Student Resources

Chapter 15

Download All (ZIP 114KB)

15.1 To borrow, or not to borrow

These quotations have been taken from Baugh and Cable (2013) and McDonald (2001). They represent ‘pro-borrowing’ and ‘pro-native’ views for lexical development. Put each into one of these camps; sometimes you will have to be guided by the ‘tone’ of what is said, rather than by any actual argument put forward. Then look more closely at what arguments are in fact made. Why, according to the ‘pro-nativists’, should we use native words and avoid foreign imports? And what about the borrowing side of things? Taken together, the quotations will enable you to discern the main points used by both sides in the Inkhorn Controversy. The quotations are all from Renaissance writers, except for one from a much more recent writer. This has been included to show that the controversy has persisted into later times.

  1. the most ancient English words are of one syllable, so that the more monosyllables that you use the truer Englishman you shall seem, and the less you shall smell of the inkhorn. George Gascoigne (1535–1577), an Elizabethan poet, dramatist and early literary critic who wrote an essay entitled Certayne notes of instruction concerning the making of verse or rhyme in English.
  2. I know no reason why I should not use them [foreign words]: for it is in deed the ready way to inrich our tongue, and make it copious, and it is the way which all tongues have taken to inrich them selves. George Pettie (c. 1548–89, best known as a writer of romances), in the 1581 preface to his translation of a book about Renaissance manners: Stefano Guazzo’s The Civile Conversation.
  3. I knowe no other names than are given by strangers, because there are fewe or none at all in our language. The unknown author of a Discourse of Warre justifying his use of foreign military terms.
  4. I have thought good to borowe . . . littell of the Rethoriciiens of these saies, who plainely thynke theirm selfes demigods, if like horsleches thei can shew two tongues, I meane to mingle their writings sought out of strange langages as if it were alonely thing for theim to poudre theyr bokes with ynkehorne termes. Sir Thomas Chaloner (1521–1565), a statesman and writer of Latin verses.
  5. for as the Romanes and other Latin writers, notwithstandinge the copiouse and abundant eloquence of their tongue, haue not shamed to borrow of the Grecians these and many other terms of arte: so surely do I thinke it no reproche, either to the English tongue, or any English writer, where fit words faile to borrow of them both. Thomas Digges (1546–1595), a mathematician and astronomer; the first to describe in English the ideas of Copernicus (about the planets revolving round the sun).
  6. He that commeth lately out of Fraunce will talke French English and never blush at the matter. An other chops in with English Italianated and applieth the Italian phrase to our English speaking . . . I know them that thinke Rhetorique to stande wholie upon darke wordes, and he that can catche an ynke horne terme by the taile, him they coumpt to be a fine Englisheman, and a good Rhetorician. Thomas Wilson (1524–1581), a diplomat and scholar who wrote a book called The Arte of Rhetorique.
  7. I intend to augment our Englyshe tongue, whereby men shude as well expresse more abundantly the thynge that they conceived in theyr hartis . . . having wordes apte for the pourpose: also interprete out of greke, latyn, oor any othere tonge into Englysshe as sufficiently as out of any other of the said tongues into an other. Sir Thomas Elyot (c. 1490–1546); he helped the cause of English by publishing a book about medicine – The Castell of Helth – which replaced Greek medical words with English ones.
  8. Richard Mulcaster (1531–1611) is mentioned a number of times in this book. He was a headmaster and educationalist, and is best known today for his 1582 book Elementarie. When we come across something new, he says, we must get to know it and make the thing familiar if it seme to be strange. For all stange things seme great novelties, and hard of entertainment at their first arrival, till theie be acquainted: but after acquaintance theie be verie familiar, and easiee to entreat . . . Familiaritie and acquaintance will casue facilitie, both in matter and in words.
  9. I am this opinion that our own tung should be written cleane and pure, unmixt and unmangeled with borrowing of other tunges, wherein if we take not heed of tijm, euer borrowing and neuer paying, she shall fain to keep her house as bankrupt. Sir John Cheke (1514–1557), a scholar and statesman; in a letter appended to a translation of Castiglione’s The Courtier (1528).
  10. Also ye finde these wordes, penetrate, penetrable, indignitie, which I cannot see how we may spare them, whatsoever fault we finde with Ink-horne termes: for our speech wanteth wordes to such sense so well to be used. George Puttenham (1529–1590), scholar, and author of The Arte of English Poesie.
  11. Bad writers, and especially scientific, political, and sociological writers, are nearly always haunted by the notion that Latin or Greek words are grander than Saxon ones, and unnecessary words like expedite, ameliorate, predict, extraneous, deracinated, clandestine, subaqueous, and hundreds of others constantly gain ground from their Anglo-Saxon numbers. George Orwell (1903–1950); writer, best known for novels like Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four. The quotation comes from Politics and the English Language.

