Hayakawa - Use the right word : modern guide to synonyms and related words

Hayakawa, S. I. (Samuel Ichiye), 1906-1992

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Editorial Staff iv

Introduction, by S. I. Hayakawa v

How to Use This Book viii

A MODERN GUIDE TO SYNONYMS 1

Index

This work was a collaborative effort of S. I. Hayakawa, Professor of English and Speech, San Francisco State College, and the Funk & Wagnalls Dictionary Staff. Professor Hayakawa subsequently served as President of San Francisco State College and was elected U.S. Senator from California in 1976.

The following staff members, under the direction of Sidney I. Landau, Editor in Chief of Dictionaries, made substantial contributions to this work:

Editors: Ronald Bogus

Sheila C. Brantley Alma Graham Kenneth Pitchford Harold Ward

Production: Elizabeth T. Salter Barbara A. Tieger

Editorial Assistants: Julie Graham

Jean Kahn

by S. I. Hayakawa

English has the largest vocabulary and the most synonyms of any language in the world. This richness is due to the fact that the English language has grown over the centuries by constantly incorporating words from other languages. Even before the Norman Conquest, the Anglo-Saxon vocabulary included words borrowed from Latin (street, mile, the suffix -Chester in the names of towns), Greek (priest, bishop), Celtic (crag, bin), and Scandinavian (law, fellow, egg, thrall). After the Norman Conquest, the English vocabulary was virtually doubled by the addition of French words, especially those reflecting a higher standard of living and a more complex social life: for example, words connected with food (sugar, vinegar, boil, fry, roast), clothing (garment, robe, mantle, gown), law (plaintiff, perjury, legacy), religion (convent, hermitage, chaplain, cardinal), and social rank and organization (prince, duke, count, vassal, mayor, constable).

While much of the new French vocabulary described new ideas and activities, much of it duplicated the pre-existing Anglo-Saxon vocabulary, giving the writer or speaker a choice of synonyms: cure (French) or heal (Anglo-Saxon), table or board, poignant or sharp, labor or work, mirror or glass, assemble or meet, power or might. Sometimes the duplication of vocabulary was used to make distinctions, ox, swine, calf, and deer were called, when killed and prepared for cooking, beef, pork, veal, and venison; hitting, striking, stealing, and robbing became, when viewed through the eyes of French law, assault, battery, larceny, and burglary.

With the enormous expansion of classical learning in the Renaissance, there was a great influx of words of Latin and Greek origin into the language, dictated by the demands of an enriched intellectual and cultural life. Also, the larger world discovered through travel (from the Crusades onward) and exploration (especially in the Elizabethan period) was a great stimulus to culture and language. There also arose in the sixteenth century a fashion of ornamenting ones discourse with what were then called aureate or inkhorn terms drawn from Greek and Latin. Shakespeares multitudinous seas incarnadine is a famous example, and what happened to these particular words is typical of the fate of this new vocabulary: multitudinous stayed in the language as one of several synonyms for many, while incarnadine is not heard any more except in this context. In brief, many words of classical origin introduced into the language during the Renaissance became permanent additions, but most were soon forgotten or were relegated to special technical contexts, like hebdemodary (weekly) and gressorial (having to do with walking).

VI

Modern Guide to Synonyms

The adventures of English-speaking people as they traded and fought and traveled around the world in modern timesin Europe, North America, India, Australia, Africaalso expanded the vocabulary. Words were borrowed from Dutch {tub, spool, deck), Spanish {sherry, armada, grenade), American Indian {squash, toboggan, hickory), East Indian {cashmere, punch, shampoo), Afrikaans {veld, trek), Italian {soprano, casino, macaroni), Mexican {chocolate, tomato), Australian {kangaroo, billabong), Japanese {kimono, ricksha), Malay {amok, ketchup), and many others.

Furthermore, the United States, as a separate nation with its own life and character and institutions, added vastly to the English vocabulary, beginning in Colonial times. With the rise of the United States to a position of world influence in politics, science, industry, trade, and the popular arts, American words and phrases have gained recognition and prestige everywhere. Ice cream, jeep, and rock-and-roll are internationally known terms, as are containment, DEW-line, and nuclear deterrence. Moreover, American terminology for many things exists side by side with an English terminology, placing another whole group of synonyms at our service: help (American) and servant (British), sidewalk and pavement, billboard and hoarding, movies and flicks, druggist and chemist, installment plan and hire-purchase system, water-heater and geyser, checkers and draughts, soft drinks and mineral waters, and so on through an almost interminable list.

Synonyms in English are therefore of many kinds. Some groups of synonyms, like foreword (English), preface (French), introduction (Latin), and prolegomenon (Greek), seem like a simple embarrassment of riches. Some, like plain (French), steppe (Russian), pampas (Spanish, from South American Indian), prairie (French voyageur), savannah (Spanish), tundra (Russian, from Lappish), refer to geographical variants of the same kind of thing. Others, like teach, educate, indoctrinate, instruct, school, tutor, differ from each other principally in degrees of abstraction: teach is certainly the most general word of this group, while the others are more specialized in application. Some words of quite similar meaning make distinctions at the concrete, descriptive level: tip, cant, careen, heel, list, slant, slope, tilt; screech, scream, clamor, yammer, howl. These are truly synonyms only if translated into more general form, the former group into incline, the latter into outcry.