The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1904-11-16
THE TRICKS OF TINE
CURIOUS CHANGES THAT HAVE BEEN
WROUGHT IN OUR DlCTION.

CURIOUS CHANGES THAT HAVE BEEN
WROUGHT IN OUR DlCTTON.
Some Striking Examples of the Dif-
ference In the Use or Meaning Of
Words That, Once of High Estate,
Are Now Looked Upon as "Slangy."
1t is now some 200 years since Dean
Swift proposed to establish in England
an academy, such as that Of France,
for correcting and ascertaining" the
English language. Are many people
aware what exactly would be the re-
suit Of an institution Of this kind!
Probably not, for its effects would
be mainly negative, and hence not
likely to attract attention, and few
men are philologists or even sufficient
" interested in the history of language
to realize that words are born and
live and die as we do, and that in the
interval they are subjected to insiGous
changes Of fashion-afecting them
where they can be affected in meaning
and spelling and pronunciaton-and
that a British academy. would put an
end to all this.
But as yet fate or chance or what
ever the god CT dictionaries may be
called has a free hand. And to the fact
that time plays such unkind pranks
upon poor harmless words, making
them vulgar, perhaps, or ridiculous, we
owe the lighter side Of philology. So
that when we take up an old version
Of the Bible-WycEf, say, or Cover
dale, OF Tyndale-we may read, with
feelings, perhaps, not Of unmixed rever-
ence, that the Lord ''trounced" Sisera
and all his host or that he snubbed his
people, or, looking a little further,
we may see the beloved Of King Solo
mon hopping" among the mountains,
and the apostles, or the long sklrted
elders Of Israel, rending their clothes
and skipping" out among the people.
"Lo," says Wyclif, 1:he shall not nappe,
neither slepe that kepth Israel" And
in translating Hebrews xii, %, But
ye are come unto an innumerable
company Of angels" Tyndale, in per-
feet confidence Of its fitness, uses the
unhappy expression, ga sight Of an
gels" But indeed we do not need to
80 so far back. Look at the seven
teenth verse Of the Seventh Psalm OF
our modern Bible. 'tHis mischief" "
says David, "shau return upon his
own head, and his violent dealing snail
come down upon his own pate
Some strange discoveries we make,
too, among the poets. "Ye sacred 'imps'
that on Parnasso dwell" sings Spenser
in an ardent invocation to the MUSES..
And let US look at the opening lines OF
another poem long forgotten:
O Israel! O household Of the Lord!
O Abraham's S 'bratsn o brood Of blessed
seed! {:
Brats and brood! Could we better this?
But poor Gascoigne intended neither
Jest nor profanity, and Milton, a great
er than. he, writes trus Of Chrlsts
temptation on the mountain, when sa-
tan, having shown him the kingdoms
Of the world, bears him back to the
wilderness:
Our Saviour, meek and with untroubled
mind,
After his aery jauut, though hurried sore.
Hungry and cold betook him to his rest
Strange that words which have been
applied with reverence to the highest
should fall so low.
But the hand Of time moves ever
slowly and touches gently, and these
changes, we may be sure, grotesque as
they seem to us, came very gradually.
We have but to think a moment to see
that something Of the kind is going on
now. Take the case Of pronunciation,
where we are dealing with what is
relatively obvious and simple, for ten
men can tell how a word is pronounced
Tor one who can say. what it means.
Have not many Of US heard old people
talk Of revenue or committee instead OF
revenue and committee, the first word
following the rule Of change in English
pronunciaton-that the accent should
be thrown back to the beginning-the
second being rare exception? And
did not Samuel Rogers complain that
the newfangled pronunciation balcony
made him sick? He, good man, had
been brought up to call it balcony, and
that is not so very long ago. So that
whether it goes by rule or by exception,
whether we are governed by law OF
chance, we have to face the certainty
that our pronunciation Of many words
will sound as old fashioned to our
grandchildren as committee does to us.
But whether it makes us feel young
OF whether it makes us feel old the
habit Of noticing words and Of inqulr-
ing into the origin Of common phrases
is an excellent one and unfortunately
not common. Take some Of the stock
political expressions one finds in eV-
cry newspaper, for example. The "man
in the street." whom the Boer war
made famous, has Emerson for his
parent. And Horace Walpole has the
phrase t'little islander" which has per-
haps a family likeness to the epithet
little Englander." And what Of slang
terms which we are accustomed to
think Of as American and modern and
wholly reprehensible? Alas, Horace
Walpole, the typical fine gentleman OF
the Georgian courts aEd literature,
talks-it is almost too shocking to re-
late-about sitting guzzling and OF
being cas- drunk as an OWL" both cpl
thets, we hasten to say, descriptive OF
others, not himself. And DR.. Burney,
the historian Of music and astronomy,
the friend of Johnson and Of Burke,
is actually found writing to his daush-
ter in 1895, ''The young Lady Spencer
and have become very thick" But,
roora c,,rpr;cior ctiJ1 that celebrated