foreign, alien. Often we cannot, without close scrutiny, tell which words are Latin and which are Anglo-Saxon. By some ear-marks, perhaps, but certainly not by their length, by their strangeness to him, or by his inability to handle them deftly, would any one of but average culture suspect that the following nouns, adjectives, and verbs belong to the Latin :

Age, art, cap, case, cent, cost, crust, fact, fault, form, ink, line, mile, noise, page, pain, pair, part, peace, pen, piece, pound, price, rule, soil, sound, ton, tone, and vail; apt, chief, clear, cross, crude, easy, firm, frail, grand, grave, just, large, lazy, mere, nice, pale, plain, poor, pure, rare, real, rich, round, safe, scarce, square, sure, vain, and vast; add, aid, aim, bet, boil, class, close, cook, cure, doubt, fail, fix, fry, mix, move, pass, pay, save, serve, strain, stray, train, try, turn, and use.

These, and hundreds of other short Latin words, as well understood as the simplest Anglo-Saxon, are mostly without Saxon equivalents. But even those with Saxon duplicates are almost equally necessary; they give to our speech a rich synonymy that aids us in making and in expressing the finer distinctions in thought.

Besides, the Latin are often (1) the most forcible words in English. What Anglo-Saxon verb of teaching matches in vigor inculcate to drive in with the heel? What other adjective denoting health has the strength of robust-oaken? Such words, unfortunately, are pregnant with meaning only to the etymologist. In this they differ from what the vigorous, self-explaining Anglo-Saxon words would have been had that element been fostered. They give (2) conciseness to expression; like canals across isthmuses they shorten the route. -witness mutual, reanimate, circumlocution. Oftener than the Anglo-Saxon they are (3) metaphorical, and flash upon the thought a poetic light; as, dilapidated, applied to for

tune or dress; ruined, to character; luminous, to expression. They impart (4) grace and smoothness to style-are the musical, melodious, and mellifluous words of the language. They give (5) pomp and stateliness to discourse, and make possible the grand manner of Sir Thomas Browne, of Milton, and of De Quincey. A vocabulary like ours, duly compounded of the Teutonic and the Romance, has a manifoldness and an abounding verbal wealth that adapt it to every kind of writing, and are wonderfully stimulative of it. And so, while the literatures in other languages excel, each in some single department, ours is confessedly eminent in all.

While it is difficult to exaggerate the work and the worth of the Anglo-Saxon in English, we must say that we deprecate what has been called the "violent reaction" that has set in, in favor of it-a reaction which, carried to the extreme, would practically disinherit us of vast verbal possessions. But, without any wish to champion the Latin element, we may safely say that this reaction cannot be carried to the extreme. As soon expect to drive us back to the ancestral tunic and to wooden trenchers, or attempt to squeeze the full-grown fowl into its native egg-shell again.

Hence we find the wise Alexander Bain breaking out, on the opening page of his work On Teaching English, into, "To write continuously in anything like pure Saxon is. plainly impossible. Moreover, none of our standard English authors, whether in prose or in poetry, have thought it a merit to be studiously Saxon in their vocabulary."

The words chosen should be appropriate to the topic, and level to the comprehension of those addressed. Thus much we may properly insist upon; but it would be unwise to encourage our pupils to seek for such words in the AngloSaxon element alone.

CHAPTER X.

SYNONYMS.

As preliminary to the treatment of synonyms, we wish to say that

XXXIII. Some Words Widen their Meaning.—This widening we will represent thus, <. The telescope has revealed many facts concerning the moon, unknown to those who named that body. But we have not dropped the name for another; moon remains, though it signifies now more than it did.

XXXIV. Some Words Narrow their Meaning. This narrowing we represent thus, ▷. Worm once had, in addition to its present meaning, all that snake, asp, serpent, and kindred words now express. Starve, in Chaucer, meant to die; now, to die of hunger, or, simply, to famish. Creatures meant all created things; now, only living things.

To this tendency synonyms conform; and this, whether they come, those of a group, from the different elements of our language or from the same element. The large ground of meaning once covered by both-symbolized by the space c in the first parallelogram below-is gradually divided between the two, until 1-2 and 3-4 have narrowed, each, we will say, to one-half of 1-4, and c has disappeared as common ground.

XXXV. The Relations of Synonyms to Each Other.-Synonyms are words, in groups of twos or threes or more, which

have a meaning in common, but have also each a meaning wholly its own. They abound in English. They come, oftentimes, those of a group, from the same element of our speech; frequently, from different elements. Their sources in English are largely the Anglo-Saxon and the Latin. When these were blending, the growing component had its choice between two words for the same thing. Often it chose one, but frequently it took both. Many of its early words the English has since duplicated or triplicated by borrowing directly from the Latin.

Restricting each word of a group to a part of the meaning once held in common by all is to make each word more specific; is, in reality, to add to the resources of the vocabulary. From the beginning of English, the movement has been one of desynonymization.

To exhibit the relation of synonyms to each other let us draw the parallelogram 1-4,

and divide it into the two parallelograms 1-2 and 3-4, with 3-2 forming part of each. Now let us suppose the area 1-2 to represent the ground of meaning covered by one synonym, and 3-4 that covered by the other. 3-2, or the space marked c, will then picture that shared by the two synonyms; a that which belongs exclusively to the first synonym; and b that which belongs exclusively to the second. When then, below, we use the letters a, c, b, it will be understood for what parts of the synonyms they stand.

Bear in mind that a and b do not give the full meaning of

the synonyms. Add c to a for the meaning of the first synonym, and c to b for that of the second.

If there are more than two in the group, conceive the parallelogram c to be extended upwards and downwards. Each extension plus c will then symbolize another synonym, and the complete figure will represent a group of four with the common meaning c.

Sometimes the relation of the synonyms to each other is such that it would be better illustrated by the parallelogram divided thus:

:

1

с

2

4

b

3

Here 1-2 and 1-4 represent the two synonyms; and c, their ground of common meaning, is all of the meaning covered by one of the synonyms-which synonym, then, has no meaning exclusively its own.

To the Teacher.-You must determine how much time can be spared for work upon the synonyms below, and what shall be the length of each lesson.

A.-S.=Anglo-Saxon ; L.=Latin; Gk.=Greek; C.=Celtic; S.= Scandinavian; A.=Arabian; I.E.=Indo-European; H.-Hebrew ; P.=Persian; and G.-German; F.=French, but not Latin.

Direction.-Study (1) the meanings which the synonyms below have in common; (2) that which belongs exclusively to each; (3) insert the right word in the illustrative sentences; and (4) frame sentences of your own, using each synonym correctly.

Bring and Fetch, both A.-S.; c, all that is expressed by bring to bear the object from its place to the one giving the order; b, to go and get.

As she was going to it, he called to her and said, pray thee, a morsel of bread.-Bible.

me, I