muscular sensations 5 and it is perhaps
in colloquialisms of this kind, where abstract verbs and
particles of motion combine into vivid nucleuses of
living speech, that we come nearest to the idiomatic
heart of the English language.
The development of these phrasal verbs is moreover in the line of that progress of language which has been so brilliantly defined by the Danish linguist, Dr. Jespersen — a progress which, he finds, has been, among European tongues, most successfixlly achieved by the English language. The principle of Ais progress is that of analysis — ^an analysis of meanings, in each separate element of a complex idea is expre^ by a separate term, instead of all*the elements bang
WORDS JND IDIOMS
fused together, as ia synthetic languages, into one
inseparable word. This method of analysis adds, as
he points out, suppleness to expression 5 for the separate
elements can be arranged in varying order, and shades
of meaning more clearly rendered by placing them in
emphatic or unemphatic positions in the sentence.
The sentences quoted on a former page, with preposi-
tions at the ends of clauses, are illustrations of this
advantage, and a further justification of the phrasal
verb, which is an ancient and long-established idiom of
our speech. Many of these verbs are, in fact, of great
antiquity ; they abound in the translations of the
Bible, and in the Prayer Book 5 and the following
familiar lines from Shakespeare and Milton will prove
(if proof be needed) that our greatest poets have not
disdained their use :
Oh ! how shall summer’s honey breath hold out^'
Keep up your bright swords, for the dew will rust them,”
Put out the light, and thenp«/ out the light,”
“ Sweet the coming on Of grateful evening mild,”
“ But still I see the tenor of Man’s woe Holdi on the same.”
These quotations suggest a subject which, in itself^ might be the subject of a long essay — ^the use, namely, which various authors in various periods have made, not only of phrasal verbs, but of the other idiomatic dements of our language. But this is a subject which stiU awaits investigation, though it is plain to all of 272
ENGLISH IDIOMS
IS that our authors vary greatly in this respect. There
ire some writers, like Gibbon and Dr. Johnson, whose
prose is almost devoid of idiom, and whose sentences
could almost be translated word for word into another
language 5 while there are others, like Dryden, Addison,
Swift, Sterne, and Lamb, who write, not in imitation
of Latin prose, but of English speech, and whose pages
abound in idioms and colloquial turns. Of these,
Sterne and Charles Lamb make the fullest use of
idioms, and especially of phrasal verbs — ^their pages
seem to shimmer and sparkle with these little nucleuses
of living speech.^ Perhaps Addison’s prose is, to a
sound taste, the best model of good colloquial, idiomatic
English ; but it was Dryden, I think, who, in spite
of qualms about his prepositions, best caught and
reproduced tihese enchanting qualities, the rhythm, the
phrasing, the tamber, and accent of the living voice.
Dion3rsius and Nero had the same lonpng^ but
with all their power they could never bring their
business well about. ’Tis true, they proclaimed them-
selves poets by sound of trumpet, and poets they
upon pain of death to any man who durst call
otherwise. The audience had a fine time on ^^0*1
may imagine j they sat in a bodily fear, and
demurely as they could 5 for it was a
to laugh unseasonably j and the tyrants weresnsp^k^
^ Hazlitt describes Sterne's ^
EngHsh. conversational lia;^y, the most idiomatic
cm the ETiglish Con^ ^ ^ -t «««
Tristram Shandy will '• The Accnting with the oath,
Angel, as he and w.i.
'0
WOJRDS JND IDIOMS
as they had reason, that their subjects had ’em in the
wind ; so, every man, in his own defence, set as good
a face upon the business as he could. ’Twas known
beforehand that the monarchs were to be crowned
laureates ; hut when the show was over, and an honest
man was suffered to depart quietly, he took out his
laughter which he had stifled, with a firm resolution
never more to see an Emperor’s play, though he had
been ten. years a-making it” ^
“ Nefue hate in fotdera vent is the very excuse which Aeneas makes, when he leaves his lady : ‘ I made no such bargain with you at our marriage, to live always drudging on at Carthage : my business was Italy ; and I never made a secret of it. If I took my pleasure, had not you your share of it ? I leave you free, at my departure, to comfort yourself with the next stranger who happens to he shipwrecked on your coast. Be as kind a hostess as you have been to me ; and you can never fail of another husband,’ ” ^
XVII
Since the time of Dryden, the number of idioms in the English language has greatly increased, and in the nineteenth century in especial, very great additions were made to this part of our vocabulary. The study of our older Steiature restored to us not only words which had fallen obsolete, but also many old turns of phrase which had been half forgotten ; ® and it was
^ Preface of dil for L^ove (Ker, Essays of John Dryden, i. p. I97)-
- Dedication of the Aeneas (Jkid, ii. pp. 196-7).
- lE^a!.ys axe full of old idioms : ^ >118 use of tliese
aicbadc es^resaojis the careful student wiH find one of the suptlest roaaifestatiems of his felicitous aad elaborate art.
274
ENGLISH IDIOMS
in this century, for the most part, that the great body of Shakespearian expressions became a part of the tissue of our language. Scott’s novels made us familiar with many Scottish phrases ; and from America, with its new conditions and the linguistic freedom that prevails there, many new and vivid idioms made their wajr across the Atlantic. The lexicography of the last century is made notable, moreover, by the enormous increase of phrasal verbs which, in that period, have sprung to life in extraordinary profusion.^
This remarkable and modern growth of idiomatic phrases in our speech is not without significarice, and can be explained, I think, as a reaction against the deadness of much contemporary English, — ^the increas- ing use of life-forsaken words in that jargon of science and abstract thought which is so characteristic of the present age. And here perhaps we can find a general CTplanation of the curious lin^istic phenomenon we have been studying, the function of idiom in speech, the part it pla 3 rs not only in English, but in, other languages as well. For the truth is that l^rne languages, having for their main object the naming o concepts, naturally tend to colourless abstraction. e- presenting the triumph of reason over the incoherence of immediate sensation, they embody the ?
science in their vocabulary, and the laws of their grammar. For the purpose of order ^ ^ ^
tion, they reject much of 4e illogical hut element of experience, the bodily sensattoiB
^ Many modem
” fxame-Tip/' aise words fonn^ P .
