The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1873-05-10

So ret the hence, there Is no room for fools
yariou> Names in the English Language-An
! Intere,tin, and Highly Amusing Paper
Prof Scwall has a paper in the Ner Eng
|LIudsr on name Words in the Nernacular"
| Concciving the language To be a gallery OF art,
| Prof. Sewall takes the namc-words for the
| busts and statues and portraits contained in
| it, and goes on to speak of them individually
| Let us examine its treasures. The first sam
pies we should come to would be those III
which the name is directly affixed to the object
without change: as the Armstrong gun, KEN.
ington rifle, Minnie ball, Argand burner,
Drummond light, Mansard roof, Rabbit met
al, Baldwin apple, Graham bread. Proml.
nent natural object are often so distinguished,
as Hudson river Bunker Hill, Delaware bay
even to the stars, as HcrsChel and Lever
rer 1t is common to call mans works by
his name. whether hand-work or head-work,
Thus we do not read the plays of Shakespeare,
the poems of Wordsworth, the essays of Car
Ilyle-we read Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Car
| lylc. We call IA violin a genuine Amati. \
painting is a Rubens, Titan, a Turner, a
Eandykc' a Murillo. The temperature IS TO
many degrees Fahrenheit. a monstrous lie
is Munchausen. Such rs these are in COM
mon use and greatly enrich the defining pow
or of the language. In many instances OF
this direct application the thing which takes
the name goes off with it, and leaves the man
who furnished it forgotten. Joseph lgnace
Guillotine has disappeared behind the mach.
inc he introduced The Droll "Silhouetes'
in our magazines never remind us of the
French minister of finance whose logged
economy doomed his name to be affixed de
risiycly to the cheapest of all portraits. We
read of "lazarctto' without thinking of Lag
aruS Music" does not recall the muses., nor
noes Museum" nor Mosaic" There are
even traditions that the word derrick is all
that now remains of one TheodOrick, hang
man atTyburn, who long since vanished from
his CHASTITY stage.
Another class is made up of that immense
number of names which have received ter.
minaton and now do duty as adjectives Oar
winian, Baconian, Machiavcllian, Calvinistlc,
Copernican, Honeric, Mosaic, Pauline, Mo-
hammedan, etc. Carlyle speaks of Brum-
mellian politencss. James Russell Lowell
saws Wordsworthian, Lockist, Kantist, and
even Popist The only requisites for attain
ing to this much of fame are, first, TO bring
on some new thing in art, religion, philoso
phv, literature or state and secondly, to bear
a name which will make pronounceable adj
cctive We can call n stanza Spenserlan
Tennyssnian, AnaCreonic; but euphony would
30 mad over such terminals rs Moorc-an
keats.y, Southey-istic, GTthethy, LOngtellow-
inc, Thackcrav-ic however worthy of honor
those eminent names might be Some of
these namcadj ectives have become specit-
cally appropriated to a particular tact, ana
have no other application as Fabian, policy,
Torricelian vacuum, Elizabcthan aye, Ce-
sarean section Faliopan tubes, Gordian knot,
Justinan cone, Napoconis ideas. This is a
| ptr nj sal
for the description of scientific facts. The
same is true of the pOSScSsivc, for example:
Napier's logarithms, ArChimedcs' screw Hal
| ley's comet Glauber salt, Brights disease
each of which contains Il whole chapter OF
such current phrases rs llObSOn'S choice,
Pandora's box, and such pet pScudonyms rs
Paddy Carcy's chickens.
The most interesting class oftheSc personal
words is that in which the name lies unSus-
pected until driven from It's covert. 1t lScaSy
To recognize Mesmcr in ''mesmerism" Galvan
| in "galyanism," Daguerre in "daguerreotype.'
| We can readily guess why those irreverent
which will not yield to the hottest blast IA
",hadrach" King Mausolus affords us a
convenient term for our most sumptuous
tombS The prince of Latin orators dcScends
| to us in the modern Italian "ciCerOne." We
hear ofGerrymandering district, Rarefylngr
"A horse. Dunning q debtor out IIerOding He,
rod Such words carry their origin in sight
But when we hear of "maudlin" speech, W !,
get at first no hint of Mary Magdalen. r
"dunce" would never remind us of the subtr
| DR.. DunS SCotus, nor "pandcr" of the Tr(;
| Jun general Pandarus. 4 "paSquinade" tell,
us nothing about the mutiiatcd statue of III,
gladiator dug up three hundred years ago /
| Rome, and the snappish cobbler Pasquin vii
! lived opposite.
To return to our language, but few eSarA
ples will be required to show how largely
/ has assimlated this NEUROLOGICAL elemergt
The gods of Olympus have presided over hk
growth, and still live in such common ternr
AS "iovial J" martial" "saturine" "mercuriad
This last named deity served the alchcmte
under the guisc of quicksilver, and with b |
Greek name has furnished our theologu II
with their "hermencuticS." Bacchus dGrd
duty in our Christian civilization as n SYRIA
nym for the pleasure of dissipation, just itl
much as he did among the people who ptra
soniticd the vice and then worShiped il; ad
has a large following of bacchanalianS Ter
goddess who presided over harvest namous
our cereals. Another makes one maidens ND
tails, and the mosaic pms they wear connective
rate all the muses. together. Hymen and ic h
pid arr almost H. familiar pcrSonageS in
literature IL the events they inspire Nul
is still at his forge IN our volcanoes, and An
have 81 tar indebted his godShip aS tnum;
him Ia work yulcaniZing rubber We hes,
been taught To sing Great Pan is dead lan
he can he only conStructiycly dcfunct, foaor.
epiphany OF him occurs in every paIem
Pallas is commemorated in palladium. Euoy;
the two great systems by which sayants ne NJ
lat. o.,