[BNP/E3, 13A – 29-30]
On Modern
Nomenclature
A Spanish friend of mine – a man of some learning and of no small observation, has often made me remark the strange freaks of modern nomenclature. Not that he ever directs my attention to the coining or invention of words: he is content to point out to me how far we are changed from our ancestors in the naming of common things.
Thus he has often made me consider that the words “rich” and “wealthy” in modern times synonymous, in olden days were not so. Of this kind of thing examples are daily to be found; and these are, I am quite sure, manifold variations of the same. Thus the word Chistian, used of you to signify one who accepts the Christian religion, is now-a-days used either of one who goes to Church, or of one who says he is a Christian, or shapely […]
[30r]
who dwells in a land where the Christian religion prevails. Among the various Christians I have met I have found not a few whose ideas on holiness and humanity are in very great confusion. Nor, on consideration, do I find the facts that a man goes to church, that he says he is a Christian and that he lives in a Christian Land, to be direct and indubitable proofs of his great religious fervour; insomuch that people have been known to enter Churches in no godly state of mind, that people have before been known to depart somewhat from the truth, and that I know some men to whom a sojourn in heaven would be very great benefit.
Another great extravagance in modern naming is that commonly heard in cities and towns among young hoods and night-walking and gallant gentlemen. I shall give an example for the edification of the reader. Jack Smith, whom we at once recognize, by name and surname, to be of the kind referred to, is spoken of by his many friends and acquaintances as “a decent chap”, “a jolly good one” or a “dam hell of a chicken”. These fraises would no doubt be taken by an innocent person to apply to a brave generous, virtuous companion and friend. The reader would be mistaken. We better acquainted with the language of today, on hearing expression of the kind, know at once that the subject of these is what, in ancient time, would have been called a blackguard, a lair and a wrencher, to use Anglo-Saxon expressions. About a man of this sort a reader will hear it said that he has “done some good things in his time”. [The] reader, in receiving the life of him come across a number of drunken […] of seductions, |*delanderies| and so forth, he need not look any
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further, for, unless he can find anything worse, he has come across those self-same good acts of Jack Smith.
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The Palace of Thought.
It was the glory of a peaceful night
In Afik autumn, when the light sound breeze
Wakes from the calmness but awhile to stie
The crowning leaves of trees, that seem to capes
Grotesquely nodding to the silent moon.
And though the silver planet is on high
And summer richness {…}
