penser qu'on ne l'est pas davantage sur les choses. Mon peuple est bien persuadé de cette vérité, et les sifflets ne manquent jamais à ceux qui négligent la propriété des termes. Il faut savoir la grammaire et connaître les synonymes lorsqu'on veut être roi de France." APPENDIX. 1) "Words without exactly coinciding in sense, may nevertheless relate to one and the same thing regarded in two different points of view. An illustration of this is afforded in the relation which exists between the words 'inference' and 'proof.' Whoever justly infers, proves; whoever proves, infers; but the word 'inference' leads the mind from the premises which have been assumed to the conclusion which follows from them; while the word 'proof' follows a reverse process, and leads the mind from the conclusion to the premises. We say, 'What do you infer from this? and how do you prove that?' Another illustration may be quoted in the synonyms pense' and 'cost.' The same article may be expensive and costly; but we speak of 'expense' in reference to the means of the purchaser; of 'cost' in reference to the actual value of the article."-WHATELY, English Synonyms, viii. 6 ex 2) "Quamquam enim vocabula prope idem valere videantur, tamen quia res differebat, nomina rerum distare voluerunt.". Cic. Top. 8, 34 "Pluribus autem nominibus in eâdem re vulgo utimur; quæ tamen si diducas, suam propriam quandam vim ostendent. Nam et urbanitas dicitur: qua quidem significari video sermonem præ se ferentem in verbis et sono et usu, propriam quendam gestum urbis, et sumptam ex conversatione doctorum tacitam eruditionem, et denique cui contraria sit rusticitas."-Quint., Inst. Or. 6, 3, 17. 3) "Il est aisé de sentir que nous ne pouvons avoir d'usage écrit moderne; il n'appartient qu'aux auteurs classiques de le former, et les auteurs ne deviennent classiques dans la langue que lorsque la postérité les a honorés de ce titre ; elle a le droit de juger ceux dont les exemples doivent faire règle pour elles. . . . Il n'en est pas ainsi de l'usage parlé ; incertain et fugitif il n'a sur la postérité aucune influence positif; l'histoire de la langue est le seul rapport sous lequel il puisse l'intéresser. Formé presq'au hasard, fondé souvent sur des motifs de peu de valeur, il n'oblige que les contemporains qui eux-mêmes en sont plutôt les témoins que les juges; c'est à eux à transmettre aux générations à venir les modifications qu'il fait subir aux mots, puisqu'elles sont des règles pour eux, et ne seront peut-être pour elles que des faits isolés et sans pouvoir."-GUIZOT, Synonymes de la Langue Française, xviii. ... ... 4) Duplicates at one time abounded, especially in English. In his English Synonyms Mr. Taylor observes:-"English abounds with duplicates, one of which is borrowed from some Gothic, and the other from some Roman dialect. . . . In such languages many words are wholly equivalent, . . . and it depends. on a writer's choice whether the Northern or the Southern diction shall predominate. . . . Wherein lies the difference between a gotch and a pitcher, but that the one is a Hollandish and the other a French term for a water-crock? Such double terms are always at first commutable, and may continue so for generations; but when new objects are discovered or new shades of idea, which such words are fitted to depict, it at length happens that a separation of meanings is made between them. Thus, 'to blanch' and 'to whiten ' are insensibly acquiring a distinct purport, 'to blanch' being now only applied where some stain or colouring matter is withdrawn which concealed the natural whiteness. Thus, again, 'whole' and 'entire,' 'worth' and 'merit,' 'understanding' and 'intellect,' are tending to a discriminable meaning." Jane Whately assigns another cause of ultimate distinction :—“In the case of such duplicates as have no assignable difference, it may happen, from the mere fact of the greater or less familiarity which one word presents to the mind, that although it be in most cases indifferent which we use, yet in some instances custom makes a difference in their employment." In French, words of absolutely identical meaning, according to Girard, the first French synonymist, disappeared only in the classical age of Louis XIV. This opinion is endorsed and improved upon by Condillac :-"La langue française est peutêtre la seule langue qui ne connaisse point de synonymes" (i.e., absolute equivalents). 66 Heyse, in his 'System der Sprachwissenchaft,' thus accounts for the disappearance of absolute equivalents :-" Die gebildete Sprache duldet keinen Ueberfluss und weiss einen jeden durch äussere Umstände entstandenen zu ihrem Vortheil, zu schärferer Begriffsonderung und feinerer Nüancirung des Ausdrucks zu verwenden." Brother Berthold, the Bavarian missionary of the thirteenth century, who preached in all parts of Southern Germany, had to accommodate his language to the dialect of the particular district in which he happened to be holding forth. To express 'hope,' he relates in his sermons, he had to say 'Hoffnunge' in one province, Zuoversicht' in another, and 'Gedinge' in a third. Of these three equivalent terms, two subsequently found their way into literary German, the one specialised as 'hope,' the other as 'trust.' In this wise the dialects have largely contributed towards the wealth of the literary medium, their various popular equivalents being frequently diversified into cultured synonyms. Sometimes the distinction drawn is purely æsthetical, as in Latin between 'parens' and 'pater,' 'uxor' and 'conjunx;' in German, between Jungfrau' and 'Jungfer,' 'Ross' and 'Pferd,' 'Gattin' and 'Weib,' &c. |