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The Penguin Guide to Plain English

meaning. That is w hat happened w ith darling and favourite. And this
drifting apart often produced subtle differentiations o f meaning. Even
w here the meanings remained for dictionary purposes identical, the
duplication allowed o f subtle distinctions resonating in the overtones of
the words. Sorrow is an Anglo-Saxon w ord, m isery a Latin word. They
have drifted apart in their emotive baggage. Hearty and cordial give
us synonyms w hich strike the ear w ith very different resonance. We
greeted him heartily rings different mental bells from We saluted him
cordially. No one w ould suggest that there is m uch difference in meaning
between the verb begin and the w ord com m ence. Even so w e use the
two w ords in different contexts.
It is risky to generalize about this drifting apart o f native and parallel
Latin words. W here, say, the w ord grasp is a forceful w ord in its
concrete sense (He grasped the pole and hurled it in the air) and the
parallel Latin w ords com prehend and apprehend are likely to be
associated w ith getting hold o f things w ith the m ind rather than w ith
the body, nevertheless w e readily speak o f grasping new ideas and we
used to refer regularly to the business of apprehending criminals. Usage
does not stand still in this respect. We now use the w ord heavy chiefly
in reference to physical weight. We use the w ord w eighty o f both
physical items and arguments. The Latin equivalent, ponderous, tends
to be used only in a metaphorical sense o f over-solemn personages. Yet
I have just read a notice issued by the Midland Railway in 187^:
This bridge is insufficient to carry weights beyond the ordinary traffic of
the district, and the owners and persons in charge of Locomotive Traction
Engines and other ponderous carriages are warned against passing over the
bridge.
A century or so later that use o f the adjective ponderous can only be
said to seem too ponderous.
Otto Jesperson pointed out that our native vocabulary seems to have
been short o f adjectives, w ith the result that we tend to shift from native
nouns to foreign adjectives. He cites the noun m o u th and the adjective
oral, the noun nose and the adjective nasal, the noun eye and the
adjective ocular, the n oun son and the adjective filial. The adjectives
here have no native equivalents, unless w e count the adjective nosey
(and what a homely, unsophisticated w ord that is). In cases w here there
has been recourse to foreign adjectives despite the existence o f parallel
native ones, the tw o w ords tend to drift apart in meaning. Thus tim ely