Modern English : its growth and present use

Preface

This book is not designed to do away with the necessity for using the dictionaries, grammars, and detailed histories of the English language, but to prepare the way for the more profitable and intelligent use of these books. The grammars and the dictionaries are the mines in which the crude materials, the natural resources, of the language are stored ; the principles of development appearing in language, the opinions which men hold with respect to the use of language, these are the appliances and the machinery by means of which the riches of the dictionaries and encyclopedias of fact may be made available for effective command over language. Some of the more important of these principles and opinions it is the purpose of this book to present.

The generalizations here set forth are some of them the commonplaces of the historical study of language. For stating them again in his own way, the author does not feel that any apology is necessary. They are given as simply as possible for the advantage of those readers and students who wish to be informed as to the results of the modern scientific study of language, but who are not themselves professional linguists. The book is untechnical, but, the author hopes, not unscholarly. Attention is called in the brief bibliography at the end of the volume to representative works which may be

Vin PREFACE

consulted by those who wish to enter into the subjects treated more fully than the limits of this volume permitted.

Perhaps fuller citations of literary authorities may be expected in discussions of points of divided use than have been given. In general, however, it does not seem to the author that the appeal to literary authority is the proper method of attack in examining disputed questions of speech, spoken or written, and that very little is gained by an elaborate assemblage of examples from literary sources to confirm or to disprove a point of present use. Where there is a real difference of practice — and this, it may be pointed out, is relatively infrequent — nine times out of ten it would be as easy to support one side as the other by the testimony of literary authority. Past literary use is only one of many tests that must be applied in determining present use. The reading of literary English should strengthen the habitual and unconscious feeling for expression by which one acquires a large, a sure, and a varied sense of the possible values of language. It should suggest what may be done with language by showing what has been done with it. Literary English, indeed, should be regarded in the same way as spoken English. Both are forms of expression which have to be reduced to natural and unconscious habit before they can be said to have been mastered. Now nothing hinders such mastery so much as a meticulous respect for the authority of literary practice. De Quincey once said that authors are a dangerous class for any language. He meant, of course, that the literary habit of mind is likely to prove dangerous for a language. It is likely to prove dangerous because it so often leads a speaker or writer

PREFACE ix

to distrust natural and unconscious habit, even when it is right, and to put in its stead some conscious theory of literary propriety. Such a tendency, however, is directly opposed to the true feeling for idiomatic English. It destroys the sense of security, the assurance of perfect congruity between thought and expression, which the unliterary and unacademic speaker and writer often has, and which, with both literary and unliterary, is the basis for all expressive use of language. The source of authority in deciding questions of propriety in form, questions which naturally arise less and less frequently as one acquires a sure sense of the expressive value of language, lies not in past use, but in what might be called future use, that is, in the effectiveness of the expression upon the minds of those who are to be the receivers of it. But enough — perhaps too much — has been said upon this subject in the body of the book, and it may be left here with the statement that altho good modern English derives much from traditional literary English, the final test of its goodness or its badness is to be found always in immediate and not in past use.

To the various excellent histories of the English language by Emerson, Lounsbury, Jespersen, Toller, and Bradley, as well as to more specialized studies and essays, the author gratefully acknowledges his general indebtedness. Wherever this indebtedness is specific, the endeavor has been to give the credit where it is due. Above all, the New English Dictionary has been constantly and unfailingly helpful. This work really holds the mirror up to nature. It does not use the language of the imagination, but it is an amazing record of the workings of the imagination. One who wishes to know

X PREFACE

the English language cannot do better than give his days and his nights to the study of the New English Dictionary. To those friends who haye discussed with him the ideas which the volume contains, the author acknowledges an indebtedness not compensated by this formal recognition. Among these friendly disputants he would mention in particular Prof. A. H. Thorndike, of Columbia University, Mr. J. G. Bowman, Secretary of the Carnegie Foundation, and Mr. C. M. Baker, Headmaster of Latin in the Horace Mann School.

G. P. K.

The University of Cincinnati June, 1909

Contents

Page

I Introduction 3

II The English People 15

Appendix

The Old English Chronicle, fol. la. The Pardoner's Tale, fol. 306a. The First Folio of

Shakspere. Lycidas, ll. 165-193 .... 335

Bibliography 343

ILLUSTRATIONS

The Old English Chronicle, Laud MS. 636, fol. la . . 25 Chaucer's Pardoner's Tale, Cambridge Univ. MS. G-. G.