This activity is taken from Johnson (2013), with some changes made to the text.

15.2 A sacerdotal dignitee

Thomas Wilson’s 1553 Arte of Rhetorique contains an attack on inkhorn language. To deride the practice of over-elaborate writing, he gives an example of a letter written by a Lincolnshire man to someone in the service of the Lord Chancellor. So extreme is the letter’s language that it is thought Wilson invented the letter himself (though he says he did not). The answers to the questions asked here are given below.

  1. (a) Here is the letter’s first sentence. Do not dwell on every word, but try to work out what the writer is ‘doing’ in this sentence. What is his message?

Ponderynge expendying and reuolutyng with myself your ingent affabilitee, and ingenious capacitee, for mundane affaires: I cannot but celebrate and extolle your magnificall dexteritee, aboue all other.

  1. (b) Now to the letter’s point (!?!). What is the writer requesting? The short glossary underneath may help here:

There is a sacerdotal dignitee in my natiue countrey, contiguate to me, where now I contemplate: which your worshipful benignitee, could sone impetrate for me, if it would like you to extend your scedules, and collaude me in them to the right honorable lorde Chauncellor, or rather Archigrammacian of Englande. You know my literature, you knowe the pastorall promocion I obtestate your clemencie, to inuigilate thus muche for me . . .

sacerdotal, priestly

dignitee, position

contiguate, close by

impetrate, procure

scedule, note, letter

collaude, extol

Archigrammacian, chief scholar

literature, learning

promocion, position

inuigilate, keep watch over

 

 
  1. (c) Many of the words in the glossary have survived into PDE (or have associated PDE forms), but with different meanings. One example is the word schedule. Find other examples and specify how the meanings have changed. Access to the OED online will help you do this, but is not essential.

15.3 Speaking ‘eloquente englysshe’

This story is taken from a sixteenth-century collection of anecdotes, called A Hundred Mery Tales,. This is one of the tales. The student in the story is wearing ‘pyked shoes’ (with upturned toes), and he wants them ‘clouted’ (patched):

In the Uniuersite of Oxeforde there was a scoler that delyted moche to speke eloquente englysshe and curious termes, and came to the cobbler with his shoes whyche were pyked before (as they used at that tyme), to have them clouted, and sayde this wyse: Cobler, I pray the sette two tryangyls and two semycercles vopn myy subpedytales, and I shall paye the for thy laboure. The cobeler, because he understoode hymn at halfe, answered shortely and sayd: syr, your eloquence passeth myne intelligence. But I promise you, yf he meddyll with me the clowtynge of your shoon shall cost you thre pens.

By this tale men may lerne, that it is foly to study to speke eloquently before them, that be rude and vnlerned.

The student confuses the cobbler with three words with roots going back to Latin: tryangyl (Latin ‘triangulum’), semycercle (semicurculus) and an altogether obscure Latin-derived word for ‘shoe’ – subpedytale (the OED lists an associated word subpedital).

