Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1909-03-21


such ungrammatical expressions
as double comparatives and superlatives, and
he will probably resent the insinuation. Yet,
everyone who speaks English uses them to
as double comparative Furthermore" is
double comparative of fore" Near" is
really the comparative. of nigh; and SO
nearer" is literally "nigher-er" and near,
of the positive out" the comparative suffix
"''-er." and the double superlative suffix
most" containing the two forms ma" and
lest" Former" consists of fore" the
superlative INA" and the comparative er
This usage. moreover, is by no means confined
to English, even to the Teutonic languages
for in classic Greek the ordinary suffixeS for
both the comparative and the superlative were
double, and the regular superlative suffix in
Latin was triple.
verbs have also crept into good usage. 1t is
claimed that will . is really past tense and
means literally Ito have selected" Shall y
is known TO be a past tense, and perhaps its
literal meaning is ito have offended" hence,
to be under a penalty" Must" though
the past tense of the Anglo Saxon mot :"
Ought" is derivative of the Anglo-Saxon
"ahte," past tense of ali, which was itself
originally past tense. This and must are
the result of putting the causing action to rep
resent the resulting condition. This practice
is found to more or less extent in all Ian
guages: The Romans frequently used " have
81 have acquired" for Il possess, an almost
exact parallel of our much magned colloqual
expression have got"
A Graspine Word
THE verb "have" originally meant Ito
grasp; and it does not belle this definition
for there IS certainly more grasping word
in the whole English language. When our an
cestors said I'VE have a house built" they
meant that they possessed finished house,
which they may or may not have built them
selves. Then, by process of reasoning from
the result to the causing action, the expression
came to mean that they had built the house
they possessed, and finally the sense of pos
session was entirely superseded by the other
From this small beginning has been woven the
entire fabric of our perfect tense. By some
what different twist of meaning, the express
sion came to mean also that they were causing
house to be built. For this sense preserve
the original order of words, while we put the
participe Immediately after have" for the
other.
In English we have no future participle
This gap we fill by either the proposition to B"
and the infinltive, or the proposition for y
and the verbal noun in ing" The sentence,
81 have a book to read" or IL have a book for
reading, means simply that / have book
that will or can read But by process SINH
lar to that which has produced our perfect
tense. there has been evolved from the first
of these two constructions a whole conjuga-
ton expressing necessity or obligation; as, :" 1
have to read a book" meaning that l am
obliged to read book. This method of ex-
preston is used to fill out, and even to super
sede. the defective verb must"
The most unstable sound in our spoken
language is probably H; but in the number of
irregularities that appear in written English.
H is surpassed by N. An" none" mine, y
and thine" have all partly dropped the final
N, and. indeed we now generally look upon
"A. no my" and THY" as the regular
forms. While this change was going on, mis-
takes were sometimes made in dividing these
words from the following nouns and a num-
Der of these blunders have been perpetuated
in the written language. AN ewt was trans
formed into "a newt; mistaken division of
" an eke-name" LITERALLY IAN also-name y has
given us the word NICKNAME" and from an
ingot " has been produced "a ningot," or, as
use it to-day. "a nugget" The word nun
Gle, by which the professional testers addressed
their masters, was the result of putting my
nuncle" for mime uncle" The phrase for
the nonce" should be "for then once" in
which then is the dative case of the article
the"
On the other hand, a number of words have
lost an initial by reversal of this process.
Thus, we have "a numpire" transformed into
" an UMPIRE, "nauger" into ian anger"