Shakspere, First Folio, Merchant of Venice, IV, 1,

119-152 161

Autograph of Milton's Lycidas, 11. 165-193 .... 307 i

Introduction

1. History and Politics. History, according to the saying of a distinguished modern historian, is past politics. To the contemporary observer, the practical measures supported and opposed by the various rival political parties seem of only passing significance because they arise out of the immediate daily problems and needs of actual life. When these same measures, however, are viewed in the perspective of years, they are seen then not to be independent and unrelated. More or less unconsciously to themselves, the practical politicians help or retard certain large principles of development in the life of a people. Present politics is history in the making.

2. The History of Language. In the same way the history of a language is merely the record of the practical every-day speech of successive generations. Every person who speaks or writes a language, who hands on from one speaker to another any of the traditions of the language is, in so far, a factor in the historical growth of the language. And the whole history of the language is made up of the sum of the individual acts of all those who in past times have used the language in response to the immediate practical needs of life. Just as politics is history in the making, so present, every-day speech and writing is the history of the language in the making.

Another conclusion of the modern political historians is applicable to the history of language. It is a very general opinion among historians that the justification of the study of the history of past periods is to be found in the application of the results of such study to the conditions of present life. Man learns to know himself better, to conduct the affairs of his public and private life better, from having observed the consequences of the actions of men in other days. So also by the study of the history of his speech he learns to adjust himself more wisely to the conditions of present speech. He learns that contemporary speech is not, on the one hand, a chaos of individual instances, nor is it, on the other, governed according to the decrees of a rigid, theoretical system. He perceives that it is a living thing, and that the principles which it illustrates in its growth have all the flexibility and variety of life. To enable a speaker or writer to realize this spirit, or life, of his own present speech is one of the main ends of the historical study of language.

3. The Function of Language. The effort to understand this spirit, to find out what the tendencies of one's native speech are, good and bad, is beset with many difficulties. The uncertainty of the bearing of present events always makes difference of opinion possible. If we knew exactly the future significance of an action, whether in politics, in personal conduct, or in speech, we should doubtless all hold the same opinion with respect to that action. But the future does not so easily yield up its secrets, and our only guides are inferences drawn from the observation of the past and the present. There is always one ground of inference, however, which offers a firm foothold. Our opinions with respect to an action are naturally determined by the value of that action in attaining the end towards which the actor is striving. Our attitude towards any question of language should consequently be determined by the purpose and the function of language, just as the value of any political action is c rmined by its serving or not serving the purpose for which the state exists. What, then, is the function of language? Briefly answered, language is a form of social custom and its function is the expression of social ideas. Language as social custom means that it has been slowly developed by mankind in the social relations of men to each other. It is closely paralleled in its development by other kinds of social custom. The laws governing rights of property, of individual liberty, of self-defense, the moral laws, such as those directed against lying, deception, and insincerity, the rules of conduct in minor matters, such as have to do with behavior and good breeding, — all these have grown up as the result of the intercourse of man with man in social life. The habits, or the rules, of such intercourse, through a long succession of generations have fixed themselves in the life of the people as their social customs. Whether they are reduced to writing, as is generally the case with criminal law, or are merely held as the traditional rules of conduct of a people, they are always in their origins the customary rules of action which ha^ arisen out of the practical exigencies of one man's trying to live on terms of social understanding with another.

4. Speech as Social Custom. The special function of speech as social custom is the expression of social ideas. If men are to live with each other, if they are not to be like stocks and stones, then they must have some means of conveying to each other their needs, their desires, their ideas, their aspirations. This they might do by various means. So long as the ideas were simple and primitive, they might be conveyed by very crude means. A brandished club might serve to indicate one's sense of the right of possession in a piece of disputed property. But it is one of the characteristics of man as man that the ideas which he wishes to convey to his fellow-men have not remained thus simple and crude. The social intercourse of men has become extremely complex, both emotionally and intellectually, and, corresponding to this complexity, there has been an equal growth in the variety and the subtlety of the customs of speech. Out of the practical needs of communication has arisen the vast fabric of human language. Manifestly, then, the best language being that which most adequately realizes the function of language, that is the best which enables men to express themselves most fully and satisfactorily in their relations to each other. This is the ideal towards which language strives. In the animal world we speak of degeneration when certain functions of the organism necessary to the preservation of its life and the existence of its species become weakened. In the same way we may speak of degeneration in a language when it changes in such a way that pit becomes less capable of performing the functions for which language exists; and, on the other hand, we may speak of growth and improvement in language as it becomes more and more effective in enabling men to understand each other.

