Hopkinsville Kentuckian. [volume] (Hopkinsville, Ky.) 1889-1918, 1899-01-10

soME THINGs ABoUT woRDs
Mary Of Them Have Completely Lost
Their First Meaning.

Mary Of Them Have Completely Lost
Their First Meaning.
Words are queer things in some re-
spects. Perhaps you think that they
have always mad the same meaning.
Forlnstance, that prevent and"char-
ity' and .'pitiful," and many others
! could mention, always meant just
what they do nowadays If you think
this, you greatly mistake.
Some words have, in the course of
several hundred years, so changed
their Specification that they mean the
very opposite of what they used to.
There is the common word ''pre-
vent" 1t comes from the Latin words
venir, to go, and pre-, before. Now
anyone can go before another for
either one Of two purposes. He may
90 in front of him, to help him along;
or he may come in front of him, to
push him back. Three hundred years
ago, this word prevent" meant the
former; it now means the latter. Now
sdays you prevent person by stop
ping him, your forefathers used to
prevent persons by assisting them
l. e., "going before" to lead them on,
as it were, by the hand, not to keep
them back and impede them, as pre-
vent means in these days.
"Quick" IS another word that has
changed its meaning. 1t used to
mean alive; ''quick and dead means
the living and the deceased. We do
not often use the word nowadays in
that sense.
Saints" once meant all holy per-
sons; now, it signifies chiefly dear per-
sons who are esteemed holy.
"Pitiful" meant showing pity; now,
it means, as you know, something en-
tirely different.
Gossip" is from two words
"God" and 'HSib;' and did mean God
parent; now, by a gossip, we under
stand a talkative, tale-telling person.
At the christening of Queen Eliza
beth, in his great play of Henry VIII,
Shakespeare makes the king say to
the God-parents:
MY noble Gossips. ye have been too prodi-
gal;
I thank We heartily; so should this lady,
| When she has so much English"
Another word that has lost its old
sense is sober Among us of to-day,
in ordinary use, the word means not
intoxicated. Some hundreds of years
ago, and in certain uses still, it had the
sense of sedate only; when we use it
in this way nowadays, we frequently
say sober minded" in order fully to
express our meaning
4Charity" now usually signifies the
] giving of aims to the poor. But not
SO in the early life of the word. 1t
then meant simply love-love to God
and to man.
The derivation Of words is also q
very interesting study. There is the
word husband" He is Cor ought ia
be) what his name indicates-the
house-bond.
"Wife" is another very interesting
word. It originally meant the one
who wove--weaying being a common
industry of women in other days.
"Saunter" is from saint-terre, or
holy land. When the Crusaders-who
had gone in great numbers to rescue
the Holy Land from the Saracen, who
had invaded and conquered ire
turned to their respective countries,
they had so long led the lazy life of the
soldier that they had acquired a slow,
indolent way of walking, and persons
| who would say of them; There is
one who has just come from saint
terre" Hence, saunter--to walk in
dclentiy, ieisurely.
Gospel is God's-spel, or good
tidings, Angel is a messenger;
"God," the good Being.-Golden
DAYS.