Читать книгу Facts and fancies for the curious from the harvest-fields of literature - Charles C. Bombaugh - Страница 71

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Allusions to the introductions and changes of words meet us constantly in our reading. Thus “banter,” “mob,” “bully,” “bubble,” “sham,” “shuffling,” and “palming” were new words in the Tatler’s day, who writes: “I have done my utmost for some years past to stop the progress of ‘mob’ and ‘banter,’ but have been plainly borne down by numbers, and betrayed by those who promised to assist me.” Reconnoitre, and other French terms of war, are ridiculed as innovations in the Spectator. Skate was a new word in Swift’s day. “To skate, if you know what that means,” he writes to Stella. “There is a new word coined within a few months,” says Fuller, “called fanatics.” Locke was accused of affectation in using idea instead of notion. “We have been obliged,” says the World, “to adopt the word police from the French.” We read in another number, “I assisted at the birth of that most significant word flirtation, which dropped from the most beautiful mouth in the world, and which has since received the sanction of our most accurate Laureate in one of his comedies.” Ignore was once sacred to grand juries. “In the interest of” has been quoted in our time as a slang phrase just coming into meaning. Bore has wormed itself into polite use within the memory of man. Wrinkle is quietly growing into use in its secondary slang sense. Muff may be read from the pen of a grave lady, writing on a grave subject, to express her serious scorn.