hen servant, then rogue. Terms for agricultural classes seldom
remain flattering. Besides such epithets as _hayseed_ and
_clodhopper_, contemptuous in their very origin, _villain_ (farm
servant), _churl_ (farm laborer), and _boor_ (peasant) have all
gathered unto themselves opprobrium; _villain_ now involves a
scoundrelly spirit, _churl_ a contumelious manner, _boor_ a
bumptious ill-breeding; not one of these words is any longer confined in
its application to a particular social rank. Terms for womankind are soon
tainted. _Wench_ meant at first nothing worse than girl or daughter,
_quean_ than woman, _hussy_ than housewife; even _woman is_
generally felt to be half-slighting. Terms affirming unacquaintance with
sin, or abstention from it, tend to be quickly reft of what praise they
are fraught with; none of us likes to be saluted as _innocent,
guileless_, or _unsophisticated_, and to be dubbed _silly_ no
longer makes us feel blessed. Besides these and similar classes of words,
there are innumerable individual terms that have sadly lost caste. An
_imp_ was erstwhile a scion; it then became a boy, and then a
mischievous spirit. A _noise_ might once be music; it has ceased to
enjoy such possibilities. To live near a piano that is constantly banged
is to know how _noise_ as a synonym for music was outlawed.

A backward glance over the history of words repays you in showing you the
words for what they are, and in having them live out their lives before
you. Do you know what an _umpire_ is? He is a non (or num) peer, a
not equal man, an odd man--one therefore who can decide disputes. Do you
know what a _nickname_ is? It is an eke (also) name, a title bestowed
upon one in addition to his proper designation. Do you know what a
_fellow_, etymologically speaking, is? He is a fee-layer, a partner,
a man who lays his fee (property) alongside yours. Do you know that
_matinee_, though awarded to the afternoon, meant primarily a morning
entertainment and has traveled so far from its original sense that we call
an actual before-noon performance a morning matinee? Do you know the past
of such words as _bedlam_, _rival_, _parson_,
_sandwich_, _pocket handkerchief?_ _Bedlam_, a corruption
of _Bethlehem_, was a hospital for the insane in London; it came to
be a general term for great confusion or discord. _Rivals_ were
formerly dwellers--that is, neighboring dwellers--on the bank of a stream;
disputes over water-rights gave the word its pr