An Outline of English Speech-craft

Worse (wyrse) is shapen from wo, wa, we, a stub-root which means wrong, atwist, bad in any way, and is our woe.

The r in weor is most likely of a forstrengthening and not a comparative meaning —weor, wyr, very bad; weorer, wyrer, still more strongly bad. But, not to double the r, men might have put a strengthening s, and so had weors.

TIME-TAKING

You cannot behold a thing in your mind otherwise than in or under some doing or in some form of being.

Every case of being or doing is a taking of time, as ‘the lily is white,’ ‘the man strikes,’ ‘the bird flies or was hit.’ For though the being white, or the striking or flying or hitting was only for the twinkling of an eye, it took time; for the eyelid takes time, however short it may be, to flit down and up over the eyeball. Thence the word commonly called the verb may be called the Time-taking word or Time-word, as it is called by the Germans Das Zeitwort; or, as it is the main word of the thought and speech, it is the Thought-word or Speech-word; or, as it is called in Latin and other tongues, the Word.

Welsh speech-lore has called the verb the soul1 of the thought-wording.

Among the thousands of sundriness of time-taking there are some wide differences which should be borne in mind.

Unoutreaching or Intransitive.

Time-takings, which must or may end with the time-taking thing, as

To be. John cannot be another man.

To sleep; to walk. John cannot sleep or walk another man.

Outreaching (Transitive).

Time-takings that may begin with the time-taking thing, and reach out to another, as

To strike; to see. John may strike or see another man.

Time-giving.

If a man, A, takes time against another, B, as to see B, we should more truly say of B that he gives, not takes, the time which A takes.

The time-words for unoutreaching time-takings may be called Unoutreaching; of the outreaching ones, Outreaching; of the time-givings, Time-giving.

In some cases there is between the time-taking thing and the time-giving thing a middle one – the thing, tool, or matter with which the time is taken, as ‘John hit William with a stone’ or ‘a cane.’ But then, again, this wording is shortened by the putting of the name of the mid-thing as a time-word, as ‘John stoned or caned William.’ And this brings in a call for the marking of two sundry kinds of time-words – the strong or moulded, and weak or unmoulded time-words.

A time-word, when it tells a taking of time by one thing against another, is in the outreaching (active) voice– ‘John strikes the iron.’ When it tells of the giving of time, it is in the time-giving (passive) voice. When it tells of an unoutreaching time-taking it is in the middle voice.

For the causing of another thing to take time some tongues have set shapes of the time-word, as, in Hindustani, durna, to run; durāna, to make another run.

We have hardly any of such words, though such are —

Lie, lay.

Sit, set.

Rise, raise.

Time-takings for becoming or making another thing become otherwise are marked by the ending -en on the mark-word, as

To blacken.

To whiten.

Misdoing by the fore-eking mis-: —

Mistake.

Misread.

Longer-lasting time-takings marked by the ending -er, as

Short or small time-takings by endings such as

A time-taking, taken as a deed or being without any time-taking thing, is taken as a thing, and its name is a Thing-name, as to write.

As in Greek the Infinitive mood, tò gráphein, the ‘to write’; and in Italian, il scrivere, the ‘to write’ (the deed of writing or a writing), so the Infinitive mood-shape of the Saxon time-word was taken as a thing-name after the preposition to, to or for, as to huntianne (to or for the deed to hunt or hunting), as ‘Why does Alfred keep those dogs?’ ‘To huntianne.’

Thence we have our wording —

‘Any chairs to mend?’ (any chairs to or for the deed mending),

‘A house to let,’

‘Letters to write,’

‘A tale to tell,’

which is all good English.

It is an evil to our speech that the thing-shape now ending in -ing should be mistaken for the mark-word ending in -ing.

Unhappily two sundry endings of the old English have worn into one shape. They were -ung or -ing and -end.

Singung is the deed of singing, a thing. Singend is a mark-word, as in the wording ‘I have a singing bird.’

Sailing and hunting, in the foregiven thought-wordings, are thing-names, and not mark-words. Sailing is segling, as ‘ne mid seglinge ne mid rownesse’ (neither with sailing nor rowing). – Bede 5, 1.

‘Wunigende ofer hyne’ (woning [mark-word] over him). – Matt iii. 16.

‘Sy wunung heora on west’ (be their woning [thing-name] waste). – Ps. lxviii 30.

‘Ða genealaehton hym to Farisaer hyne costigende’ (then came near to him the Pharisees tempting [mark-word] him). – Matt xix. 3.

‘Ne gelaede þu us on costnunge’ (lead us not into tempting [thing-name]). – Lord’s Prayer.

So ‘haelende,’ Matt v. 23; ‘haeling’; ‘bodigende,’ Matt. x. 35; ‘bodung,’ Luke xi. 32.

‘Waere þu to-daeg, on huntunge?’ (not huntende) (wert thou to-day on or in hunting?) – Aelfric’s Dialogue.

‘Hwaet dest þu be þinre huntunge?’ (not huntende) (what dost thou by thy hunting?) – Aelfric.

‘The CALLING of assemblies I cannot away with.’ – Isa. i. 13. Not ‘calling assemblies,’ which, if calling were a mark-word, would mean assemblies that call.

The right speech-trimming with the thing-names in -ing is to trim them in the old English way as thing-names in their cases; as,

‘We are the offscouring of all things unto this day.’ – 1 Cor. iv. 13. Not ‘We are the offscouring all things.’

‘For that righteous man, IN seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul.’

‘By the WASHING of regeneration and (the) RENEWING of the Holy Ghost.’ – Titus iii. 5. Not ‘He saved us by the washing regeneration and renewing the Holy Ghost.’

The ending -er of the time-taker (deeder, name-word) is, not unclearly, the Celtic, Welsh gwr, or in word-welding -wr, the Latin -or; as,

Welsh, barn, doom; barnwr, a doom-man.

Latin, canto, to sing; cantor, a sing-man.

Thence -er seems a far less fitting ending for a tool-name than the old Saxon -el; and a tool for the whetting of knives would be more fitly called a whettel than a whetter. Choppel, chopper; clippels, clippers.

All new time-words now taken or shapen from other tongues must be unmoulded.

We say shoot, shot (not shooted); but loot, looted (not lot), loot being the Hindustani lootna, to rob or plunder.

So time-words, which are known English words, of another kind, names or mark-words, are mostly unmoulded.

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‘Enaid yr ymadrod yw’r ferf.’