" listen in " is the latest verb of this kmd to he w £aglisli vocabulary.
275
WORDS AND IDIOMS
lively feelings which accompany sensation, and all
those reasons of the imagination and the heart of which;,
in Pascal’s phrase, the reason knows nothing.
This element of thought which is rebellious to the laws of thought^ which prefers images to abstraction, terseness to grammar, and energy to logic — it is precisely this illogical but living sense of things which looks out at us through the idiomatic loopholes in rational language, and speaks to our senses by means of those “ colloquial barbarisms, licentious idioms, and irregular combinations,” which, according to Dr. Johnson, sullied the grammatical purity of English. Plainly, a language which was all idiom and unreason would he impossible as m instrument of thought 5 but all languages permit the existence of a certain number of illogical expressions : and the feet that, in spite of their vulgar origin and illiterate appearance, they have succeeded in elbowing their way from popular speech into our prose and poetry, our learned lexicons and grammars, is a proof that they perform a necessary function in the domestic economy of speech. That function, to put it briefly, is to bring back ideas from the understanding to the sensations fft>m which they were originally derived j to reincorporate them again in visual images, and above all in the dynamic sensations of the human body, its members, its attitudes, and acts. Idioms are little sparks of life and energy in our speech j they are like those substances called vitamins which make our food nourishing and wholesome j diction deprived of idiom — ^unless, indeed, as with Gibbon or Johnson, its absence is compensated by other qualities — soon 276
ENGLISH IDIOMS
becomes tasteless, dull, insipid. This is why an infusion
of foreign idiom is better than no idiom at all ; and
here perhaps we can find the explanation of the dullness
of German prose, which, as Professor Earle points out,
is so difficult to read 5 German prose being, he says,
of all forms of modern prose, the poorest, while French
is the richest, in idiomatic phrases.^ German poetry,
on the other hand, being largely based on folk-poetry,
is full of native idiom.
Idiom is held in little esteem by men of science, by schoolmasters, and old-fashioned grammarians, but good writers love it, for it is, in truth, the life and spirit of language.” It may be regarded as the sister of poetry, for like poetry it retranslates our concepts into living experiences, and breathes that atmosphere of animal sensation which sustains the poet in his flights.
There is a smell in our native earth, better than all the perfumes in the East ” ; and although our idiom contains, as we have seen, a deposit of metaphors an phrases from the popular life of Europe, its savour, its
^ The idiomatic richness of the French
in some degree at least due, I think (if the opinion of a ^
can have any value in these matters), to tl^ -orhaos
works of several of the best French anthors-above ^
those of Montaigne, La Fontaine, MoU^e, andMde. de
— ^were written in a colloquial style close to ^lose
language, and are therefore full of classics,
use, save for the authority and examp^ of
might never have been sanctioned m f ;
The same service was performed rLtv^rsatiqns,
for Don Quixote is a book of almo^.end^^ocai ^ ^ and Sancho Panza’s talk in ^elt Our
proverbs, but of idiomatic bi^ the En^ish
idiomatic debt in English to Shakes^
Bible has already been suggested, ^ the
also been enriched by many poputo locuticms
conversations in Sir Walter Scott s novras.
277
PFORDS JND IDIOMS
humour, its images and phrases are nevertheless
essentially national in character, and taste of the soil
from which they grew, that special portion of the earth’s
surface, that homeland of villages and fields and pastures,
from which every form of national speech and national
art has had its birth, and to which, for the renewal of
its strength, it must every now and then return.
278
APPENDIX
SOMATIC IDIOMS
The human head, with its hair, its eyes ind ears and nose and mouth, is the source of more than two hundred idioms :
To keep one^s head,
To keep one’s head above water,
. To lose one’s head,
- ^To hold one’s head
_Wgh,
To hang one’s head,
To break one’s head over,
To bring on one’s head.
To have a head on one’s shoulders,
To have one’s head screwed on in the right way.
To have one’s head turned.
To have a swelled head.
To take into one’s head,
To put out of one’s head,
To put into scMne one’s head.
To talk one’s head off.
To bite one’s head off.
To beat one’s head against a wall,
To throw oneself at the head of,
To put one’s head in a noos^
To drag in by the head and shoulders.
To make head against. To lay our heads to- gether.
To come to a head.
Not to know whether one is standing on one’s head or one’s heels, Had over ears,
Head over hee^
Head and ^ouldeis above. The head and &i»it ol^ •From head to foot,
•From head to toe^
Off one’s head.
^Wt) IDIOMS
On his own head be it.
Out of one’s ow'nhead,
Over one’s head.
Over the head of.
Over head and ea3. Two heads are better than one.
Head foremost, ^Headlong,
Headstrong,
To cudgel one^s
BRAINS,
To suck some one’s brains,
To crack one’s hiains.
To tear one^s h T o keep one’s hair on, To make one’s hair stand on end.
Not to ruffle a hair.
To split hairs,
A hair’s breadth.
