f what London was like at different
times in the past; but another very interesting group of names are
those which are being made in the greater London of to-day. One of the
commonest words used by Londoners to-day is the _Underground_. If an
eighteenth-century Londoner could come back and talk to us to-day he
would not know what we meant by this word. For the great system of
underground railways to which it refers was only made in the later
years of the nineteenth century. The _Twopenny Tube_ was the name of
one of the first lines of these underground railways. It was so called
because the trains ran through great circular tunnels, like the
underground railways which connect all parts of London to-day. It has
now become quite a habit of Londoners to talk of going "by Tube" when
they mean by any of the underground railways.

One of these lines has a very peculiar and rather ugly name. It is
called the _Bakerloo Railway_, because it runs from Baker Street to
Waterloo. It certainly makes us think that the Londoners of long ago
showed much better taste in the names they invented.

CHAPTER VI.

WORDS MADE BY GREAT WRITERS.

As we have seen, languages while they are living are always growing
and changing. We have seen how new names have been made as time went
on. But many new words besides names are constantly being added to a
language; for just as grown-up people use more words than children,
and educated people use more words than uneducated or less educated
people, so, too, _nations_ use more words as time goes on. Every word
must have been used a first time by some one; but of course it is
impossible to know who were the makers of most words. Even new words
cannot often be traced to their makers. Some one uses a new word, and
others pick it up, and it passes into general use, while everybody has
forgotten who made it.

But one very common way in which people learn to use new words is
through reading the books of great writers. Sometimes these writers
have made new words which their readers have seen to be very good, and
have then begun to use themselves. Sometimes these great writers have
made use of words which, though not new, were very rare, and
immediately these words have become popular and ordinary words.

The first great English poet was Chaucer, and the great English
philologists feel sure that he must have made many new words and made
many rare words common; but it is not easy to say that Chaucer