The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1904-03-29
GOING TO THE BAD.
Even Words Have a Strong Tendency
That Way.

ALEU- way.
1T may seem whimsical to attribute
a quality of original sin to the diction-
airy, but there is certainly some ten
dency in words, as there is in human
nature, which makes for degeneracy,"
says a writer in the London Academy.
"A word comes into the world, like the
babe. in a state of innocence. Look at
it after few centuries, or even dec
AIDES. and the chances are that you will
find it coarsened, if not actually soiled.
To take a very simple and obvious in
stance: One would say that knowledge
was an idea so definite and excellent
that it could not take on any unworthy
significance. Yet to say that a person
is knowing is not always an unadul-
terated compliment; it suggests wis
dom plus certain other qualities which
had no place in the original meaning.
Still more sad is the case of the word
cunning etymologicaIly identical with
knowledge and now so far removed
from it that only the students of Ian
guage know they are related. Think,
too. of our forefathers' euphemism for
a witch-'wise woman'-wise with the
wisdom, as the cunning man is learn
ed with the knowledge of an inferior
world to this.
The same debasing principle may be
seen at work in such words as 'noto-
rious. Many living descendants of
Mrs. Malaprop use the word as if it
were a synonym of 'nota ble, not de-
tecting that the trail of the serpent is
already over it. The word has not yet
gone very far on the downward path
not so far, for instance, as 'enOrmity'-
but it has long since acquired the spe-
cific meaning of fame in the evil sense.
You call an anarchist notorious, but
not an archbishop. 1t is only within
recent times-probably since the arriv-
al of musical comedy-that that push
has been given to the word suggestive.
You may still speak with perfect cor
rectness of a suggestive book or a
suggestive sermon as one charged
with thought, and yet when you speak
of a suggestive play, it is not, as
rule, its intellectual quality to which
you wish to call attention. 1t is merely
by the differentiation of spelling-a
modern innovation-that the word
holiday has been saved from a SINH
lar. though not so sinister, double
meaning. Quite analogous is the
change in the use of the word imp
Did not Bacons Pathway Unto
Prayer ask US in to pray for the pres
ervation of the King, most excellent
majesty, and for the prosperous success
of his entirely beloved son, Edward our
Prince. that most angelic imp? A very
terrible instance of degradation is the
word silly, which has very nearly
completed the circle of significance. In
Anglo-Saxon times it meant simply
l.
ciated with the idea of harmlessness,
then of weakness, then of simplicity,
then of foolishness.
1.-The misadventures of silly are no
more pathetic than those of certain i'll
fated words which, in the whirligig Of
time, have come round to bear precise
ly the opposite of their original mean
ing We do not associate the word
'beldam' with beauty, and yet does it
not come from the French belle dame
fair lady? Did not Milton, without
the least idea of depreciation speak Of |
'beldam Nature?' Egregious' is anoth- |
er case in point. Etymologically mean |
ing a person apart-a sheep out of the |
f1ock-it is now used exclusively as a |
term of contume1y.
Probably Thackeray when he wrote |
Of drawing some one splendid and |
egregious,' was the last to use the |
word in its proper sense. Similarly, !,
had the word 'unspeakable' been ap-
Piled to the Turk or the Scot three |
hundred years ago, it would have been
very high praise indeed. 1t would then |
nave meant that their virtues could not I
De uttered st. Peter speaks of Joy |
In both cases it is easy
% see how the two meanings are as
ISOLATED, Just as one can still speak
If both pleasure and pain as exquisite
put the significant thing is that the
original and better meaning of eyre
rious' and 'unspeakable' has been en-
irely lost. 1t is this steady downward
propensity of the language which is so |
,uzzling.
Some few words remain in curious
itate of suspended significance. Just
s there are cases of blossom and fruit
,eing found on the same tree. so we
ave the anomaly in the dictionary OF
iemeanor' bearing the original mean
ng and 'demean' bearing the latter
nd acquired meaning. 'Demeanor,' OF
curse simply means behavior in a
neutral sense; it may be APP
lied to the king on the throne or the
riminal in the dock. Yet the verb
tarting from the same beginning. Is
ow specialized in a bad sense beyond
ope of recall. 1t is a dispiriting re-
lection that the whole trend of the
lnguage seems to be downward, that
is continually rushing over steep
lace like the Gadarene swine. What
, to be the end of it? 1t clearly means |
hat in the not very distant future
here will be much greater variety of
-ords to apply to the lower side of life
nan to the higher. The novelist of the
lture may have to be a realist simply
ecause of the greater specialization of
ne language. AS it is. any sub-editor
an tell you that there is a far larger
hcice of adjectives to be applied to
Ne abnormal and the terrible than to I