To a hair.
Hair-drawn.
By the sweat of one’! BROW,
To knit one’s brows.
To be black in the face,
To set one’s face again^
To save one’s face.
To cut off one’s nose to spite one’s face,
'To pull, or make, a long or wry face,
To make feces at,
To fece some one down.
To fece some one with.
To fece something out.
To fece the music.
To turn face about.
To put a good face upon. To put a new face upon, ^ To thrust, or throw, in the fece o:^
To look facts in the face. To fly in the face o:^
To change the fece of^ face to face with,
Tull in the face,
In the fece of.
To some one’s face,
Upon the face of it,
A facer.
To keep in countenance. To keep one’s counten- ance.
To show a bold
To diow one’s eacr,* To have the fece to, To have twofeces;.
To show one’s nosb,
To follow one’s nose.
To see no further than one’s nose,
To nose out or into,
280
JPPENDIX
"To poke one’s nose
into.
To turn, up one’s nose
To make a long nose. To look down one’s nose,
To pay through the nose,
To off one’s nose to spite one’s face.
To count noses.
To l^d by the nose. To bite some one’s nose off.
To put some one’s nose out of joint,
To keep some one’s nose to the grind- stone.
Before one’s nose. Under the very nose
A nose of wax,
A nosegay.
The breath of one’s
NOSTRILS,
To Stink in the nostrils of
To catch, of strike, or take the To be all eyes.
To have an ^
To have m tymScffy
To have before one’s
eyes.
To get one’s eye in.
To catch, or strike, or take the eye,
To see with one’s own
To see with half an eye, To believe one’s own
To look with another eye on,
To keep one’s eye on.
To turn a blind eye to. To clap, or set, one’s eye on,
To shut one’s eyes to.
To make eyes at,
To see eye tq eye with, To open some one’s eyes to.
To make some one open his eye^^
To throw dust in some one’s eyes,
To do in the eye^
To wipe die eyeof^
To pipe the -eye.
To ciy one’s eyes oul^
•In the mind’s •In the public ♦In die eye of the few,
In the twmkliEgqf^
UiKlerd^^ec^
UptoAeiq^
With
2S1
^ORD8 J2^D IDIOMS
With an ey-e to,
A sight for sore An eye for an eye,
A beam, a mote in the eye,
An eye-opener.
An eye servant.
The apple of the eye. Eyewash,
My eyes !
All my eye.
Mind your eye, 'Morethanmeetstheeye,
To raise the EYinnows.
To hang on by the EYELIDS.
To lend an ear,
To give ear to,
To be all ears.
To prick up one^s ears, To turn a deaf ear to, To go in one earand out of the other,
To have itching ears, To tickle the ears,
To play by ear,
To be willing to give one’s ears,
To have one’s ears tingle,
To come to the ear of.
To have, or gain, a
person’s ear.
To hold by the ear.
To send away with a flea in the ear,
To set by the ears,
About one’s ears.
Over head and ears.
Up to one’s ears,
A word in your ear.
As much as one’s ears are worth,
Walls have ears.
To turn the other cheek, To have the cheek to,
To cheek some one.
To he cheeky,
To give some of one’s cheek to.
To have one’s tongue in one’s cheek.
Cheek by jowl.
To hold one’s jaw,
To stop some one’s jaw, Jaw-breaking-
To lick one’s chops.
To be up to one’s chin.
There are many idiooos connected with the lips,
the mouth, the teeth and tongue and throat :
282
jppmDix
To bite one’s up.
To bck one’s lips.
To smack one’s lips,
To keep a stiff upper lip.
To hang on some one’s lips,
From the lips outwards, None of your lip ! Xip-deep, fcLip-service.
To open one’s mouth, To keep one’s mouth shut.
To ^ve mouth to.
To make a poor mouth, To make a wry mouth. To laugh on the wrong side of the mouth. To foam at the mouth, To make the mouth water,
To live from hand to mouth.
To make mouths at.
To condemn out of his
own mouth,
To be the mouthpiece
By word of mouth,
Down in the moufh,
From mouth to mouth,
In the mouth of,
Through the mouth of.
To show one’s teeth,
To set one’s teeth,
To get one’s teeth into something,
To set one’s teeth on edge. To gnash one’s teeth,
To cut one’s eye-teem. To escape by the skin of the teeth, .
To hang on by the skin ot
the teeth,
•To be armed to the teeth. To cast in the t^th of, ^ To have the run of one s teeth.
To have a swe^ tooth.
To make mouths at, i o nave ^
"“.So”*-"'
To keep a dvil tongue
in one’s mouth.
To put words into the mouth
To take the word out of the mouth
To hoM <me’s toh<^
To Hte one’s tongue?
Toliavea
toc^ie^
of the mouth iyagte in
fife
WORm JND IDIOMS
To have on the tip To thrust down the
of one’s tongue, throat of.
To keep a civil tongue To jump down some one’s in one’s mouth, throat.
The gift of tongues, To give some one the Tongue-tied. lie in his throat.
To cut some one’s To stick in one’s throat,
THROAT, It won’t go down.
The body itself, with the neck, the shoulders, the
breast and back, though not so rich a source of idiom,
still provide a certain number of vivid phrases :
A good sort of body.
To keep body and soul together.
To save one^s bacon [body].
To break one’s neck,
To break the neck
To be up to one’s neck
To get it in the neck.
On the neck of.
Neck and crop,
Neck or nothing.
T o make a clean breast of.
To keep abreast with.
To have broad shoul- ders.
To have a head on one’s shoulder^
To have a young head
on old shoulders?
