LAURA BRIDGEMAN. 15 



feeling of disgust. This/ sound leads to the universal interjection of/e, pfui^ 

 fi^ or ^.fi — the vowel, the most liquid element of speech, changing in the different 

 languages, as it would with different individuals, before usage has settled one 

 vowel as the adopted one. This fie, or fi (in French,) is the root of the word 

 Fien, to hate, in Low-German and ancient Franconian, and of Fian in Anglo- 

 Saxon; whence again the noun Fiend, in English, is derived, as likewise Fijend in 

 Low-German, Feind in German, Fient in Swedish, Fiant in ancient Franconian, 

 and Vejant in Dutch, for hateful enemy, a mahgnant being. The Greek ^^i indi- 

 cates more an interjection of pain ; but that which is the utterance of pain 

 becomes that of dislike if exclaimed at an object. The two ideas are near 

 akin. We have, therefore, ^ev^u to indulge in sounds of woe, or to call ^ti ; and 

 is not $£vyu, to flee, (from that which makes us exclaim ^fii, that is, from that 

 which is painful, disagreeable to us,) derived from the same root ? Ototoi was 

 the Greek articulated exclamation of grief, and o*ora;fco is to moan, to give vent 

 to grief The Greek language requires the addition of a termination which 

 indicates the verb. The same would be the case in German. In English this 

 necessity does not exist; and a leading article of a distinguished London paper* 

 lately said of the Secretary for foreign affairs, " He will pooh-pooh such particu- 

 larity ;" that is to say, he will dismiss such particulars disdainfully as trifles, 

 while uttering the interjection pooh ! pooh ! 



A member of my own family showed, in early infancy, a peculiar tendency to 

 form new words, partly from sounds which the child caught, as to woh for to 

 stop, from the interjection woh! used by wagoners when they wish to stop their 

 horses ; partly from symphenomenal emissions of sounds. Thus when the boy 

 was a little above a year old he had made and established in the nursery the 

 word JVim for every thing fit to eat. I had watched the growth of this word. 

 First, he expressed his satisfaction at seeing his meal, when hungry, by the 

 natural humming sound, which all of us are apt to produce when approving or 

 pleased with things of a common character, and which we might express thus, 

 htn. Gradually, as his organs of speech became more skilful, and repetition 

 made the sound more familiar and clearer, it changed into the more articulate 

 um and im. Finally an JY was placed before it, nim, being much easier to pro- 

 nounce than im, when the mouth has been closed. But soon the growing mind 

 began to generahze, and nim came to signify every thing edible ; so that the 

 boy would add the words good or bad, which he had learned in the mean time. 

 He now would say good nim,, bad nim, his nurse adopting the word with him. 

 On one occasion he said. Fie nim, for bad, repulsive to eat. There is no doubt 

 but that a verb to nim, for to eat, would have developed itself, had not the ripen- 

 ing mind adopted the vernacular language, which was offered to it ready made. 

 We have, then, here the origin and history of a word which commenced in a 

 symphenomenal sound, and gradually became articulate in sound and general 

 in its meaning, as the organs of speech, as well as the mind of the utterer, 



* London Spectator of the 27th July, 1850. 



