LAURA BRIDGEMAN. 21 



In the sixth class may be ranged those regular words which are formed by the 

 addition of a syllable of symphenomenal character — syllables, as have been men- 

 tioned in the preceding paragraph, to some existing word. The German has 

 the word Bitten^ (to pray, i. e. of man, not of God;) of this he forms the 

 frequentative Betteln, to beg, that is repeatedly praying, in a small way, for 

 a small gift. It seems to be obvious that the affix In has the same symphe- 

 nomenal affinity to the ideas of diminutiveness and repetition that flash has to 

 sudden, bright, and passing light. The Italian affix accio, or one, the one ex- 

 pressing badness to contemptibleness, the other indicating amplification, seem to 

 me of the same sort. Whoever has heard an Italian using them, with his 

 expressive enunciation, will at once understand their peculiar import. The 

 Greek desideratiye syllable «« is probably of a symphenomenal nature; so are 

 all diminutives which are not originally independent, but now faded nouns. 

 The intensive -S of the Teutonic languages ought to be mentioned in this place. 



What has been observed of Laura with reference to the fifth class apphes 

 likewise to this set of words. 



words for which alone they are used is derived from their meaning; indeed, still more of them are 

 unconsciously used because their sounds correspond to their w^eighty meaning. The German word for 

 murder, for instance, is mord, (pronounced mart, with a strongly shaking r,) and the vulgar would 

 not use it as a mere emphatic, did it not express the awful idea of murder by a heavy and strong 

 sound. But it is found that the vulgar, especially in Ireland and our western regions, form entirely 

 new words in a similar sense. The final syllable acious, in the English language, has a peculiarly 

 emphatic sound. The vulgar, therefore, frequently attach it to adjectives, merely to add a heavy 

 weight to the word. I have thus heard the words gloriacious, cwiacious, for " very glorious" and 

 " very curious." The many Irish tales published in England contain numerous words of this sort. 

 In one of them I lately found this expression: "You need not tossicate thus your head," for, you 

 need not thus violently toss your head. A remarkable slang word of this sort is the adjective 

 bodyacious, vulgarly used in the South, and meaning total, root and branch; for instance: "The hogs 

 have broke into my garden, and destroyed it bodyaciously. " Here the termination acious is made 

 use of merely for its phonetic value, or weight; while the word body probably suggested the idea 

 of totally — the entire body. The slang of the vulgar is interesting to the philosopher; because, in 

 the uneducated, if they are of a sprightly mind, the same native, formative powers are at work, which 

 are observed in the earliest tribes and in children. I think it is Lessing who, for a similar reason, 

 says, that intoxicated people sometimes invent most characteric words. The state of intoxication 

 reduces the individual to a state of untrammelled savageness, in which the impulsive power of the 

 mind, as far as it goes in that state of mental reduction, resumes a proportionate degree of original, 

 formative vigor, unconcerned about that which is already existing and acknowledged. 



I cannot forbear relating here a droll anecdote connected with the German word for murder in the 

 sense which has been indicated above. Soon after the war against Napoleon, in the year 1815, the 

 Prussian Government thought it proper to institute prosecutions against many persons who had fou<^ht 

 for the country, on account of suspected liberalism. The writer of these pages, then a mere lad, 

 was among them, and arrested on suspicion of having dabbled in liberal politics. All his papers 

 were taken from him, and submitted to the searching eyes of the police. Among these papers was 

 his journal, which contained, under the head of one day, this passage — expressed, it is now owned, 

 in somewhat too familiar a style even for soliloquy — " All day murder lazy." This grave line was 

 marked with the serious red pencil, and the writer was repeatedly teazed with the question whether 

 he had not meant that he had been negligent in imagining (and compassing) the death of persons 

 who, according to his opinion, stood in the way of establishing a constitutional government in Prus- 

 sia — lazy in murderous thoughts! The inquiring judge considered himself, no doubt, very sagacious. 



