On the Study of Words by Richard Chenevix Trench (great book club books .TXT) 📖

almonds or linen; or the cheek by the withdrawing of the blood is 'blanched' with fear; but we 'whiten' a wall, not by withdrawing some other colour, but by the superinducing of white; thus 'whited sepulchres.' When we 'palliate' our own or other people's faults, we do not seek 'to cloke' them altogether, but only to extenuate the guilt of them in part.

It might be urged that there was a certain preparedness in these words to separate off in their meaning from one another, inasmuch as they originally belonged to different stocks; and this may very well have assisted; but we find the same process at work where original difference of stock can have supplied no such assistance. 'Astronomy' and 'astrology' are both words drawn from the Greek, nor is there any reason beforehand why the second should not be in as honourable use as the first; for it is the reason, as 'astronomy' the law, of the stars. [footnote: So entirely was any determining reason wanting, that for some while it was a question which word should obtain the honourable employment, and it seemed as if 'astrology' and 'astrologer' would have done so, as this extract from Bishop Hooper makes abundantly plain (Early Writings, Parker Society, p. 331): 'The astrologer is he that knoweth the course and motions of the heavens and teacheth the same; which is a virtue if it pass not its bounds, and become of an astrologer an astronomer, who taketh upon him to give judgment and censure of these motions and courses of the heavens, what they prognosticate and destiny unto the creature.'] But seeing there is a true and a false science of the stars, both needing words to utter them, it has come to pass that in our later use, 'astrology' designates always that pretended science of imposture, which affecting to submit the moral freedom of men to the influences of the heavenly bodies, prognosticates future events from the position of these, as contrasted with 'astronomy' that true science which investigates the laws of the heavenly bodies in their relations to one another and to the planet upon which we dwell.

As these are both from the Greek, so 'despair' and 'diffidence' are both, though the second more directly than the first, from the Latin. At a period not very long past the difference between them was hardly appreciable; one was hardly stronger than the other. If in one the absence of all hope, in the other that of all faith, was implied. In The Pilgrim's Progress, a book with which every English schoolmaster should be familiar, 'Mistress Diffidence' is 'Giant Despair's' wife, and not a whit behind him in deadly enmity to the pilgrims; even as Jeremy Taylor speaks of the impenitent sinner's 'diffidence in the hour of death,' meaning, as the context plainly shows, his despair. But to what end two words for one and the same thing? And thus 'diffidence' did not retain that energy of meaning which it had at the first, but little by little assumed a more mitigated sense, (Hobbes speaks of 'men's diffidence,' meaning their distrust 'of one another,') till it has come now to signify a becoming distrust of ourselves, a humble estimate of our own powers, with only a slight intimation, as in the later use of the Latin 'verecundia,' that perhaps this distrust is carried too far.

Again, 'interference' and 'interposition' are both from the Latin; and here too there is no anterior necessity that they should possess those different shades of meaning which actually they have obtained among us;—the Latin verbs which form their latter halves being about as strong one as the other. [Footnote: The word interference is a derivative from the verb ferire to strike, which is certainly stronger in meaning than ponere, to place.] And yet in our practical use, 'interference' is something offensive; it is the pushing in of himself between two parties on the part of a third, who was not asked, and is not thanked for his pains, and who, as the feeling of the word implies, had no business there; while 'interposition' is employed to express the friendly peace-making mediation of one whom the act well became, and who even if he was not specially invited thereunto, is still thanked for what he has done. How real an increase is it in the wealth and efficiency of a language thus to have discriminated such words as these; and to be able to express acts outwardly the same by different words, according as we would praise or blame the temper and spirit out of which they sprung. [Footnote: If in the course of time distinctions are thus created, and if this is the tendency of language, yet they are also sometimes, though far less often, obliterated. Thus the fine distinction between 'yea' and 'yes,' 'nay' and 'no,' once existing in English, has quite disappeared. 'Yea' and 'Nay,' in Wiclif s time, and a good deal later, were the answers to questions framed in the affirmative. 'Will he come?' To this it would have been replied, 'Yea' or 'Nay,' as the case might be. But 'Will he not come?'—to this the answer would have been, 'Yes,' or 'No.' Sir Thomas More finds fault with Tyndale, that in his translation of the Bible he had not observed this distinction, which was evidently therefore going out even then, that is in the reign of Henry VIII., and shortly after it was quite forgotten.]

