Chapter 6

In writing and conversation we should employ words to explain, to define and describe, which are better understood than those things of which we speak. The pedantry of some modern writers in this respect is ridiculous. Not satisfied to use plain terms which every body can understand, they hunt the dictionaries from alpha to omega, and not unfrequently overleap the "king's english," and ransack other languages to find an unheard of word, or a list of adjectives never before arranged together, in so nice a manner, so that their ideas are lost to the common reader, if not to themselves. This fault may be alleged against too many of our public speakers, as well as the affected gentry of the land. They are like Shakspeare's Gratiano, "who speaks an infinite deal of nothing, more than any man in all Venice; his reasons are as two grains of wheat hid in two bushels of chaff: you shall seek all day ere you find them; and, when you have found them, they are not worth the search." Such sentences remind us of the painting of the young artist who drew the form of an animal, but apprehensive that some might mistake it, wrote under it, "_This is a horse._"

In forming our notions of what is signified by an adjective, the mind should pause to determine the meaning of such word when used as a distinct name for some object, in order to determine the import of it in this new capacity. A _tallow_ candle is one made of a substance called tallow, and is employed to distinguish it from wax or spermaceti candles. The adjective in this case, names the article of which the candle is made, and is thus a noun, but, as we are not speaking of tallow, but of candles, we place it in a new relation, and give it a new grammatical character. But you will perceive the correctness of a former assertion, that all words may be reduced to two classes, and that adjectives are derived from nouns or verbs.

But you may inquire if there are not some adjectives in use which have no corresponding verb or noun from which they are derived. There are many words in our language which in certain uses have become obsolete, but are retained in others. We now use some words as verbs which originally were known only as nouns, and others as nouns which are unknown as verbs. We also put a new construction upon words and make nouns, verbs and adjectives promiscuously and with little regard to rule or propriety. Words at one time unknown become familiar by use, and others are laid aside for those more new or fashionable. These facts are so obvious that I shall be excused from extending my remarks to any great length. But I will give an example which will serve as a clew to the whole. Take the word _happy_, long known only as an adjective. Instead of following this word _back_ to its primitive use and deriving it directly from its noun, or as a past participle, such as it is in truth, we have gone _forward_ and made from it the noun _happiness_, and, in more modern days, are using the verb _happify_, a word, by the way, in common use, but which has not yet been honored with a place in our dictionaries; altho Mr. Webster has given us, as he says, the _unauthorised_ (un-author-ised) word "_happifying_." Perhaps he had never heard or read some of our greatest savans, who, if not the authors, employ the word _happify_ very frequently in the pulpit and halls of legislation, and at the bar, as well as in common parlance.

_Happy_ is the past participle of the verb _to hap_, or, as afterwards used, with a nice shade of change in the meaning, _to happen_. It means _happied_, or made happy by those favorable circumstances which have _happened_ to us. Whoever will read our old writers no further back than Shakspeare, will at once see the use and changes of this word. They will find it in all its forms, simple and compound, as a verb, noun, and adjective. "It may _hap_ that he will come." It happened as I was going that I found my lost child, and was thereby made quite happy. The man desired to _hap_pify himself and family without much labor, so he engaged in speculation; and _hap_pily he was not so _hap_less in his pursuit of _hap_piness as often _hap_pens to such _hap_-hazard fellows, for he soon became very _hap_py with a moderate fortune.

But to the question. There are many adjectives in our language which are borrowed from foreign words. Instead of _adjectiving_ our own nouns we go to our neighbors and _adjective_ and anglicise [english-ise] their words, and adopt the pampered urchins into our own family and call them our favorites. It is no wonder that they often appear aukward and unfamiliar, and that our children are slow in forming an intimate acquaintance with them. You are here favored with a short list of these words which will serve as examples, and enable you to comprehend my meaning and apply it in future use. Some of them are regularly used as adjectives, with or without change; others are not.

ENGLISH NOUNS. FOREIGN ADJECTIVES.