To shoulder the burden, To put one’s shoulder to the wheel.
To rub shoulders with,
To lay the blame on the right shoulders,
Shoulder to shoulder, Straight from the shoulder. Head and shoulders above.
To have on one’s back. To turn one’s back on, To get one’s back up.
To put some one’s back up.
To break the back of.
To back down,
To back out of.
To back up.
To backbite.
284
JPPENDIX
At the back of,
Behind the back of, Upon the back of. With one’s back to the wall.
To be of the same, or
the right, kidney.
0 7 , ^
To hold one’s sides.
To split one’s sides.
To turn the stomach.
To be unable to stomach
something.
To have on the hip.
Hip and thigh.
To gird up one’s loins.
From skin and flesh, from blood and bones and nerves
and breath, are derived the following :
To save one’s skin.
To change one’s skin. To be all skin and bones,
To put oneself in some one else’s skin^
To be ready to jump out of one’s skin, Skin-deep, Thick-skinned.
To be of one flesh.
To make the flesh
creep.
To be of one’s own
flesh and blooi>.
To run in the blood. To stir the Wood,
TTo heat the Wbod,
To freeze, or curdle, the
blood,
•To make the blood run cold,
'To act in cold blood.
To thirst for blood.
To draw blood,
To suck the blood of,
•To breed ill blood.
Blue blood.
Fresh Wood,
His blood is up,
•Blood is thicker than water,^
Blood-fliirsty,
llot bioode<4 CoMWooM
To Weed wfcdtsc.
To W
WORDS JND IDIOMS
To be wanting in back-
bone^
To th^ backbone.
To strain every nerve, ^To get on one’s nerves, To be a bundle of nerves.
To lose BREATH,
To take breath.
To hold one’s breath. To spend, or waste, one’s breath.
To keep one’s breath to
cool one’s porridge.
To have one’s breath taken away,
To breathe one’s last breath,
To breathe freely.
To breathe again.
To breathe upon,
In the same breath with, Under one’s breath,
With bated breath,
The very breath of one’s nostrils.
Owing to the heart being regarded as the seat of
feeling, idioms in which this organ figures are extremely
numerous :
To take heart.
To keep heart.
To lose heart.
To take heart of grace. To pluck up heart.
To take, or lay, to heart.
To set one’s heart on, To have at heart,
To be down in the heart,
To search the heart. To have the heart to, To be the heart and soul of.
To warm the cockles of the heart.
To pluck out the heart
of the mystery.
To have a soft heart.
To have a hard heart.
To give one’s heart.
To lose one’s heart,
To break one’s heart.
To eat one’s heart out, To give heart to,
To win some one’s heart. To put in good heart.
To touch the heart of. To have one’s heart in, To put one’s heart into. To make one’s heart leap. To do one’s heart good, To find in one’s heart to.
JPPENDgC
To have one’s heart in
one’s mouth,
To have one’ s heart in the right place.
To have a soft place in one’s heart,
To wear one’s heart on one’s sleeve.
After one’s heart.
At heart.
By heart.
In heart.
Out of heart.
With heart and hand.
With half a heart.
From the heart, Vimlcem
F rom the bottom of the -
From o'ke’s heart, /.geatt-r^
In one’s heart of 'Heart-sick,^
Next the heart.
With all one’s heart.
With one’s whole heart, Hea^ at heart.
Sick at heart,
A searching ^ hearts,
A change of h&rt,
A heart of gold,
Hearts of oak.
Bless your heart.
Faint heart never won feir
lady,
»Down-hearted,
Half-hearted,
' Whole-hearted,
- Heart-breaking,
•Heart-whole,
. Heart-ache.
idioms com>«d w*
hearts.
Near one’s heart.
There are not many idi^ f
arm and elbow, ^ te«ddes, 6g«»t« ®
with its fingers and thumc® ^ .
the greatest number of ph .
To make a long AUM,,
■JTo keep at arm^^ length,
Towdcome
arms, , ^
1 X)ie military etc.^
■cy'hirih. COmCS tacldLe/' etc.
H^OUDS JND IDIOMS
To be uj> to the elbow,
To mb elbows with.
More power to vour
elbdw,
Elbow-grease.
To lend a hand,
To bear a hand.
To try one's hand.
To hold one’s hand.
To stay one’s hand.
To hand in,
To hand on.
To hand over,
To have a band in.
To keep one’s hand in, To lay a hand on,
To take in hand,
To fight for one’s own hand,
To fold one’s hands, Toeatoiitof thehandof, To do a hand’s turn,
To come to hand.
To have at hand.
To have in hand.
To be tied hand and foot,
To wait on, or serve, hand and foot,
To force the hand of. To condemn out of hand,
To change hands.
To lay hands on,
To have on one’s hands,
To have one’s hands full.
To wash one’s hands of.
To return to one’s hands,
To take one’s life in one’s
hands.
To take one’s courage in both hands,
To tie the hands of,
To play into the hands of, To win hands down.
To have a free hand, or give a free hand to.
To be the right hand of, To have the upper, or whip hand of.
At hand.
At the hands of^ Behindhand,
From hand to mouth.
In the hands of.
In a turn of the hand, Light in hand.
Well in hand,
OflFhand,
On hand.
On all hands,
On the one hand.
On the other hand.
On everv hand,
T o hand.
Underhand,
Under the hand of.
With both hands.
With dean hands.
With a high hand,
A dead hand,
288
APPENDIX
A hdping hand. To let slip through one s
A hand’s turn, fingers, ^ ,
A left-handed compli- To twist round one s little
ment, fiu-g^i^j , ,
A hand’s-breadth escape, At one’s fingers en , 'Tr\ the finser tips.
