Chapter V.
On The Natural History Of The Variations In The Meaning Of Terms.
§ 1. It is not only in the mode which has now been pointed out, namely by
gradual inattention to a portion of the ideas conveyed, that words in
common use are liable to shift their connotation. The truth is, that the
connotation of such words is perpetually varying; as might be expected
from the manner in which words in common use acquire their connotation. A
technical term, invented for purposes of art or science, has, from the
first, the connotation given to it by its inventor; but a name which is in
every one's mouth before any one thinks of defining it, derives its
connotation only from the circumstances which are habitually brought to
mind when it is pronounced. Among these circumstances, the properties
common to the things denoted by the name, have naturally a principal
place; and would have the sole place, if language were regulated by
convention rather than by custom and accident. But besides these common
properties, which if they exist are certainly present whenever the name
is employed, any other circumstance may casually be found along with it,
so frequently as to become associated with it in the same manner, and as
strongly, as the common properties themselves. In proportion as this
association forms itself, people give up using the name in cases in which
those casual circumstances do not exist. They prefer using some other
name, or the same name with some adjunct, rather than employ an expression
which will call up an idea they do not want to excite. The circumstance
originally casual, thus becomes regularly a part of the connotation of the
word.
It is this continual incorporation of circumstances originally accidental, into the permanent signification of words, which is the cause that there are so few exact synonyms. It is this also which renders the dictionary meaning of a word, by universal remark so imperfect an exponent of its real meaning. The dictionary meaning is marked out in a broad, blunt way, and probably includes all that was originally necessary for the correct employment of the term; but in process of time so many collateral associations adhere to words, that whoever should attempt to use them with no other guide than the dictionary, would confound a thousand nice distinctions and subtle shades of meaning which dictionaries take no account of; as we notice in the use of a language in conversation or writing by a foreigner not thoroughly master of it. The history of a word, by showing the causes which determine its use, is in these cases a better guide to its employment than any definition; for definitions can only show its meaning at the particular time, or at most the series of its successive meanings, but its history may show the law by which the succession was produced. The word gentleman, for instance, to the correct employment of which a dictionary would be no guide, originally meant simply a man born in a certain rank. From this it came by degrees to connote all such qualities or adventitious circumstances as were usually found to belong to persons of that rank. This consideration at once explains why in one of its vulgar acceptations it means any one who lives without labor, in another without