This version of the story is taken from A Hundred Mery Tales in Hazlitt (1864).

15.4 A honeysuckle villain

Here are five more malapropisms to identify, to add to those in Chapter 15’s Activity 15B. The offending words are underlined. Also say which of Schlauch’s categories each falls into (discussed in 15.3). Answers are below.

  1. Evans and Slender (in The Merry Wives of Windsor) are talking about the marital availability of that same Mistress Anne Page. Evans says:

    Anne Page, which is daughter to Master George Page, which is pretty virginity.

  2. Quince (A Midsummer Night’s Dream) extols the acting virtues of his colleague Bottom:

    Yea and the best person, too; and he is a very paramour for a sweet voice.

  3. In The Merry Wives of Windsor, Bardolph expresses the view that Slender had had too much to drink:

    Why, sir, for my part, I say the gentleman had drunk himself out of his five sentences.

  4. In The Merry Wives of Windsor, Falstaff is flirting with Mistress Ford when her husband appears. Falstaff hides in a laundry basket, which is carried away and emptied into the river. Confronted later by an angry Falstaff, Mistress Quickly pretends that the men carrying the laundry basket got confused and went to the river by mistake.

    Quickly: Alas the day, good heart, that was not her fault. She does so take on with her men; they mistook their erection.
    Falstaff:          So did I mine, to build upon a foolish woman's promise

    Falstaff’s reply is a sexual joke, based on the malapropism. So did I mine he says, meaning that he mistook his (erection), by wrongly thinking he could seduce Mistress Ford.

  5. Mistress Quickly has called the officers to arrest Falstaff, but he fights back. She shouts at him (Henry IV, Part 2):

    Murder! Murder! Ah, thou honeysuckle villain, wilt thou kill God's officers and the King's?

15.5 Out-Heroding Herod

In Hamlet a group of actors comes to visit the Danish court, and Prince Hamlet gives them words of advice. One piece of advice is that they should not out-Herod Herod. They should not, in other words, over-act by ranting more than the Biblical character of King Herod did. Shakespeare uses out- on various other occasions. There is also out-storm, out-jest, out-sweeten, out-venom and even out-paramour. If you have access to the OED online, look up the prefix out-. On the right-hand side of the OED page there is a box with the prefix highlighted. Under it is a list of all the words in the dictionary beginning with the prefix, together with the date of the first quotation. Identify words with a first quotation in the sixteenth century. Make a list of these. Where you cannot guess the meaning, look the word up. How many of the words are still in use today?

If you feel creative, invent a few of your own words using the prefix out-.

15.6 More EModE suffixes

Here are six sentences containing more examples of suffixes used in EModE. As in Activity 15D, write down the suffixes, the parts of speech of the root words, and of the words they form. Where possible, indicate how the suffixes function. The answers are discussed below the examples.

  1. The Eternall, as a carefull Inspector and sincere Judge of them. (Herring 1602)
  2. Then to the heuyn sperycall vpwarde I gasid (gazed). (Skelton, 1523)
  3. He will employe all the residue of the life god hath geuen him to make to God acknowledgement thereof, that he might not be found vnthankful. (Calvin, 1560)
  4. To falsefye the letters of the pope. (de Worde, 1502)
  5. He hath constrayned such to yeelde to inforced obedience and servitude. (Fleming, 1576)
  6. He . . . heightened the ditches, deepened the trenches. (Stow, 1605)

15.7 Coffining the corpse

Here are five more functional shifts, to add to those you saw in Activity 15E. Notice in each case which parts of speech are involved.

  1. Coffin: a noun in ME.

    1564 None shall be bury’d within the church, unless the dead corpse be coffined in wood. (Vestry Minutes, St Helen’s Bishopsgate, 5th March).

  2. Commotion: a noun in 1526.

    1599: In the boyling or seathing of it in his maw, he felt it commotion a little and vpbraide him (Nashe).

