42. +Remarks on the above Table.+ --The word +benison+, a blessing, may be contrasted with its opposite, +malison+, a curse. --+Cadence+ is the falling of sounds; +chance+ the befalling of events. --A +caitiff+ was at first a _captive_-- then a person who made no proper defence, but _allowed_ himself to be taken captive. --A +corps+ is a _body_ of troops. --The word +sample+ is found, in older English, in the form of +ensample+. --A +feat+ of arms is a deed or +fact+ of arms, _par excellence_. --To understand how +fragile+ became +frail+, we must pronounce the +g+ hard, and notice how the hard guttural falls easily away-- as in our own native words _flail_ and _hail_, which formerly contained a hard +g+. --A +major+ is a _greater_ captain; a +mayor+ is a greater _magistrate_. --A +magister+ means a _bigger man_-- as opposed to a +minister+ (from _minus_), a smaller man. --+Moneta+ was the name given to a stamped coin, because these coins were first struck in the temple of Juno Moneta, Juno the Adviser or the Warner. (From the same root-- +mon+-- come _monition_, _admonition_; _monitor_; _admonish_.) --Shakespeare uses the word +orison+ freely for _prayer_, as in the address of Hamlet to Ophelia, where he says, “Nymph, in thy orisons, be all my sins remembered!” --+Poor+ comes to us from an Old French word _poure_; the newer French is _pauvre_. --To understand the vanishing of the +g+ sound in _poignant_, we must remember that the Romans sounded it always hard. --+Sever+ we get through _separate_, because +p+ and +v+ are both labials, and therefore easily interchangeable. --+Treason+-- with its +s+ instead of +ti+-- may be compared with +benison+, +malison+, +orison+, +poison+, and +reason+. 43. +Conclusions from the above Table.+-- If we examine the table on page 231 with care, we shall come to several undeniable conclusions. (i) First, the words which come to us direct from Latin are found more in books than in everyday speech. (ii) Secondly, they are longer. The reason is that the words that have come through French have been worn down by the careless pronunciation of many generations-- by that desire for ease in the pronouncing of words which characterises all languages, and have at last been compelled to take that form which was least difficult to pronounce. (iii) Thirdly, the two sets of words have, in each case, either (_a_) very different meanings, or (_b_) different shades of meaning. There is no likeness of meaning in _cadence_ and _chance_, except the common meaning of _fall_ which belongs to the root from which they both spring. And the different shades of meaning between +history+ and +story+, between +regal+ and +royal+, between +persecute+ and +pursue+, are also quite plainly marked, and are of the greatest use in composition.