CHAPTER XVII

GENERALIZATION AND SPECIALIZATION OF MEANING

WHETHER in literature or in common talk, a word is never the exact sign of an unchangeable idea. Words are not mathematical formulæ. The character π always represents the same thing,- namely, the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter, or 3.14159 +. There cannot be two correct opinions about the meaning of the symbol. Take, on the other hand, such a word as boy or man or hatred or virtue. There may be a dozen opinions about the applicability of these terms to a particular person or quality. Science, it is true, aspires to absolutely definite nomenclature, but the technical denotements of science are not so much words as formulæ or hieroglyphics. At any rate, they stand outside of the domain of ordinary speech.

We need only consider what different ideas are attached by different persons to father, God, ruler, infidel, wealth, honesty, morals, patriotism, government, to see the inexactness of separate words as expressions of thought. It is only when words are put together and 'modified,' when they are expounded (by the circumstances or the context, or by stress and modulation of the voice), that we can interpret their meaning with much accuracy. The Clown's O Lord, sir!' in Shakspere was a good answer to all the remarks of the Countess.1 We may try the same

1 All's Well that Ends Well, act ii, scene 2.

experiment by uttering the interjection oh! in various ways. It will readily express surprise, indignation, pain, terror, joy, compassion, or we may use it simply to attract the attention of some one whom we wish to address.

So every language has its special stock of words that mean little or nothing, but may stand for almost anything. They are the counters and markers of the game of speech. Such words are, in Modern English, thing, affair, business, concern, regard, account, article, circumstance, fact, state, condition, position, situation, way, means, respect, matter. Each of these may, it is true, be used in a pretty definite sense, but they are also extremely common in the function indicated. We infer that they once meant something rather definite, but have gradually faded into their present vague and shadowy condition. And such is, in fact, their history.

Thus, state is L. status, 'the act or manner of standing,' 'attitude,' 'position.' The Latin word had taken almost all the senses in which we use state, general and particular, except that of a concrete body politic.' Estate, the same word in an Old French form, was formerly an absolute English synonym for state, but is no longer used in either the political or the vague sense, being more or less appropriated to 'property' (abstractly or concretely), and to 'condition in life.' Status we have borrowed again, intact, but in a comparatively limited sense. Position and situa

tion are similar to state in their literal meaning, but have not faded quite so much. Posture is vague in the posture of affairs,' but preserves its literal sense in most contexts. Condition, which has become quite as vague as state, is, literally, stipulation,' 'agreement,' or 'terms' (from L. con- and dico). Thing must have had a somewhat similar history. Its special modern sense of 'inanimate

object' (usually regarded as its 'real meaning') is certainly due to generalization. The Anglo-Saxon noun thing often meant terms,' and also 'a council or court,' and the verb thingian, 'to make conditions,' 'to arrange.' So be-dingen in German. Thing was the Old Norse word for a legislative and judicial assembly, as it still is in the Scandinavian languages. Thus, the Storthing (or Great Thing) is the Norwegian parliament. The word is thought to be cognate with L. tempus, the (fitting) time,' the right moment.' If so, we may feel confident that the oldest sense at which we can arrive in English is that which is agreed upon as fitting.' From the 'terms' of a bargain to a concrete object of value' is a short step,—and from this to 'anything' (actual or ideal) is no long stride.

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Circumstances, literally, 'things that stand round one,' has become so vague that we say, without hesitation, ‘under the following circumstances.' The phrase, it will be observed, includes three inconsistent expressions of direction or position: under, after, and around. Yet we

do not feel the inconsistency, and even those stylists who prefer in these circumstances' to under, rest undisturbed by the contradiction involved in following.

Such vague counters of the game change from generation to generation. Thus, in the Elizabethan time, gear was used almost as we use thing or matter: as, 'This is fine gear' for 'a fine state of things.' Similarly, effect was often used in the sense of fact or act, passage for act or action,' as in Fluellen's 'gallant and most prave passages at the pridge,' or in 'passages of proof' for 'facts of experience' Part was common for 'deed' (from the part or rôle one plays 1) and so on. On the other hand, fact 1 Cf. the Latin primas (secundas) partes agere.

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itself was less vague then than now. It often signified a ‘deed' or ‘act,' — especially wicked deed' or 'crime.' The different words which have so faded as to be mere synonyms for become are interesting. The old verb to worth (A.S. weorthan), cognate with Ger. werden, has disappeared, except in the poetical phrase, Woe worth the day!' (i.e. May woe happen to the day!'), a curse used as an exclamation of sorrow. Become, once meaning 'arrive,' has taken its place, but is now so colorless that other more vivid words have been summoned to its aid. Thus we say: The weather grew cold,' He turned green with envy,' and in older English wax, 'to grow,' was similarly used, as in the biblical Jeshurun waxed fat and kicked.' Go, which has long been common in such phrases as 'go lame,' said of a horse, is somewhat overused by recent writers in expressions like 'she went white,' he went stale,' Old Adrian, penned in the landing corner, went gray of face,' and the like. Get is another synonym, as in 'to get tired,' and Coleridge's His chariot wheels get hot by driving fast.' It is peculiarly idiomatic in certain phrases, as to get rid of, to get angry.2 Martinets frequently object to these get's, because they think that the verb must always mean ‘to acquire,' but such an objection ignores all linguistic principles, as well as the facts of good usage.

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A striking example of 'fading' is seen in the terms for 'existence.' This fading is demonstrable in all the words for 'being' in our family of languages, except, apparently

1 Wax is one of those curious words which nobody uses, but everybody knows. Literature (particularly the Bible and Shakspere) still keeps it alive in its general sense, and it is specially applied to the increase of the

moon.

2 On these uses see C. A. Smith, in Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, XV, 108-10.

in is and its cognates, that is, in the group of Indo-European terms that come from the root ES. In fact, it is doubtful whether the primitive languages had any such category as being.'

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Important as a ‘copula ' seems to us for predication, it is certain that such a tool is really unnecessary, and that predication can be and is constantly performed without its aid. The mere naming of an object is a true predication, and the first person who called men 'mortals' asserted the mortality of man quite as effectively as the logician with his All men are mortal.'

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Further, as a 'substantive verb,' the ancestor of our am and is (and the Latin sum, est) must have meant something far less abstract than pure existence' when it was first ventured on by the primitive language-maker of the Indo-European family. What was the sensuous idea behind these words we cannot now divine, whether it was 'breathe' or 'sit' or one of a thousand others. But that there was some sensuous image is proved by the analogy of all other words for being,' by the freedom with which adverbs of manner have been used from the earliest times with these ES-verbs,1 and finally by the constant effort of the poets to revivify such images by using words which actually mean something (as in Sophocles' Téλe, Virgil's 'incedo regina,' Scott's Breathes there a man?'). There was, then, a time when the primitive language-maker did not feel the need of an ergo sum, or a 'solvitur ambulando,' or of Dr. Johnson's vigorous action. Some sensuously observable idea was implied in the words which have now faded by abstraction into mere words for 'existence.'

1 As in How is he?' " 'He's not very well.' I am nicely, thank you!' So in Shakspere's Latin bene est.

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Compare the colloquial That's verily !' and the