Alone Sole, solitary Alms Eleemosynary Age Primeval Belief Credulous Blame Culpable Breast Pectoral Being Essential Bosom Graminal, sinuous Boy, boyish Puerile Blood, bloody Sanguinary, sanguine Burden Onerous Beginning Initial Boundary Conterminous Brother Fraternal Bowels Visceral Body Corporeal Birth Natal, native Calf Vituline Carcass Cadaverous Cat Feline Cow Vaccine Country Rural, rustic Church Ecclesiastical Death Mortal Dog Canine Day Diurnal, meridian, ephemeral Disease Morbid East Oriental Egg Oval Ear Auricular Eye Ocular Flesh Carnal, carnivorous Father Paternal Field Agrarian Flock Gregarious Foe Hostile Fear Timorous, timid Finger Digital Flattery Adulatory Fire Igneous Faith Fiducial Foot Pedal Groin Inguinal Guardian Tutelar Glass Vitreous Grape Uveous Grief Dolorous Gain Lucrative Help Auxiliary Heart Cordial, cardiac Hire Stipendiary Hurt Noxious Hatred Odious Health Salutary, salubrious Head Capital, chief Ice Glacial Island Insular King Regal, royal Kitchen Culinary Life Vital, vivid, vivarious Lungs Pulmonary Lip Labial Leg Crural, isosceles Light Lucid, luminous Love Amorous Lust Libidinous Law Legal, loyal Mother Maternal Money Pecuniary Mixture Promiscuous, miscellaneous Moon Lunar, sublunary Mouth Oral Marrow Medulary Mind Mental Man Virile, male, human, masculine Milk Lacteal Meal Ferinaceous Nose Nasal Navel Umbilical Night Nocturnal, equinoctial Noise Obstreperous One First Parish Parochial People Popular, populous, public, epidemical, endemical Point Punctual Pride Superb, haughty Plenty Copious Pitch Bituminous Priest Sacerdotal Rival Emulous Root Radical Ring Annular Reason Rational Revenge Vindictive Rule Regular Speech Loquacious, garrulous, eloquent Smell Olfactory Sight Visual, optic, perspicuous, conspicuous Side Lateral, collateral Skin Cutaneous Spittle Salivial Shoulder Humeral Shepherd Pastoral Sea Marine, maritime Share Literal Sun Solar Star Astral, sideral, stellar Sunday Dominical Spring Vernal Summer Estival Seed Seminal Ship Naval, nautical Shell Testaceous Sleep Soporiferous Strength Robust Sweat Sudorific Step Gradual Sole Venal Two Second Treaty Federal Trifle Nugatory Tax Fiscal Time Temporal, chronical Town Oppidan Thanks Gratuitous Theft Furtive Threat Minatory Treachery Insidious Thing Real Throat Jugular, gutteral Taste Insipid Thought Pensive Thigh Femoral Tooth Dental Tear Lachrymal Vessel Vascular World Mundane Wood Sylvan, savage Way Devious, obvious, impervious, trivial Worm Vermicular Whale Cutaceous Wife Uxorious Word Verbal, verbose Weak Hebdomadal Wall Mural Will Voluntary, spontaneous Winter Brumal Wound Vulnerary West Occidental War Martial Women Feminine, female, effeminate Year Annual, anniversary, perennial, triennial

Such are some of the adjectives introduced into our language from other nations. The list will enable you to discover that when we have no adjective of our own to correspond with the noun, we borrow from our neighbors an adjective derived from one of their nouns, to which we give an english termination. For example:

_English Noun._ _Latin Noun._ _Adjective._

Boy Puer Puerile Grief Dolor Dolorous Thought Pensa Pensive Wife Uxor Uxorious Word Verbum Verbal, verbose Year Annum Annual Body Corpus Corporeal Head Caput Capital Church Ekklesia (_Greek_) Ecclesiastical King Roi (_French_) Royal Law Loi " Loyal

It is exceedingly difficult to understand the adjectives of many nouns with which we are familiar, from the fact above stated, that they are derived from other languages, and not our own. The most thoro scholars have found this task no easy affair. Most grammarians have let it pass unobserved; but every person has seen the necessity of some explanation upon this point, to afford a means of ascertaining the etymological derivation and meaning of these words. I would here enter farther into this subject, but I am reminded that I am surpassing the limits set me for this course of lectures.

The attention I have bestowed on this part of the present subject, will not be construed into a mere verbal criticism. It has been adopted to show you how, in the definition or description of things, the mind clings to one thing to gain some information concerning another. When we find a thing unlike any thing else we have ever known, in form, in size, in color, in every thing; we should find it a difficult task, if not an impossibility, to describe it to another in a way to give any correct idea of it. Having never seen its like before, we can say little of its character. We may give it a _name_, but that would not be understood. We could say it was as large as--no, it had no size; that it was like--but no, it had no likeness; that it resembled--no, it had no resemblance. How could we describe it? What could we say of it? Nothing at all.

