An Outline of English Speech-craft

Chat-er-ed,

Flitt-er-ed,

Pock-et-ed,

Prat-el-ed

(prattled).

s strengthens the meaning of some root-heads, as: —

So, as an ending of the somely thing-name, it stretches its meaning from that of one to some ones, as a hand, hands– hands being more than a hand.

In the word-ending -st of black-est, the half-penning s freely forstrengthens black, and the dead-penning t seems to check its force, so that blackest means black strengthened, though not unboundedly so, but blackest of all the things taken with it.

-st has, I suppose, this meaning also as an ending of thing-names or time-words, as ‘to boast,’ the meaning of which is betokened by some other tongues to be to bow out much the breast or fore-body, the token of pride and boasting, as it is so often shown to our sight.

Bogan, to bow (Anglo-Saxon and Friesic), means ‘to boast.’

Friesic – ‘Thi mâgy bogade uppa sinra snôdhed.’ (The mâgy boasted (bowed) on his cunning.) —Oera Linda Book.

‘Hia bogath ìmmer over geda êwa.’ (They boast (bow) ever over good laws.) —Oera Linda Book.

The old British bard, Llywarch Hên, had in mind the same token of pride: —

– gnawd dyn
Bronrain balch

(It is common for a proud (or boasting) man to be bow- or bulge-breasted); and in the Holderness (Yorkshire) folkspeech they say ‘as bug (proud) as a dog wi’ two tails,’ and yet, to show that bug means a bow or bowedness, they say ‘as bug as a cheese.’

The Goodness of a Speech

The goodness of a speech should be sought in its clearness to the hearing and mind, clearness of its breath-sounds, and clearness of meaning in its words; in its fulness of words for all the things and time-takings which come, with all their sundrinesses, under the minds of men of the speech, in their common life; in sound-sweetness to the ear, and glibness to the tongue. As to fulness, the speech of men who know thoroughly the making of its words may be fullened from its own roots and stems, quite as far as has been fullened Greek or German, so that they would seldom feel a stronger want of a foreign word than was felt by those men who, having the words rail and way, made the word railway instead of calling it chemin de fer, or, going to the Latin, via ferrea, or than Englishmen felt with steam and boat, to go to the Greeks for the name of the steamboat, for which Greek had no name at all. The fulness of English has not risen at the rate of the inbringing of words from other tongues, since many new words have only put out as many old ones, as: —

(no saving of time here),

I have before me more than one hundred and fifty so taken English law-words which were brought into the English courts with the Norman French tongue; but English speech did not therefore become richer by so many words, because most of them thrust aside English ones. Judge took the stead of dema; cause of sác; bail of borh; and the lawyers said arson for forburning; burglary, for housebreach; and carrucate, for ploughland; and King Alfred gave to English minds the matter of Gregory’s Pastoral with a greater share (nearly all) of pure English words, than most English scholars could now find for it.

On clearness, it is to be feared that, notwithstanding the English may be clear in breath-sounds to the ear, there is often a want of clearness to the mind from the many pairs of words which have worn into the same sound, such as: —

and others; and from the use of Latin and Greek and other foreign words, which are used in other than their true first meanings, or the meanings of which the common folk do not understand.

Teleology is a word which I have just seen in a Dorset paper, as for the matter of a lately given lore-speech, ‘the examination or the discussion of the purposes for which things are created.’ Now, in English the word end means both a forending, or termination, and a purpose; but I do not think that telos (end) or teleosis, in Greek, means a purpose. Prothesis would most likely have been put for it by a Greek.

The Latinish and Greekish wording is a hindrance to the teaching of the homely poor, or at least the landfolk. It is not clear to them, and some of them say of a clergyman that his Latinised preaching is too high for them, and seldom seek the church.

Swan is a clue to the meaning of swanling but none of cygnet; and if a man knew that kyknos was the Greek for swan he might still be at a loss for the meaning of -et, which is not a Greek ending.

For sound-sweetness or glibness, we should shun, as far as we can, the meeting of hard dead breath-pennings of unlike kinds. We have in our true English too many of them, and some of them from the dropping of the e from the word-ending -ed, as in slep’t and pack’d (lip and roof, and throat and roof pennings, and in both cases hard dead pennings); and then, as if we had not enough of them, we have brought in a host more of such ones from the Latin, as in act, tract, inept, rapt.

Now, forbend is a softer-sounded word than deflect, since ct (kt) are hard throat and root pennings, very unhandy together, and the n of -nd is a mild half-penning, and d is a mild dead penning. So dapper is better sounded than adept, since p is a single hard penning between two free breathings, and pt are a hard lip and a hard roof breathing, unfollowed by any softer breathing.

It was against such harshness of hard unlike breath-pennings that Celtic speech took its markworthy word-moulding.

As a token of the readiness of two kindred breath-pennings to run into one, we may give the words of the Liturgy, ‘Make clean our hearts within us,’ for which a clergyman will hardly, without a pause and a strong pushing of the breath, help saying ‘Make lean our hearts within us.’

There came out in print some time ago a statement wonderful to me, that it had been found that the poor landfolk of one of our shires had only about two hundred words in their vocabulary, with a hint that Dorset rustics were not likely to be more fully worded. There can be shown to any writer two hundred thing-names, known to every man and woman of our own village, for things of the body and dress of a labourer, without any mark-words, or time-words, or others, and without leaving the man for his house, or garden, or the field, or his work.

notes

1

‘Enaid yr ymadrod yw’r ferf.’

2

See Table of Sounds, p. 1 (#pgepubid00003).

3

From cuðe.

4

The Welsh shows the source of this word in gair, a word; gair-ol, wordy.

5

The words of the latter row are not shapen, at once, from those of the first one. Such of the first as are not roots in -ing are fellow stems to the others. As, stem from the root sting, to be more or less stiff or steadfast: sting, a stang, a stake, a stick. Steg-me (Gr. stigma), stegm (stem). Stem is not from stick, but from the root.

6

In Welsh avon, a river, is from a time-word meaning to go on.