  3. Furnace: a noun in ME.

    1598: That raging vlcer, which . . . Furnaceth the vniuersall sighes and complaintes of this transposed world (Chapman).

  4. Skin: a noun in OE.

    1566: Nay I had leuer (= ‘would rather’) ye were skynned all three (Mery Playe Albyon Knighte).

  5. Dirt: a noun in ME; dirty: an adjective in EModE (1530).

    1591: They durtie theyr hose and shooes vppon purpose (Greene).

This last example, dirty, shows how affixation can combine with functional shift to expand lexis: we start off with the noun dirt, which produced an adjective by 1530, using the -y suffix we discussed in 15.4.1. Functional shift then turned that adjective into a verb.

15.8 Shakespeare and electroencephalograms

Philip Davis at the University of Liverpool, in collaboration with colleagues, undertook some neurolinguistic research related to functional shift. One finding, recorded in Davis (2006), is that ‘the effect [of some functional shifts] is often electric . . . like a lightning-flash in the mind’. He and his colleagues set out to explore whether this ‘electricity’ can be actually detected in the brain. For his experiment he uses sets of four sentences. Think particularly about the underlined words, and how they relate to the rest of the sentence:

  1. I was not supposed to go there alone: you said you would accompany me.
  2. I was not supposed to go there alone: you said you would charcoal me.
  3. Iwas not supposed to go there alone: you said you would incubate me.
  4. I was not supposed to go there alone: you said you would companion me.

Sentence (a) in each set is a normal English sentence. (b) is odd both syntactically and semantically (that is, in terms of both grammar and meaning): in the example above there is a noun where there should be a verb, and its meaning does not relate to the sentence. Sentence (c) each time is syntactically but not semantically acceptable: incubate does not make sense here, but it is at least a verb. Sentence (d) is like Shakespearean functional shifts; companion is semantically clear (we know immediately what it means), but the word is syntactically odd because it is a noun being used as a verb.

Subjects were asked to read each of the four sentences. The subjects’ reactions to the different sentence types were assessed, using electroencephalogram tests which involve placing electrodes on various parts of their brains. It was found that type (d) sentences had ‘distinct and unique’ effects on the brain. One of these effects was to ‘alert’ the brain to further possible anomalies. Davis concludes that ‘Shakespeare is stretching us; he is opening up the possibility of further peaks, new potential pathways or developments’.

15.9 Some gone-away compounds

What do you think these compounds, no longer found today, might mean? Try first to guess. If you need help, the meanings (or some indications of use) are given below in mixed order. Match these with the compounds.

go-by-ground (adj.)

hangby (n)

holdfast (adj.)

open-bellied

to after-eye

coming-on (adj.)

flap-mouthed

snow-feathered

sleep-fatted

start-back (n)

 

 

The meanings/indications of use:

gaze after

persistent

grown large through immobility

cringing

used to describe a dog

dependent

ruptured

used to describe a swan

inviting

deserter

 

 

Are there any of these compounds you particularly like, and wish were still in use today?

15.10 Looking for EModE compounds

If you have access to the OED online, it is not very difficult to find examples of EModE compounds. Perhaps the easiest sort to find are those that have a verbal root. Choose a common English verb. Take start as an example. Look the word up in the dictionary, and click on the ‘verb’ option. You will be taken to a very long list of meanings and uses. If you scroll down to near the end, there is a heading ‘Compounds’. The first example is start-away, meaning ‘renegade’ or ‘deserter’. The first quotation is 1578.

Your starting-point does not have to be a verb. Look under the adjective open, for example. There is no ‘Compounds’ heading here, but there is ‘Special uses’. There are many compounds under this heading, though most of them seem to start life in the 1800s. But there is one with a first quotation of 1598: open-bellied.

Choose some more words to start with – verbs, nouns, adjectives or whatever. You may be surprised at the number of EModE compounds that are revealed.