What idea could the Pacha of Egypt form of ice, having never seen any till the french chemists succeeded in freezing water in his presence? They told him of ice; that it was _cold_; that it would freeze; that whole streams were often frozen over, so that men and teams could walk over them. He believed no such thing--it was a "christian lie." This idea was confirmed on the first trial of the chemists, which failed of success. But when, on the second attempt, they succeeded, he was all in raptures. A new field was open before him. New ideas were produced in his mind. New qualities were learned; and he could now form some idea of the _ice_ bergs of the north; of _frozen_ regions, which he had never seen; of _icy_ hearts, and storms of _frozen_ rain.

We often hear it said, such a man is very _stoical_; another is an _epicurean_; and another is a _bacchanal_, or _bacchanalian_. But what idea should we form of such persons, if we had never read of the Stoics and their philosophy; of Epicurus and his notions of happiness and duty; or of Bacchus, the god of wine and revelry, whose annual feasts, or Dionysia, were celebrated with the most extravagant licentiousness thro out Greece and Rome, till put down by the Senate of the latter.

You can not fail to see the importance of the knowledge on which we here insist. The meaning you attach to words is exceedingly diverse; and hence you are not always able to think alike, or understand each other, nor derive the same sentiment from the same language. The contradictory opinions which exist in the world may be accounted for, in a great measure, in this way. Our knowledge of many things of which we speak, is limited, either from lack of means, or disposition to employ them. People always differ and contend most about things of which they know the least. Did we all attach the same meaning to the same words, our opinions would all be the same, as true as the forty-fifth problem of Euclid. How important, then, that children should always be taught the same meaning of words, and learn to use them correctly. Etymology, viewed in this light, is a most important branch of science.

Whenever a word is sufficiently understood, no adjective should be connected with it. There is a ridiculous practice among many people, of appending to every noun one or more adjectives, which have no other effect than to expose their own folly. Some writers are so in the habit of annexing adjectives to all nouns, that they dare not use one without. You will not unfrequently see adjectives different in form, added to a noun of very similar meaning; as, sad melancholy, an ominous sign, this mundane earth, pensive thoughts.

When words can be obtained, which not only name the object, but also describe its properties, it should be preferred to a noun with an adjective; as _pirate_, for _sea robber_; _savan_, for a _learned_ or _wise man_.[4]

In relation to that class of adjectives derived from verbs, we will be brief. They include what have been termed participles, not a distinct "part of speech," but by some included in the verbs. We use them as adjectives to describe things as standing in some relation to other things on the account of the action expressed by the verb from which they are derived. "The man is respected." _Respected_, in this case, describes the man in such a relation to those who have become acquainted with his good qualities, that he now receives their respect. He is respect_able_, (_able_ to command, or worthy of respect,) and of course, respected for his respectability. To avoid repetition, we select different words to assist in the expression of a complex idea. But I indulge in phrases like the above, to show the nice shades of meaning in the common use of words, endeavoring to analyze, as far as possible, our words and thoughts, and show their mutual connexion and dependencies.

What has been termed the "present participle" is also an adjective, describing things in their present condition in reference to actions. "The man is writing." Here, _writing_ describes the man in his present employment. But the consideration of this matter more properly belongs to the construction of sentences.

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There is another class or variety of words properly belonging to this division of grammar, which may as well be noticed in this place as any other. I allude to those words generally called "Prepositions." We have not time now to consider them at large, but will give you a brief view of our opinion of them, and reserve the remainder of our remarks till we come to another part of these lectures.

Most of the words called prepositions, in books of grammar, are participles, derived from verbs, many of which are still in use, but some are obsolete. They are used in the true character of adjectives, _describing one thing by its relation to another_. But their meaning has not been generally understood. Our dictionaries have afforded no means by which we can trace their etymology. They have been regarded as a kind of cement to stick other words together, having no meaning or importance in themselves.[5] Until their meaning is known, we can not reasonably expect to draw them from their hiding places, and give them a respectable standing in the transmission of thought.