5. The Speech of a Democracy. The necessity of realizing in an ever-increasing degree this ideal function of language is one that is peculiarly incumbent upon a democracy. The best national speech for a democracy is that which enables it to be most fully self -expressive. It is in itself that the fate of a democracy lies. From its own members must emanate all its laws, its ideals of conduct, of whatever nature. It must have confidence in the value of its united opinion; and its prime duty consists in such a free and liberal exchange of ideas that there shall be a united opinion. A democracy which is not self-expressive and self-determining is not a real democracy. Anything in speech, therefore, which prevents the democratic nation from realizing itself as a self-determining body is harmful. Thus the national speech of a democracy cannot be sectional; if there is not one uniform speech acceptable to the whole nation, then the speech of one region must have equal authority with that of another. The speech of a democracy cannot be a class speech ; it cannot be a traditional literary speech, the so-called " best English " of a special limited academic or literary class. Its roots must go deeper. They must strike down into the region of the practical daily life of the citizens whose vote and whose opinion make the country what it is. If it is to have any enduring vitality it must rest upon the basis of national custom where national custom is made. The duty of making these customs sound and good is one that rests on all alike. The welfare of the speech of a democracy can no more be left in the hands of a few preservers or regulators than its political government can be left in the hands of a few self-appointed directors or dictators. In both a diffused intelligence is the prime requisite to a healthy national life.

6. Speech and Education. The obstacles that stand in the way of the realization of the ideal of a democratic speech are confessedly numerous and great. It is difficult, in the first place, to determine just how much value should be ascribed to tradition. Old ways are not good merely because they are old ; and of course the same can be said of new ways. It is a fair conservative assumption, however, that what has served man's purpose in the past will continue to serve it best in the present, until changed conditions demand new ways. But again one must take heed not to be so blinded by old customs as not to perceive when the conditions actually are changed. In the second place, democracy works from the bottom up, and not from the top down. Consequently, popular education when it is diffused over the whole body of society, as society is at present constituted, is likely to be a somewhat thin and inadequate kind of education. It thus happens that there are people who rest content with very imperfect education, who take the dry husks of the mere rudiments of education for the reality itself. We find persons who think that the secret of good English consists merely in expressing themselves in a certain prescribed way, in using a certain intonation of voice or a certain quality of vowel sound when they speak, or one form of phrasing, or even of spelling, rather than another, when they write. They fail to realize that the conventional customs of speaking and writing, important as the knowledge of them is, are nevertheless the mere preliminaries, the elementary mechanics, of a good use of language. English which is merely correct cannot claim very high praise. Going a little lower in the scale of intelligence, we may find that a man who has come from generations of ancestors who could not write, is likely to think that the simple ability to write is the pinnacle of education. But for him perhaps it is; and all that democratic education can offer to any large body of people in different stages of development is the opportunity for each to realize what at a given moment is the highest and best thing for him to do. The general level cannot be raised by a single act, or by the acts of a few, but only by the sum of all the acts of the people who make up the whole. In spite, therefore, of the low ideals of certain members of the body politic, it must always remain the hope of a democracy that the average plane of its life will rise higher and higher from generation to generation. And so long as the life of the people remains vigorous, so long as their minds and their wills are energetic and stirring, this will remain a well-founded hope.

