Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1915-06-10
WORDS AS THE
SPOILS OF WAR
Language Is Enlarged or Modified
on the Battlefeld-The Present
Conflict Repeats History" as
Dictionary Maker.
BY RAYMOND G. FULLER

TOoCToR JOHNSON defined "lexicog-
~ rapher" as meaning "a maker OF die
tionaries, a harmless drudge" War IS not
exactly a photographer or harmless drudge
but II is maker Of dictionaries. War aug
ments slang and enriches language. More
over. slang enriches language, though the
examples Of the slang Of the European
trenches. as quoted in a previous article
seem to give little promise as yet OF so
beneAcent result But slang today, good
usage tomorrow" II Is said, and sometimes
Il Is true.
There are, OF course innumerable natural
ized immigrant words in the English Ian
glage. and many Of them have been brought
TO us by returning soldiers. At first these
linguistic spolls are frowned upon. The Lon
don Times recalls what Addison thought
about the matter. "The humorous paper IN
the Spectator I'm which Addison reprobates
this adulteration Of our tongue, half IN
earnest and half I'm Jest, Is one OF the most
curious Illustrations which exist Of the
rapidty with which the tongue grows and
Of the process by which It assmllates ana
rejects words Of foreign origin. The writer
protests that he has nowhere read how Ed
ward III 'reconnoitered' the enemy or heard
of tho Black Prince crossing rivers with the
aid Of pontoons,' and he gives the letter Of
young officer from the front In the Blenheim
campaign as an example of the extravaganza
employment Of French terms. The officers
father, we are told nearly disinherted him.
because as neither the old gentleman him
self nor the curate, whom he looked upon
as learned man, understood them he sus-
pected that his son-who when writing for
money spoke intelgibly enough-was ban
u-t,, v,ot
the public prints, some days after showed
that he only writ as other men,
Battaions on an English Footing
Most Of the Gallicsms condemned by so
accomplished a master Of pure English as
Addison have become part Of our everyday
speech. We have rejected 'hauteur' for
height but we talk Of marching through
'defles,' Of "marauding.' of 'battaons,' Of
corps and of commandants without the
least suspicion that we are using words
which were of dubious Englishry only two
centuries ago"
One OF the later stages in the naturali2a-
tlon of words is eXemplifed in a story told
of Lord Palmerston. The British Minister
grievousy offended a charge d'affaires who
had written "battalions" by remarlSng Tell
A. b. to direct his amanuensis to place his
battalons on the English and not tho
French footing" The aggrieved man re-
torted that "amanuensis" was not English.
There is not little romantic interest in
the genealogical history of many of our war
terms. In running over the current express
sions we find a curious interchange Of root
and derivative whereby we see that nearly
every nation has taken prisoner in it's own
tongue an expression which at one time or
tl.- 80, tIa OF
least an alien nation An exception among
the war terms of our own language is the
word "shrapnel," which is not, as might be
supposed, a German word, but the name of
the British colonel who invented the deadly
missile.
Most of the titles of officers have Latin
derivations. which is rather n careless thing
TO say in view Of the debt OF most modern
languages to that ancient one. General"
major" and captain" Immediately come to
mind as illustrations. Our curIously pro-
nounced colonel" is decidedly un-Englsh.
It is inherited from the Italian, where "colon-
nello," the dimlnutive of "colonna" (Latin,
"columna'O or column, came to signify not
only a column of stone, but a column of men
as well, The officer of little column" was
given the title of his command
w mere var CdIle FROM
Pro-ally partisans will see a certain fitness
in the fact that war began in Germany
in the guise of the old Germanic noun
"werra," 1t is a sort OF gentleman adven-
turer and has fought under many nags. It
appeared In Spain and Italy as guerra" and
in France as 'guerre."
The word 'musket" has an Italian deriva-
tion. from "moschetto." which was originally
times and in the Middle Ages the name
"muslSet" was used to designate a small
mortar which threw arrows, When gunpow-
der was invented a small cannon was called
"musket," and later the rife of the ordinary
infantryman earned the name, while the sol
dlers themselves were christened mus
keteers" Dragon" and "culrassier' come
from the French The shields OF the dra-
goons originally bore the figure of a dragon.
The word "uhlan" comes from the Turkish
"oglan" meaning youth" "Bayonet" takes
its name from the town of Bayonne, where
the inventor lived, and pistol" from the
Italian town. Pistoia, once famous for its
arms factories.
number of new words. many OF them
French, have already been generally adopted
In the British trenches. OF course they
have not become established in the language
but It is interesting to note. for instance
that '1iaison" has been borrowed for use In
other senses than the culinary or the amor,
Gus. 1t is applied TO the linking together
! of different armies or units. Similarly "de.
| CONNER" which properly means TO tax,
| the gum out OF" (as applied to silks ant
other stuffs), has come to signify on Eng
/ lish tongues ito dismiss from port"
The French soldiers and the journalist
OF the trenches-the men who are publishing
newspapers at the front-are using mar
mite" (saucepan) as meaning a heavy shell
"Zigouiller," a word borrowed from the vo
| ,,h,1ov,r tba Aparha and vnaauEn.. tfF,