Many words, from the frequency of their use, fail to attract our attention as much as those less employed; not because they are less important, but because they are so familiarly known that the operations of thought are not observed in the choice made of them to express ideas. If we use words of which little is known, we ponder well before we adopt them, to determine whether the sense usually attached to them accords exactly with the notions we desire to convey by them. The same can not be said of small words which make up a large proportion of our language, and are, in fact, more necessary than the others, in as much as their meaning is more generally known. Those who employ carriages to convey their bodies, observe little of their construction, unless there is something singular or fine in their appearance. The common parts are unobserved, yet as important as the small words used in the common construction of language, the vehicle of thought. As the apostle says of the body politic, "those members of the body, which seem to be more feeble, are necessary;" so the words least understood by grammarians are most necessary in the correct formation of language.

It is an easy matter to get along with the words called prepositions, after they are all learned by rote; but when their meaning and use are inquired into, the best grammarians have little to say of them.

A list of prepositions, alphabetically arranged, is found in nearly every grammar, which scholars are required to commit to memory, without knowing any thing of their meaning or use, only that they are prepositions when an objective word comes after them, _because the books say so_; but occasionally the same words occur as adverbs and adjectives. There is, however, no trouble in "parsing" them, unless the list is forgotten. In that case, you will see the pupil, instead of inquiring after the meaning and duty of the word, go to the book and search for it in the lists of prepositions or conjunctions; or to the dictionary, to see if there is a "_prep._" appended to it. What will children ever learn of language in this way? Of what avail is all such grammar teaching? As soon as they leave school it is all forgotten; and you will hear them say, at the very time they should be reaping the harvest of former toil, that they once understood grammar, but it is all gone from them. Poor souls! their memory is very treacherous, else they have never learned language as they ought. There is a fault somewhere. To us it is not difficult to determine where it is.

That certain words are prepositions, there can be no doubt, because the books say they are; but _why_ they are so, is quite another matter. All we desire is to have their meaning understood. Little difficulty will then be found in determining their use.

I have said they are derived from verbs, many of which are obsolete. Some are still in use, both as verbs and nouns. Take for example the word =with=. This word signifies _joined_ or _united_. It is used to show that two things are some how joined together so that they are spoke of in connexion. It frequently occurs in common conversation, as a verb and noun, but not as frequently in the books as formerly. The farmer says to his _hired_ man, "Go and get a _withe_ and come and _withe_ up the fence;" that is, get some pliant twigs of tough wood, twist them together, and _withe_ or bind them round these posts, so that one may stand firm _with_, or _withed_ to, the other. A book _with_ a cover, is one that has a cover _joined_, bound, or attached to it. "A father _with_ a son, a man _with_ an estate, a nation _with_ a constitution." In all such cases _with_ expresses the relation between the two things mentioned, produced by a _union_ or connexion with each other.[6]

=In= is used in the same way. It is still retained as a noun and is suspended on the signs of many public houses. "The traveller's _inn_," is a house where travellers _in_ themselves, or go _in_, for entertainment. It occurs frequently in Shakspeare and in more modern writers, as a verb, and is still used in common conversation as an imperative. "Go, _in_ the crops of grain." "_In_ with you." "_In_ with it." In describes one thing by its relation to another, which is the business of adjectives. It admits of the regular degrees of comparison; as, _in_, _inner_, _innermost_ or _inmost_. It also has its compounds. _In_step, the _inner_ part of the foot, _in_let, _in_vestment, _in_heritance. In this capacity it is extensively used under its different shades of meaning which I cannot stop to notice.

=Of= signifies _divided_, _separated_, or _parted_. "The ship is _off_ the coast." "I am bound _off_, and you are bound _out_." "A part _of_ a pencil," is that part which is _separated_ from the rest, implying that the act of _separating_, or _offing_, has taken place. "A branch _of_ the tree." There is the tree; this branch is from it. "Our communication was broken _off_ several years ago." "Sailors record their _off_ings, and parents love their _off_spring," or those children which sprung from them.[7] "We also _are his offspring_;" that is, sprung from God.[8] In all these, and every other case, you will perceive the meaning of the word, and its office will soon appear essential in the expression of thought. Had all the world been a compact whole, nothing ever separated from it, we could never speak of a part _of_ it, for we could never have such an idea. But we look at things, as separated, divided, parted; and speak of one thing as separated from the others. Hence, when we speak of the part of the earth we inhabit, we, in imagination, separate it from some other _part_, or the general whole. We can not use this word in reference to a thing which is indivisible, because we can conceive no idea of a part _of_ an indivisible thing. We do not say, a portion _of_ our mind taken as a whole, but as capable of division. A share _of_ our regards, supposes that the remainder is reserved for something else.

=Out=, out_er_ or utter, outer_most_ or utmost, admits of the same remark as _in_.

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