date

25 March 1814 School 3
25 March 1814

School

3

'. Language

7

For characterizing an object which not only is new but is designed to be presented as such, a word as plainly new as the object itself is meant to be represented as being, is much more convenient than any old word taken from the old-established stock of words belonging to the language; for when any such old-established word is taken and thus employed, it comes with the whole of its original import adhering to it; and the consequence is that it presents to the mind instantly and to a certainty, a multitude of old ideas which on the new occasion it is not intended to present; and this in the most perfect manner, while it is only in a manner comparatively imperfect that it presents the new idea which it is intended to present.

Borrow the word from a foreign language, and that a dead one, from the Greek, for example, this confusion is avoided. Let but the reader have once succeeded in his endeavours to establish an adequately constant association between the new idea you mean to impress upon his mind, and the new-coined or imported word employed by you for expressing that idea, (for which purpose, in the first instance, an explanation, more or less particular, will, to persons unacquainted with the language so borrowed from, be always necessary,) thence forward as often as the new word is presented to his mind, the idea which it brings with it will be the very idea which it is your desire it should present; that and no other, that idea alone, unaccompanied by, and unclogged with, any other. By the very description of it thus given, this mode of proceeding, it is however evident, has its difficulties, and thereby its inconvenience.

127
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    The difficulty consists in getting men to give themselves the trouble of establishing this association; whereas, when the language from which the word is taken is a man's own language, the association, such as it is, is already formed; and howsoever clumsy the new appellative appears, and howsoever troublesome the cluster of collateral and (with reference to the purpose in question) irrelevant ideas it stands associated with, and however confused and inadequate the import is which it has the effect of presenting, still it can scarcely fail of bringing to view an import having some similarity to the one which it is intended to present; whereas, if it be a word of altogether foreign original, no other word of the cluster it belongs to being presented to the mind of the person in question, the necessary result is that, if the explanation attached to it has either never been received into the mind, or, after having been so received, has dropped out, the word is so much unmeaning sound, not presenting any the faintest intimation of the import which it is intended to present.

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    When a word has thus been transplanted and naturalised in a single state, the conception entertained of its import by persons altogether unacquainted with the cluster to which it belonged in the language from which it was borrowed, is always very obscure and imperfect in comparison with that which he has of a word which forms one of a cluster, more or less complete, originally of the growth of his own language, or fully rooted and naturalised in it.

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  • Title: [1831 Nov. 16 Language 1]
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