Eureka daily sentinel. [volume] (Eureka, Nev.) 1871-1887, 1883-07-12
the STUDY OF WORDS.

Bishop Trench, the great Euglish
aud p~hilologist, in his celebrated
work on the study Of words, says there
$ often more history to be found in a
single word than in the narrative of a
whole campaign. 1t is he also who
.ays that to the young man the FIRST re-
that words are living powers
is like the dropping Of scales from his
eyes or the acquisition Of another sense.
The remarks of the eminent English
men are recalled by the recent use of
several words by some of his fellow
countrymen in Eureka, words that the
present writer had either never heard
before or else were used on the occasion
referred to in a sense that struck him as
novel and entertaining. for example,
terms '~'stickler" and ''fagiting." We
refer to the phraseology employed at
the wrestling tournament among the
Cornish miners at the Rink last Satur-
day and Sunday. Their use Of the word
"stickler" suggests a very interesting
period in the history Of our English fore
fathers. After the conquest of England
by William Of Normandy it was the en-
deavor of the Conqueror not only to
keep the conquered people under subjec-
ton to his rule by the force Of arms, but
to destroy the Saxon language and re-
quire the vanquished to speak Norman
French in its place, shrewdly specializing
to ultimately deprive them thereby OF
n Of the most powerful incentives to
freedom, their native tongue, which was
freighted with precious memories OF
their ancestors and Of their country
which they loved as life itself. The
turmoil Of actual war having once sub
sided, a conflict of languages ensued, the
spirit Of which is sketched with a mas
terly hand by Sir Walter Scott in "Ivan-
hoe" and which, to persons of scholarly
taste, forms the most interesting part Of
that remarkable novel. The author
shows how q Norman word and a Saxon
word Of the same meaning pitted, against
each other as a brace OF soldiers from
the hostile lands, would struggle for the
supremacy. Sometimes one of the syn
onyms would die in the pro-
longed contest, for the war Of
words, of course, lasted years.
and fall out of use altogether. In most
cases the victory would perch upon the
banner of the Conqueror's language as it
fought from vantage ground; but the
stubborn Saxon vocabulary could not be
crushed altogether from the tongues and
hearts Of that staiwart race Of men. No
foreign words could crowd cut father" "
''mother," SISTER" 'brother," "son,
daughter" and those other heartfal
ssliving powers" in which are stored up
the associations Of kin and the memories
Of familiar, home objects. In some in
stances both opposing words lived, but so
mangled and SO changed about in their
Specification that they seemed like
strangers to Norman and Saxon alike.
When the "villain"(a low fellow merely
brought Calls flesh on to the Lords
table it ceased to be such and became
s~sveal;" SO of ''sheep meat" and ''mut-
ton" but ''bacon" held its own, and SO
did 'tbeefsteak," which latter looks odd
enough crippled up in French type.
Now, to return to 'sticklers." Is it
doing any violence to word history, a
passage from which has just been cited
and hardly more than referred to, owing
to the economy Of space that compcls us
to the utmost brevity, to say that the
same interesting phenomenon reappears
in this word? Does it not appear evil
dent that the Cornish. in the obstinate
and unconquerable spirit Of the ancient
Saxons, have chung to it in its present
meaning, while the English-speaking
people everywhere else in England and
in America have let 20 their hold and
picked up substitutes for it from foreign
tonguesf Can it be explained on any
other hypothesis how we find Judge"
''rsferes." umpire" and arbitrator"
almost universally substituted for it,
There il no doubt, a Trench says Of
other 'living powers" that If the biogra-
ply Of the word "stiokler" were written
up it would be found to embody more
human history than that Of the most
startling military campaign on record.
Our bearings in regard to the word
"fagot" or ''fagit" and their dsrivitives
"fagotine' or ''fagiting' arc less definite.
1t is not unlikely that it may be traced
fairly to its origin in the old German
"iakk." later 'fsig." and the English
"fag." the broad primary Specification
Of which implies weariness and the SEN
sation Of being overcome by any force
whatever, and, secondarily. the pretense
Of being thus outdone. or, A. we say in
slang phrase, ''throwing Off while fsign-
ing to struggle.
1t has grown away from its primitive
meaning, certainly, but it has retained
its root, which goes down into Saxon
language history as far as it can be
traced. That it met the French '~'ennui'
and drove it from the field may be proved
as satisfactorily as any other fact the
proof Of which lies in so poorly kept and
dim . record as that of words of which
we find but the skeleton in such books a.
preserve hardly more than their ashes
while their spirit escapes beyond such
dustv prison lids.