Hand over hand. To the finger Ups,
Hand in hand with. My fingers itch to.
Hand in glove with, , all
Hands off; To have one’s fingers aU
First-hand, thumbs, thumb
Second-haid, To be under the thumb
High-handed.
To grease the paxm, To twiddle on^s thumbs, To^have an itching By rule of thumb.
To%alm off. To'^^Sdde uSeT“*'
•T' • To knuckle down to-
To stir a finger, t o Jtnu
To burn one’s fingers, , NAinf?) ^
To have a finger in the To ^ Uk
oie. or in every pie, t o
'i'o have a hnger m me x v ^
pie, or m every pi^
To lay one s finger on, A. na
FiaaHy, i, <l.e ^
aad specially th.foo^ «. «■>«, "«
To shake a loose LEG, 4®^ > t- • '
To find one’s le^ 3^ »' W ^
To stretch one’s
WORDS JND IDIOMS
To leg itj TTo put one’s foot into it,
-To pull some one’s leg. To serve hand and foot, To wait some one off To tread underfoot, his legs. To set on foot,
The boot is on the other To carry some one off his
feet,
To set some one on his To go on one’s knees, feet.
To bend, or bow, the To cut the ground from knee to, under some one’s feet.
To bring some one to To know the length of a his knees, person’s foot,
On bended knee. To follow the footsteps of,
On the knees of the To come out flat-footed Gods, for.
Knee-deep in.
To cool one’s heees,
To come hot foot, To kick one’s heels,
To fell an one’s feet, To take to one’s heels,
To find one’s feet. To show a clean pair of To haye one’s foot in heels,
the grave. To lay by the heels,
To have ball at To come to heel,
one’s foot, Not to know whether one
To let the grass grow is standing on one’s head under one’s feet, or one’s heels,
To put one’s foot down, At the heels of^
To shake off the dust of Close on the heels of, one’s feet, • Head over heels.
To be tied hand and
To turn up one’s toes.
To have cold feet. To toe the mark, or To get up with the line,
wrongfoot foremost. To tread on the toes o^ To put one’s best foot To be on tiptoe, forward. From head to toe,
29a
APPENDIX
The power of begetting
to the garments which
To talk through one’s *
HAT,
To take off the hat to, To be willing to eat one’s hat,
To hang up one’s hat, - To send round the hat,
To knock into a cocked hat,
A bad hat.
To throw up one’s
CAP,
To put on one’s think-
1 o he a feather in one’s
T o stand cap in hand,
T o set one’s cap at.
To cap verses.
To cap an anecdote.
To cap the climax,
If the cap fits, wear it;
To
MASK,
To uiHB^ksoan^
idioms extends from the
clothe it :
To cut one’s coat ac- cording to one’s cloth, To turn one’s coat,
To be a turncoat.
To laugh in one’s sleeve^ To wear one’s heart on one’s sleeve.
To be in pocket,
To be out of pocket.
To suffer in one’s pocket. To put one’s hand in one’s pocket.
To put one’s pride in erne’s pocket, ^ ^
To have some one in ^ packet.
To hme a meSM.
To
To draw a viws
WORDS JND IDIOMS
- To be, or stand, in some
one else’s shoes,
•To step into the shoes of,
To put the shoe on the * right foot,
Dead men’s shoes. That’s another pair of shoes
To have one’s heart in
one’s BOOTS,
To put the boot on the other leg,
To lick the boots of.
To wear the petticoat. To be tied to some one’s
APRON-STRINGS.
The phrases “ down at the heel,” “ on one’s uppers,”
and “out at elbows,” describe dilapidated shoes and
garments ; “ to take the measure of” is a phrase from
tailoring ; and “ to try it on,” “ to take the shine out
of,” “it won’t wash,” and “it won’t wear well,” are
probably also derived from clothes.
THE END
I'NDBX
Abbott. E. A., i68. 17° -
17 1 n., 180,
Addison, 49. 55. 76. 78. 9 93I1-99 .wi.io 4 .i«
119 n-, I01-*
Ad!B^’a}l*ases, 171-*' .Escliylus, 97» i&sop, 233.
AestJiete, 38.
jMford, Tcrq.
S'*
verein, 19- o ^ See American
Idioms, Seariern>^-
Ane^hor, 4»
Aji^e^sen, Hans, 245- Anglomania. 4^ 5^^* .3 a.,
A^lo-Sa^on
A.o^fnArne.^^ 5 -
Arabian
^rcJ»o*c ®|,;,.
Arnold, K;
Aryan ^4^"^
Abbens. 47 v„ ,.
Anbrey,
Anstan, 3aae. » - Bacb,
Bac*.Ab%r*-'
Haconr
3*. 5^7- 37 0...
Baumgart|^» ^97.
Bays als
Blair, % S®- jag.
Blake,^®^^^om.a5°.®®5-
Blood,
1^0^ *59> ®*5-
®7* ®*
JFORDS IDIOMS
Caljellero, Ramon, 250 ife
Caesar, 233. ^
Caliban, 91, 92 a., 93^. Cambridge, Trinity* €(^llege, 67 n.
Cani^ 41.
Cdp, in Idiom, 291.
Capell, E. , 88 n., loi n., 1 14 n. Car, 140.
Caravag^, 126,
Carlyle, Thos., 1 53, 162. Carry on, to, 191, 260. CataUns, 125,
Cervantes, yr, 277.
Chanson de Roland, the, 234. Chapman, R. W., 73 a. Charles II., 42.
