A Book About Words. G. F. Graham
meet with this ending in words of purely Saxon origin. The termination of these was in Latin ‘tio;’ in French they appear in ‘tion;’ and in English the same ending (tion) is adopted. This Latin ending, ‘tio,’ is, however, sometimes found in French in the form son, which has thus been introduced into certain English words of this class. The Latin ‘ratio’ gave the French ‘raison’ and the English ‘reason.’ Again, ‘traditio’ in Latin became ‘trahison’ in French and ‘treason’ in English. But in many cases the French ending has not passed into English; for the words ‘declinaison,’ ‘conjugaison,’ ‘oraison,’ &c., appear in English as ‘declension,’ ‘conjugation,’ and oration, i.e. in their Latin rather than their French forms.
Another large class of originally Latin words appear in English with the ending ‘ty.’ These are all abstract nouns, which in Latin end in ‘tas.’ This final tas is expressed in French by té, and in English by ty. Thus the Latin ‘societas’ becomes in French ‘société’ and in English ‘society.’ In the same way, from the Latin ‘bonitas’ come the French ‘bonté’ and the English ‘bounty,’ &c.
In many of these cases we find two forms of the same word, each with its own meaning. One of these tends to the French, and the other to the Latin, in spelling; and it may be observed that the French has been more disturbed by contraction, abbreviation, or inversion than the Latin. For example, the two words ‘secure’ and ‘sure’ are both originally from the Latin ‘securus;’ but the former is directly from Latin, whereas the latter is from the French contracted form—‘sûr.’
Another pair of these double forms may be found in ‘hospital’ and ‘hôtel.’ The Latin ‘hospes’ signified either a ‘host’ or a guest, i.e. the entertainer or the entertained. From ‘hospitalis’ came the contracted French form ‘hôtel,’ in the sense of a house where guests or travellers are entertained, as distinguished from ‘hôpital,’ where invalids are taken care of. From the French both these words came into English, each retaining its original meaning.
This principle of a divided meaning is also seen in ‘persecute’ and ‘pursue,’ the latter of which was known in English before we became acquainted with the former. ‘Pursue’ is from the French ‘poursuivre,’ and is used in the general sense of following after eagerly. ‘Persecute,’ from the Latin ‘persecutus,’ the participle of ‘persĕqui,’ is distinguished from ‘pursue’ by the meaning of ‘to follow after with an intent to injure.’
Two other words of this class are ‘superficies’ and ‘surface.’ The former is pure Latin; and is compounded of ‘super,’ ‘upon,’ and ‘facies,’ a face. But this word is only used in a scientific or mathematical sense; whereas ‘surface’ has a more general signification, and means whatever we can see of the outside of any material substance.
We find a similar difference of meaning, as well as form, between ‘potion’ and ‘poison.’ Both these came originally from the Latin ‘potare,’ to drink. The former is the direct Latin, the latter the French form, and both are now English. But the second denotes a species of the first; for ‘poison,’ as is well known, is that species of ‘potion’ which destroys life.
This power of dividing a word into two meanings is not peculiar to English; for many instances of it may be found in German, French, and Italian. But it is of great advantage. It has the effect of providing a large number of terms to express shades of thought by slight differences of meaning, and it thus materially assists in making language a more perfect exponent of human thought.
The following list exhibits some of these double forms:—
| outer | utter | nib | neb | |
| morrow | morn | person | parson | |
| lance | launch | beacon | beckon | |
| wine | vine | to | too | |
| wind | vent (peg) | tone | tune | |
| wise | guise | discreet | discrete | |
| why | how | sauce | souse | |
| wagon | wain | scatter | shatter | |
| deploy | display | stick | stitch | |
| cattle | chattels | cap | cape | |
| cross | cruise | quell | kill | |
| milk | milch | glass | glaze | |
| make | match | grass | graze | |
| metal | mettle | &c. | &c. |
III. The third division of this class consists of Low Latin, or, as they are sometimes called, ‘monkish Latin’ words. These have their origin in classical Latin; but they are all corruptions of that language, and were formed at a time when it had fallen into decay. To this division belong such English words as ‘chance,’ ‘esquire,’ ‘ewer’, ‘forest,’ ‘justle,’ ‘manage,’ ‘noise,’ ‘noon,’ ‘pillage,’ ‘rear,’ &c. In all these we may recognise a Latin origin, though the words themselves were unknown to the ancient Romans.
From the Greek verb ‘βάλλειν,’ to cast, probably came the Italian ‘ballo,’ the French ‘bal,’ and the English ‘ball.’ Playing at ball was, in the middle ages, often associated with singing and dancing. Hence the Romance word ‘ballare,’ and the Old Spanish ‘ballar,’ which both meant ‘to sing.’ The French ‘ballade’ and the English ‘ballad’ may be thus accounted for. Apropos of ‘ball,’ it may be here noted that the word ‘bull,’ as in the ‘Pope’s bull,’ is derived from ‘bulla,’ the Latin for ‘ball.’ It was the custom, in the middle ages, after writing any document or letter, to affix to it a seal in the form of a ‘ball,’ so that the Pope’s ‘bull’ really means the Pope’s ‘ball.’
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