ng to the
French surname Charbonneau, a little coal.

CHAPTER XXII. ADJECTIVAL NICKNAMES

"The man replied that he did not know the object of the building; and
to make it quite manifest that he really did not know, he put an
adjective before the word 'object,' and another--that is, the
same--before the word 'building.' With that he passed on his way, and
Lord Jocelyn was left marvelling at the slender resources of our
language, which makes one adjective do duty for so many
qualifications."

(BESANT, All Sorts and Conditions of Men, ch. xxxviii.)

The rejection by the British workman of all adjectives but one is due
to the same imaginative poverty which makes the adjective "nice"
supreme in refined circles, and which limits the schoolgirl to
"ripping" and her more self-conscious brother to the tempered
"decent." But dozens of useful adjectives, now either obsolete or
banished to rustic dialect, are found among our surnames. The
tendency to accompany every noun by an adjective seems to belong to
some deep-rooted human instinct. To this is partly due the Protean
character of this part of speech, for the word, like the coin, becomes
dulled and worn in circulation and needs periodically to be withdrawn
and replaced. An epithet which is complimentary in one generation is
ironical in the next and eventually offensive. Moody, with its
northern form Mudie, which now means morose, was once valiant (Chapter
I); and pert, surviving in the name Peart, meant active, brisk, etc.--

"Awake the pert and nimble spirit of mirth."

(Midsummer Night's Dream, i. 1.)

ARCHAIC MEANINGS

To interpret an adjectival nickname we must go to its meaning in
Chaucer and his contemporaries. Silly, Seeley, Seely

"This sely, innocent Custance" (B, 682)--

still means innocent when we speak of the "silly sheep," and happy in
the phrase "silly Suffolk." It is cognate with Ger. selig, blessed,
often used in speaking of the dead. We have compounds in Sillilant,
simple child (Chapter X), and Selibarn. Seely was also used for Cecil
or Cecilia. Sadd was once sedate and steadfast

"But thogh this mayde tendre were of age,
Yet in the brest of hire virginitee
Ther was enclosed rype and sad corage"

(E, 218);

and as late as 1660 we find a book in defence of Charles I. described
as--

"A sad and impartial inquiry whether the King or Parliament began the
war."

Stout, valiant, now used euphemistically for fat, is cognate wi