Charles V., 23211.
Chancer, 139, 179.
Cheek, tRe, in Idiom, 2S2. Chevy Chase, 78.
China, 48, 53, 245,
Cicero, 74, 234.
Classical, See Romantic, * Classicism, i ion., r 17. Clifden, 78.
Clothes, names for, 39 ; in Idiom, 291-2.
Club, 35, 63.
Coal, ia Idiom, 291.
Cold Shoulder, tte, t88n., 209, 260. ^
Coleridge, 111-2, 12511-, 128,
131-
Colhcations, 173-5.
Colloquial words, 15 1. Colonize, 34.
Come hy, to, 270 n.
Comfort, 28, 40-2.
C^fnerce, terms of, 37.
33, 44, 64. f C^fiarisons, 175-S- . Com^oimds, 145, 172-3, 184. Ccmdillac, 108 n. Constitution, 33, 45«
Copper, Fenimore, 245. Co-of^erdlim, 36, 63-5. Coiur^Ofpe,*'W. J,, 118,
Comntry, to send to, 187, 221,
238 n.
Coverdale, 229.
Create, creation, creative, creator, 91-5, 103-6, 109, III, 119, 127-8, 130,
133-4.
Cromwell, 221.
Curry favour, to, 186, 198.
Dante, 114.
Darmesteter, A., 17 1 n.
Darwin, 37, 58, 61.
Davenant, Sir W., 7I1 87 n., 97 -
Defoe, 49, 55, 232.
Deism, Deist, 37, 45, 61.
Deliberate Coinages, 31.
Dennis, Join, 230.
Descartes, 75.
Dialects, 135-40, 142-8, I55'‘^-
Aryan words in, 13?^
French words in, 137.
Dialect words in Standard English, 25, 146-7, 1 50-1, 154 -
Dickens, 58, 154, 231, 232 n., 246 m
Dictionaries :
Brewer's, of Phrase and Fable, r68, 256.
French Academy, 81, 84, 88 n.
Grimm's Worterh'uch, 67 n., 95 n-, 104 n.
Br. Johnson's, 35, 92 •»
96-7, 150-1* 254-7, 264.
Iittr6's, 84, no.
Oxford English, 'viii, 17, 26, 35 n., 67-8, 108-9, 1 13 n., 122 n., 168-9, 1 87, 210 n., 221 n., 245, 253, 255-6.
Disraeli, 231.
Dog, 44. Idiom,
-Donne, v, 92 n., 126, 255.
Dreadnought, 26.
Drink, names for, 38, 44,
294
Dryden, 75. iSo-i’,
nan., 120. ^5o> ’
230, 270, 273"4* jywhs and drakes, 202.
Bufi, V7., 94. Gfls
XXiihamel, 271 »■• ^ c^n- Gat
DutclL words, see Idioms, S
Terms. Qe'i
“ Ear. the. hi I^om. 250. 281. ^:arle, JoTui, i68, 173^** G 6
180, 277.
JSccewiricify, 4^» 49- G
' twords, ^4^* ^ G
tekermann, J. ®5- G
E26c^nci^y, 68.
Greco, 120.
Emancipation, 34* <
Igmerson, 113 .
English words abroad . .
PoUtical terms, 33-
Twpe-names, 4°*
English Standard peec 135^61.
Etasmns, ^33* . ^31.
Erudite, erudition,
Ev^^, Joi®> 87 ^•’ ’’ *
the, in Idiom. 24S, =0°> 280.
PcBcemicilfe,
p^;i« ^
Finger, the, ^
2^.
Fisfc, 4- - _
IPitzG^hSd
n., 2
Foo^,
Fafto***!®!
Fren(^ ^Dicdeot.
Gardens".
ssf’ghs™-”’:
Ganher, ” .02.3, io5-8> Genius, i2J-3»
120.
Ge«tJ«wa«. 4°-
Gerard, ^^^j^a,nies, 4°-c.„ German ^ liioms, S«« ■Words, see
7 ey»«. ^jo.Hia3ua in-
Germany,
, . Gibimn. 4?- ^^’23^
^ Gladstone, «
j 95,*9*
,ji. 53, 55.6.'^*’
?7‘®' Go*,
.«».■
WORDS AND IDIOMS
Hardy T., 155.
Hat, in Idiom, 291.
Hazlitt, W., 70, 90, 1 12, 125 n., 128, 273 n.
Head, the, in Idiom, 250, 279.
Heart, the, in Idiom, 286-7. Heart of grace, 187, 200.
Heel, the, in Idiom, 290, 292.
Herder, 84, 104.
Herford, C. H., 133.
Hobbes, T., 71, 74. 97, 232 n. Hold forth, to, 222.
Holmes, O. W., 154-5.
Home, 40.
Homer, 78, 88-9, 125 ;
Idioms from, 232 ; Sea- Terms, II.
Homophones, 139 n.
Horace, 122, 229, 234.
Huh, 148, 154-5*
Hugo, Victor, 86 n.
Humour, ^ 40, 50. ^
Hurd, Bishop, 72, 85 n., 89 n., loi n„ 107. .
Idioms, 167-292.
Agricultural, 205, 235. American, 170, 205, 217, 234, 245-6, 275.
Animals in, 195-202, 241-2, 261, 269.
Archery, from, 213. Biblical, 223-7, ^5^* 269. Birds, in, 201-2, 235, 269. Book of Common I^ayer, from, 227.
Books and writing, from, ^ 220, 236.
Bowls, from, 214. Card-games, from, 215, 236.