7. The Best Tendency in Speech. In speech, therefore, the ideal attitude of mind is that which leads the speaker to unite himself to those customs and tendencies which, in his opinion, make for the welfare of the national idiom in the most effective manner. If speech arises, as we have said, out of the immediate social relations of man with man, it will be seen that therein lies the final test of its value. It will be seen, also, that those tendencies of speech with which a speaker or writer wishes to unite himself are merely manifestations of general social tendencies. Shall our ideal social tendency be one that makes for exclusiveness, for the development of limited class distinctions ? Or shall it be a broader and more liberal tendency, one that is democratic and generously inclusive ? In speech shall we endeavor to cultivate refined and more or less arbitrary distinctions which shall enable us to make a strict division between conventional and literary English, on the one hand, and what may be called natural and self-determining English on the other ? Is the best English that which is acquired by learning and following an external rule, or is it the English which is acquired by following social custom, the best, as each views it, and as each is brought into contact with it, in the actual processes of living, speaking, and writing ? These are some of the questions which each of us must answer for himself. Necessarily every speaker and every writer must follow some tendency of the speech of the community, whether this be conscious or unconscious. Every one of us is always following, at the same time that he is helping to make, custom. In what direction shall we throw our influence ? Before we can answer this question we must have some knowledge of the conflicting customs and tendencies of our speech, and as this knowledge grows in breadth and certainty, the answer to the question will become, according to our sympathies, correspondingly easy and unhesitating.

8. Literary and Spoken Language. In all study of language as expression, it is now generally conceded, by those who have given much thought to the matter, that the spoken, as compared with the written or literarylanguage, is of far the greater importance. It is mainly in the speech of men and women as they come into direct social relations with each other that language develops and grows in a natural, untrammeled, and effective way. The language of literature is merely an approximate transcription, more or less remote, of the language of speech. It is from the latter that the language of literature is derived, and it must always return to its source to renew itself when, as it constantly tends to do, it becomes attenuated and outworn. This being granted, it readily follows that it is speech which we should study, not only for effectiveness in conversation, but also for effectiveness in literature. The popular opinion is not usually in accord with this statement. It is often believed that the language of literature is something different from and better than the language of speech. This latter, being the common possession of all, is looked down upon as something ignoble, or at least not admirable. Because it is familiar, it is regarded as contemptible. It is supposed that the ability to use the English of literature is a special and acquired accomplishment, and that one learns the language of literature as one learns a new art, like playing the piano or painting. Being a special and higher accomplishment, the language of literature is thus often regarded as furnishing the model for the language of speech, and the theory is held that the latter should be made to conform as fully as possible to the former.

One need only u talk like a book " to realize the absurdity of such a belief. On the other hand it is no credit to the language of literature to read like a book. Literary language which is bookish we do not regard as admirable ; on the contrary, when we want to praise an author's style, we rather say that it is true, natural, real. The fact is that literature endeavors merely to transcribe life, to give in the permanent form of words and sentences the passing experiences, thoughts, and emotions of men. According as it does this the more directly and truly, the greater literature it is. There is no need to prove that language is one of the most characteristic expressions of human life. It is as speaking beings that men think of themselves. The writer, therefore, who wishes to transcribe human life, must transcribe it in the forms of speech in which it finds its most immediate expression. His task is parallel to that of the artist. When a portrait painter wishes to paint a portrait, he must study the features of the human face and the lines of the human figure ; when a landscape painter wishes to transfer to canvas his impressions of sea or land, he must go into the open and study clouds, trees, and atmosphere. Both are said to follow nature, because it is their impressions of the reality in nature which they endeavor to record. In the same way the literary artist must follow nature, not only by studying the inner moods and actuating motives of men, but also the ways in which these moods and motives find their most natural and effective expression. It is true, of course, that literary language has customs and conventions, for example, meter in poetry, which are peculiar to itself. In the same way painting has certain devices, tricks of method, which in themselves are untrue to nature, but which are used because to the beholder they produce or heighten the effects of nature.

