Produced by Thierry Alberto, Sankar Viswanathan, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net STORIES THAT WORDS TELL US BY ELIZABETH O'NEILL, M.A. AUTHOR OF "THE WORLD'S STORY," "A NURSERY HISTORY OF ENGLAND," ETC. LONDON: T. C. & E. C. JACK, LTD. 35 PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C. AND EDINBURGH 1918 * * * * * CONTENTS I. SOME STORIES OF BRITISH HISTORY TOLD FROM ENGLISH WORDS II. HOW WE GOT OUR CHRISTIAN NAMES AND SURNAMES III. STORIES IN THE NAMES OF PLACES IV. NEW NAMES FOR NEW PLACES V. STORIES IN OLD LONDON NAMES VI. WORDS MADE BY GREAT WRITERS VII. WORDS THE BIBLE HAS GIVEN US VIII. WORDS FROM THE NAMES OF PEOPLE IX. WORDS FROM THE NAMES OF ANIMALS X. WORDS FROM THE NAMES OF PLACES XI. PICTURES IN WORDS XII. WORDS FROM NATIONAL CHARACTER XIII. WORDS MADE BY WAR XIV. PROVERBS XV. SLANG XVI. WORDS WHICH HAVE CHANGED THEIR MEANING XVII. DIFFERENT WORDS WITH THE SAME MEANING, AND THE SAME WORDS WITH DIFFERENT MEANINGS XVIII. NICE WORDS FOR NASTY THINGS XIX. THE MORAL OF THESE STORIES * * * * * STORIES THAT WORDS TELL US. CHAPTER I. SOME STORIES OF BRITISH HISTORY TOLD FROM ENGLISH WORDS. Nearly all children must remember times when a word they know quite well and use often has suddenly seemed very strange to them. Perhaps they began repeating the word half to themselves again and again, and wondered why they had never noticed before what a queer word it is. Then generally they have forgotten all about it, and the next time they have used the word it has not seemed strange at all. But as a matter of fact words _are_ very strange things. Every word we use has its own story, and has changed, sometimes many times since some man or woman or child first used it. Some words are very old and some are quite new, for every living language--that is, every language used regularly by some nation--is always growing, and having new words added to it. The only languages which do not grow in this way are the "dead" languages which were spoken long ago by nations which are dead too. Latin is a "dead" language. When it was spoken by the old Romans it was, of course, a living language, and grew and changed; but though it is a very beautiful language, it is no longer used as the regular speech of a nation, and so does not change any more.