Cats, from, igg-200,235. Cattle, from, 199, 235. Chess, from, 215. Clothes,’*fromi 291-2. Copk-fighting, 29^.
Idioms —
Coins, from, 219-20. Commercial, 218-9.
Cricket, 214.
Dancing, 216.
Deuce, the, in, 216-222. Devil, the, in, 222-3.
Dogs, in, 195-198, 200-1. Drinking, 210.
Dutch, 194, 244-5.
Falconry, in, 202.
Figurative, 185, 245, 259- 262, 268-9, 277.
Fire, in, 208.
Fire-arms, in, 194.
Fishmg, 189, 192-3.
Flowers, in, 205.
Food, in, 207-9.
Football, in, 214.
French, 169 n., 177, 17^ 235-50. 253 n., 259, 277. Freshwater, 192.
Furniture, in, 206-7. Gambling, 215-6.
Games, in, 213-6, 236. Garden, 205^
Geographical, 221.
German, 169 n., 177, 237- 45. 277*
Grammatical, 169, 182-3, 246-7, 266-8.
Greek, 232-3.
Handicrafts, in, 210-1. History, in, 221.
Horses, in, 197-9. 235-6, 269.
Houses, in, 206-7.
Hunting, 198, 268.
Insects, in. 203, 235.
Irish, 268.
, Italian, 240-8.
Jewels, in, 220.
Kitchen, 189, 207-9, 268. Latin, 177, 233-4. 247-8, 268.
Legal, 218,
Machinery, from, 212. Medical, 217, 236.
296
INDEX
Jefirey, f 179 »•.
Tdioms— ^3
Military, i93-4» ^35. a47>
Mining > 212. Jmw-, 9 ^- _Q 89,
Mxisical, 216 . ^ /y-ac jotoson, 257»
Nautical, 186 . i89-9*^ * 35 . J 136 , 179. *39. ^/.
268 - .., * 7 ?., * 73 '
See
268.
Open-air, 203-5. 235 * painting, oeo- 7 .
Piiasal Verbs. fro», 25 7
263. * 65 ,
PoTJltry,
Prepositions It
■ * 55 . *58,^ *66-
Phrasal Vefos.
Pugilistic, 213.
■Racing, 198- Reli^ous, aai- 7 . * 42 -
Scb-OOl, 220 .
Sewing, 211-2- ^-27-Q.
Shaisespeaxe, iiom, 2 7 9
231, 271, 275%
Sh.eep, in, I 99 * .>e/7
■Soxnatic, 236, ^ 49'5 »
^63. 269. *79-90. Spanisii, ^^9
^250 n., 253 II* - . Sporting, 189, 213*
S^e, from, 200.
T 1 bLea.tre, from, 217*
Tools, trom, 210-11-
Ungranomticd, .j_
WM animals, m,
23 r 4 *
Wrestling, 213.
JW3.^^gi22£l^^'Ot^, 74. 95»
India, 3 i» - ^23-^
TOO-,
3 - J”
Kant, 106. i° 9 - g 231
KW^?kSEr«.. .7S»-. ■
26 t 5 »
KipiiD^* Rv
- 289 -^' , •
IxKike. 37. 45,
iog,
.. -
215 -
- ""x 32 ,
ryoiw7aii^^^jjes. 39- ^
Jfs ^7f^' ^
WORDS JND IDIOMS
Michael Angelo, 120.
Military terms, English, 38 ;
French, 235. See Idioms, MiU, J, S., 58,
Milton, 55, 76, 89, 93 n., gg, 104, 1 14, Ti9n., 120, 127, 178 n., 180 m, 230, 247, 249 n., 268, 270, 272.
Mind, in Idiomi 184-5. Moli^re, 277 n.
Monosyllables, 146-8, 155, Montagu, Mrs., 10 1 n. Montaigne, 277 n. Montesquieu, 44, 64.
More, H., 75 n.
More, Thomas, 31, 62.
Mozart, 113.
Nail, to pay on the, iBj, 238. Napier, John, 31.
Nationalism, 34, '
Negative, the double, 179. Newcastle, Margaret Duchess of, 68.
Newton, 37* 45* •
Norman-French, 10.
Norway, 43 n.
Nous, 142,
Obsolete words, 138-40. In Idiom, 184.
Organic, ii2n.
Original, Originality, 87-90, 100-3, 105, III, 115-6, 125-6, X31.
Osborne, Dorothy, 68.
Ovid, 234.
Oxford, New College, 107 n.
Pain, 185.
Pantheist, 37, 45.
Parliament, 33, 45.
Pascal, 276.
Pater, Walter, x, 117, 129. Pepys, 77.
Religues, 57, 107, 157
Perry, T. S., 73 n.
Phelps, W, L., 79 n.
Phrasal Verbs, 172. See Idiom.
Picturesque, 80, 82-3.
Pikestaff, as plain as a, 187 n., 219.
Pilot, 13, 18.
Plato, 233.
Pliny, 234.
Plutarch, 233.
Poetic words, 138-9, 149, 184. Political terms, 33-6, 45, 57, 65-
Pope, Alex., 45, 49, 55* 73* 75, 77, 86 n., 88, 99, no n., 230.
Popular Etymology, 23-4, 141- 142.
Port, 5.
Prepositions at ends of clauses, 180-2, 270, 272. Pre-Raphaelite, 38.
Proverbs, 176, 209-10, 261-2. Psalmanazar, G., 72.
Purity of Language, 22-3. Puttenham, 92 n.
Quaker, 32, 37, 45, 4S, 55 -
Racing terms, 36 ; see Idiom, Railway terms, 36, 148. Rapin, R., 75, 98 n.