Take now some words not thus desynonymized by usage only, but having a fundamental etymological distinction,—one, however, which it would be easy to overlook, and which, so long as we dwell on the surface of the word, we shall overlook; and try whether we shall not be gainers by bringing out the distinction into clear consciousness. Here are 'arrogant,' 'presumptuous,' and 'insolent'; we often use them promiscuously; yet let us examine them a little more closely, and ask ourselves, as soon as we have traced the lines of demarcation between them, whether we are not now in possession of three distinct thoughts, instead of a single confused one. He is 'arrogant' who claims the observance and homage of others as his due (ad rogo); who does not wait for them to offer, but himself demands all this; or who, having right to one sort of observance, claims another to which he has no right. Thus, it was 'arrogance' in Nebuchadnezzar, when he required that all men should fall down before the image which he had reared. He, a man, was claiming for man's work the homage which belonged only to God. But one is 'presumptuous' who takes things to himself before he has acquired any title to them (prae sumo); as the young man who already usurps the place of the old, the learner who speaks with the authority of the teacher. By and by all this may very justly be his, but it is 'presumption' to anticipate it now. 'Insolent' means properly no more than unusual; to act 'insolently' is to act unusually. The offensive meaning which 'insolent' has acquired rests upon the sense that there is a certain well-understood rule of society, a recognized standard of moral and social behaviour, to which each of its members should conform. The 'insolent' man is one who violates this rule, who breaks through this order, acting in an unaccustomed manner. The same sense of the orderly being also the moral, is implied in 'irregular'; a man of 'irregular' is for us a man of immoral life; and yet more strongly in Latin, which has but one word (mores) for customs and morals.

Or consider the following words: 'to hate,' 'to loathe,' 'to detest,' 'to abhor'. It would be safe to say that our blessed Lord 'hated' to see his Father's house profaned, when, the zeal of that house consuming Him, He drove forth in anger the profaners from it (John ii. 15); He 'loathed' the lukewarmness of the Laodiceans, when He threatened to spue them out of his mouth (Rev. iii. 16); He 'detested' the hypocrisy of the Pharisees and Scribes, when He affirmed and proclaimed their sin, and uttered those eight woes against them (Matt, xxiii.); He 'abhorred' the evil suggestions of Satan, when He bade the Tempter to get behind Him, shrinking from him as one would shrink from a hissing serpent in his path.

Sometimes words have no right at all to be considered synonyms, and yet are continually used one for the other; having through this constant misemployment more need than synonyms themselves to be discriminated. Thus, what confusion is often made between 'genuine' and 'authentic'; what inaccuracy exists in their employment. And yet the distinction is a very plain one. A 'genuine' work is one written by the author whose name it bears; an 'authentic' work is one which relates truthfully the matters of which it treats. For example, the apocryphal Gospel of St. Thomas is neither 'genuine' nor 'authentic.' It is not 'genuine' for St. Thomas did not write it; it is not 'authentic,' for its contents are mainly fables and lies. The History of the Alexandrian War, which passes under Caesar's name, is not 'genuine,' for he did not write it; it is 'authentic,' being in the main a truthful record of the events which it professes to relate. Thiers' History of the French Empire, on the contrary, is 'genuine,' for he is certainly the author, but very far indeed from 'authentic '; while Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War is both 'authentic' and 'genuine.' [Footnote: On this matter see the New English Dictionary (s. v. authentic). It will there be found that the prevailing sense of 'authentic' is reliable, trustworthy, of established credit; it being often used by writers on Christian Evidences in contradistinction to 'genuine.' However, the Dictionary shows us that careful writers use the word in the sense of 'genuine,' of undisputed origin, not forged, or apocryphal: there is a citation bearing witness to this meaning from Paley. The Greek [Greek: authentikos] meant 'of firsthand authority, original.']

You will observe that in most of the words just adduced, I have sought to refer their usage to their etymologies, to follow the guidance of these, and by the same aid to trace the lines of demarcation which divide them. For I cannot but think it an omission in a very instructive little volume upon synonyms edited by the late Archbishop Whately, and a partial diminution of its usefulness, that in the valuation of words reference is so seldom made to their etymologies, the writer relying almost entirely on present usage and the tact and instinct of a cultivated mind for the appreciation of them aright. The accomplished author (or authoress) of this book indeed justifies this omission on the ground that a work on synonyms has to do with the present relative value of words, not with their roots and derivations; and, further, that a reference to these often brings in what is only a disturbing force in the process, tending to confuse rather than to clear. But while it is quite true that words will often ride very slackly at anchor on their etymologies, will be borne hither and thither by the shifting tides and currents of usage, yet are they for the most part still holden by them. Very few have broken away and drifted from their moorings altogether. A 'novelist,' or writer of new tales in the present day, is very different from a 'novelist' or upholder of new theories in politics and religion, of two hundred years ago; yet the idea of newness is common to them both. A 'naturalist' was once a denier of revealed truth, of any but natural religion; he is now an investigator, often a devout one, of nature and of her laws; yet the word has remained true to its etymology all the while. A 'methodist' was formerly a follower of a certain 'method' of philosophical induction, now of a 'method' in the fulfilment of religious duties; but in either case 'method' or orderly progression, is the central idea of the word. Take other words which have changed or modified their meaning—'plantations,' for instance, which were once colonies of men (and indeed we still 'plant' a colony), but are now nurseries of trees, and you will find the same to hold good. 'Ecstasy' was madness; it is intense delight; but has in no wise thereby broken with the meaning from which it started, since it is the nature alike of madness and of joy to set men out of and beside themselves.

And even when the fact is not so obvious as in these cases, the etymology of a word exercises an unconscious influence upon its uses, oftentimes makes itself felt when least expected, so that a word, after seeming quite to have forgotten, will after longest wanderings return to it again. And one main device of great artists in language, such as would fain evoke the latent forces of their native tongue, will very often consist in