The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1893-11-02
NOT NOW IN THE DICTIONARY.
Words That Have Gone Out of Use and
Are Merely Curtositfes.

Words That Have Gone Out of Use and
! Are Merely Curfosities.
Words, like dogs and bonnets. have
their day, and when that day is past
they seem to be laid on the shelf like
old-fashioned pieces of china, to be re-
garded only as curiosities. The die
+, tionary that still keeps them in re-
membrance. but marks them with the
| fatal 'obs" (obsolete), represents the
. closet shelf where the old china is still
! tolerated, not for its use or beauty, but
because of its very antiquity. Even
| the presence of these words in the
dictionary does not argue that they
are known outside of it. For only a
few weeks ago in an article describing
! the old piece of embroidery known as
| a sampler. the word "accend," in the
motto worked upon the sampler, was
corrected by the printer to accent"
May heaven accend thy words with
| power" Less than hundred years
ago accend meant to kindle, to set on
fire. Now it is marked obsolete in the
dictionary and no new word has come
to replace it. There seems no more
reason for it to be laid on the shelf
than for that little old-fashioned cream
pitcher with its quaint form and in
describable decoration of green lines
and purple dots that represent no vine
and flower known to botany, to be set
upon my chimney piece. 1t has not
outlived its usefulness just because it
is old. There are other words the
sAAs IL Id Al
rent in old-fashioned country places,
such as outlandcr, a foreigner, which,
| like its neighbor, outlandish. has taken
a meaning slightly uncomplimentary
, Aroynt, or aroint, meaning stand back
or get behind, is still used by the
millxmaid in speaking to the COW that
will not stand in her place to be MIXED.
| Contrast that fellow" one boy says of
another who leases him and the die
tionary says it means to make sad, but
] that it is obsolete.
| We Should not ascribe any departure
from what we are used to either in
| grammar or pronunciation, or meaning
of words, to the ignorance or stupidity
of the speaker. 1t may not be bad,
but only Anticipated English. Such as
ourn for ours, umbril for umbrella,
afeard for afraid, riz for risen, to ak
for ask, outen for put out or extin-
guish, even put them things away"
for those things. However. these ex-
| pressions have had their day and are
no longer good English, as they do not
| conform to the present use and custom
that must be the standard in speaking
| and writing. The same may be said of
certain ways of pronouncing words
now used only by uneducated or old
fashioned people, as contrary, mis-
shtevous, blasphemous instead of con-
trary, mischicvous, bdsphemous 1t is
| easy to prove that these are not mis-
| recommendations, but only an old pro-
| nunciation retained by the people
| after the educated classes had given it
| up.
| In southern Pennsylvania, where
many examples of metonomy have been
observed, cucumber is often replaced
| by the general name of pickle, as the
thrifty gardener, anticipating the
briny fate that awaits it. designates
the vine and It's fruit. Lantern, DR..
Johnson says, is by mistake often writ
| ten anthorn, because transparent
t~Cs.ses Tor cauutes were generally made
| of horn, and those who did not know
| the derivation of the word from the
| Latin lanterna were satisfied that this
was the true etymology. The wicket
basket-covered glass jars, used by
European peasants and sailors, were
| by them called Dame Jeannes."
Anglicized into demijohn. and known
to the colored servants on an old south
ern home as the Jimmy John" Ar
| chaic is another word that in common
use has lost its classic pedigree, and
| has degencrated into 'arkey," denot-
| ing something very old-fashioned, with
an imaginary reference to Noah's ark.
Words spelled one way and pronounced
another by some people who are what
some other people would call heavy"
are wreck, pronounced wraclx. which
gives us ''wrack and ruin" weapon.
which they turn into weepon, and
wound, which they rhyme with sound.
following the old photographer, who
tells us "wound, woond, is capricious
| novelty"
Another of this class of words is chan.
in some localities still pronounced chop.
Walker says the etymology of this
word will not suffer us to write it chop;
and universal usage will not permit us
to pronounce it chap So it must be
classsd among those incorrigible words.
the pronunciation and photography of
which must ever b. at variance. On
the other hand the Irish are reproved
by the same authority, in the year 1915,
for pronouncing palm. balm and psalm
as if spelled pawn, lawn and psawm,
and now with little less breath that
is the accepted way in England and
permissible in America. But will the
day ever come when a collision will
mean as it does in some places, any
large or remarkable kind of gathering,
even a funeral? 1t is probably a cor
Eruption of collision, for in the same
neighborhood two wagons running into
each other would be called collision.
Here, also, they say, instead of eight
ing lamp" making candles" and
anything that burns easily is ''combus-
tious" But the same prophecy was