Realism, Realist, Realistic,
113 n.
Reason, the Age of, 72-3, 115. Represent, Representative, 33. Respectable, 41.
Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 100, 107 n., I2I-2.
Richard I., 9.
Richardson, S., 49* 5^* 55 - Richter, J. P., inn., 112 n. Right away, 246 n.
Roast-beef, 38.
Romanesque, 80, 84.
Romantic, 52-3, 56, 61, 66-70, 75 n., 78, 115.
298
INDEX
, , • - \
Romantic and Classical, S5-6, 108, no, 115, ii7-S» I29» 131*
Romantic Love, 71 n. Romantic Movement, The, 61, 76, Son., ro6, ii5» 138, 130, 154, 157- Romanticism, 60, non., 117- Romantique, 8o>r, no. Romantic ch, 84-5, no. Rossetti, 126.
Rousseau, J. J., 54, ^3*
126.
Rudder, 3.
Ruskin, J13 n.
Sainte-Beuve, 188 n. Salisbury Plain, 77.
Salt, 4.
Santayana, G., 133-4- Sappho, 125 n.
Save appearances, to, 249 n. ScaJiger, 92 n.
Schiller, 85, 114 n.
Schlegel, A. W., 85-6, 112 n., 1 17,
Schooner, 25.
Schdpferisch, 104,
Scott, Six Walter, 57-8, in.
153. I57»
231, 275, 277 n.
Scottish words, 58, 152-4- Sea.-Terms, i-i8, 20, 36, 43. American, 25.
Anglo-Saxon, 3-4, 6-7* Arabian, 13, 17.
Aryan, 3.
Byzantine, 12-13, 17. Danish, 9.
Dutch, 14-18.
French, 14.
Greek, 2, 4, Ii-X2, 17. Italian, 13, 17.
Latin, 4, 12, 17.
Low German, 14. Mediterranean, 3, ii, 13 14, 17.
Norman, 10.
«
Sea-Terms —
Portuguese, 16-17. Scancimaviaii, 10, 17. ^anish, 16-17.
Teutonic, 2, 4, 14, 17. West Indian, 1 6. Self-determination, 59. Semantics, viii.
Senancour, 80 n.
Seniimentah 51 - 2 .
S6vign6, Mde. de, 277 n. Shadwell, X, 71 n. Shaftesbury, 79, 83 n., 93, 114 n.
Shakespeare, 45, 55-6, 59, 74, 80, 83, 88-94, 99. 100. 103, 105, ii2n., 114, 1 21 -2, 126-7, 129, 179- 80, 272, 277 n.
Sharpe, W., loi n.
Shelley, 92 n*. 120, 122-
♦ 4, 128-9.
Sidney, Sir Philip, 6711., 77, 92 n., 9^. 152, 230, Skeat, W. W., 9.
Skeleton in the cupboard, 206. Slang, 149-51. ^^5*
Smollett, 230.
Swoh, 40. 147. i54* ^ *
Society for Pure English Tracts, 34 n., 3^ 4i 69 n., 139^.. 17931.,
182 n.
Solon, 233.
Sonnenschein, E. A., 178. Sophocles, 120.
Sorbi6re, 80 n.
South, Bishop, 72.
Spanish type-names, 39 ; see IdiomSf SeorLerms, Sparta, 47^ * '
Spenser, 43, 7&, 84 n., 85 a.,
152.
Spiogarli, J. E., 74, 83 n. Spleen, 40, 49. Split-infinitive, the, 182, Spoke, 244-5.
Sport, 28, 36, 42. ,
299
WORDS JND IDIOMS
Sporting Terms t 44, 57, 63-4.
Sprat, T., 80.
StaSl, Mde. de, 86, ijo. Starboard, 5.
Sterne, 38, 50-1, 55, 239, 273.' SteveasoiL, R. L., 155, 231. Stowe, 107 n.
Sturm und Drang, 105. Sweetness and Ltght, 230. Swift, 49, 273.
Swinbnrae, 11311.
Synge, J. M., 157.
Tacitus, 47.
Taine, 39.
Take in, to, 254.
Taken cjfback, 186, 192.
Tasso, 92 n.
Taste, 1 19 n.
Temple, Sir Wm.,'71, 78, 89,
92, 99.
Tennyson, 155, 231.
Texte, Joseph., 44 n. Thackeray, 154, 232 n.
Than whom, 178.
Tkomson, James, 76, 79, 84, 94, 230.
Thunder, 230.
Vram, 147-8.
Unconscious, th.e, 1 12-13, 124-
125.
Utilitarian, 62.
Utopia, 31, 62. '
Vaugelas, C. de, 267.
Verity, A. W., 248 n.
Vicar of Wakefield, 76.
Virgil, 234.
Voltaire, 44-6, 55* •
108 n., 112 n., 177.
Walpole, Horace, 53, 7^>
88 n., 107.
Warton, Joseph, 76- n., 93 94, loi n., 107.
Warton, Thomas, 73, 85 n,, 94, loi n., 107.
White elephant, 186, 245.
White feather, 186, 202. Whitman, Walt, 120, 122. Whitney, W. D., 67 n. Wieland, 84, 237 n.
William the Conqueror, 9. William of Orange, 232 n. William III., 15.
Windsor Castle, 77.
Wolseley, R., 98.
'• Wood, R., loi n. Word'CoUecting, 158-161. Wordsworth, 129.
Wotton, Sir Henry, 121 n. ^Wright, Dr. Joseph, 136.
Young, Edward, 49, 50, 101 107, 1 12 n.