The painter's concern is to cause the illusion of nature, since he cannot actually create the counterpart to nature. So also the literary artist attempts to produce the illusion of reality in language. All that is appropriate to speech is consequently not necessarily appropriate to all forms of literature, and, on the other hand, some things are appropriate to certain kinds of literature which are not appropriate to speech. But whenever the customs and conventions of literature become so peculiar to it that they are purely literary, or academic, as we say, when they produce the effect of being untrue to, or remote from, nature, then they are appropriate neither to the literary nor to any other language. It is to the natural, spoken language that we make our final appeal. And it is interesting to observe that just those periods of English literature have been greatest in which the language of literature stood nearest to the language of speech. Chaucer's literary style became more and more natural as he grew older, until in the Canterbury Tales, his latest work, we almost think we hear his characters speak. The language of Shakspere is the language of the drama, and whatever conventions the language of the drama may have, its prime requisite is that it shall be true to life. The poets of a third great period of English literature, beginning with Wordsworth and Coleridge, made the imitation of the simple speech of daily life their first principle. Their art on the side of language consists largely in a return to nature as exemplified in speech.

What is true of English, is true of literature generally. Students of Greek tell us that much of the charm of Greek literature consists in the intimate dependence of the language of literature upon the language of speech ; Greek literary style is not a special caste language for literary purposes, but rather an extension of the spoken language to written uses. Moliere, the only Frenchman worthy to rank as the fellow of Shakspere, owes much of his power to the naturalness of his style. Hating as he did hypocrisy and affectation in every form, we should expect to find him natural and real in his writing. In short it is a false standard of value to assume that the test of highest excellence is to be found only in printed and written words. These are merely makeshifts and substitutes for the reality. They serve, to be sure, a very important purpose. For one thing, they preserve what otherwise might become lost if intrusted only to oral transmission. They perform a tremendous service to humanity also by extending the bounds of individual experience. In a library of books we can commune at will with the spirits of all ages and all places. Indeed the ability to write is so highly regarded by mankind that perhaps no other kind of fame is so generally and so eagerly desired as literary fame. Yet this glory should not blind one to the fact that literature is not self -producing, but grows out of nature. The aspirant for literary fame must not only know letters, above all he must know life. If he wishes to write for his age, he must know how the men of his age speak. He must not expend all his energy and admiration upon books, but must turn to that form of the language which, above the language of books, is the most wonderful, the most dignified, and the most worthy of respect, the flexible, subtle speech of men in the infinite relations of human life.

II

1. Speech and Race. The English language is one of the most widely distributed languages of the modern world. Centered originally in the little kingdom of England, the speech has spread to all the four corners of the globe. It has become the speech of two of the most powerful nations of modern times, and is now the speech of the most numerous civilized people of the world. In the course of its history, it has imposed itself upon peoples originally speaking many different languages and originally of very diverse racial origins ; and altho each new body thus incorporated has affected the whole, the stock of the language has remained essentially the same to the present day. It shall be our first task to take a survey of the history of the English language from this ethnological or racial point of view.

2. Celtic Britain. In the first century before Christ, when the island of Great Britain first became well knoAvn to the Romans, who were then the most powerful as well as the most highly civilized nation of Europe, it was occupied by a race of Celtic people, speaking a Celtic language. This race had been preceded in Biitain by various different, prehistoric races concerning which little is known; it was one of these prehistoric races, however, which reared the great monoliths at Stonehenge on Salisbury Plain. The

Celtic inhabitants of the island called themselves Britons, and from this name of the people the country was called Britannia by the Romans, whence is derived our modern Britain. The Celts of Britain were merely a branch of a greater Celtic people which then dwelt in Gaul and in Spain, the Celts of Gaul being the predecessors of the Franks, a Teutonic people from whom the country derived its modern name of France. On the Continent the Celts have been almost completely absorbed by the Roman and Teutonic conquerors of their countries. But in England to this day they have maintained a more or less separate existence, and their speech still survives in the Gaelic of the Highlands of Scotland, the Welsh of Wales, and also in the Irish of Ireland. Until comparatively recent times a Celtic speech was also spoken in Cornwall.

3. The Roman Invasions. The first military invasion which the Romans, the world conquerors, made against the Celts of Britain, was in the years 55 and 54 B. C, under the leadership of Julius Caesar. This was more in the nature of an excursion from Gaul, however, where Caesar was then campaigning,1 than a settled attempt to conquer the country. The serious conquest of Britain was not undertaken until about a century later, A. D. 42, under the Emperor Claudius ; and about the year A. D. 80 the country was organized as a Roman province, under the command of the Roman general Agricola. The portions of the country occupied by the Romans were chiefly those central, southern, and eastern parts which later became the kingdom of England. The mountainous regions of Wales in the