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Sir Walter Scott's Contributions to the English Vocabulary
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
It is rather surprising that the subject of Scott's influence on the English vocabulary, a subject which has excited the interest of many students of language, has not heretofore been carefully examined. That such an influence existed became apparent soon after Scott achieved popularity. Francis Jeffrey, in his review of Marmion in the Edinburgh Review of April 1808, remarks: “His genius, seconded by the omnipotence of fashion, has brought chivalry again into temporary favor. Fine ladies and gentlemen now talk indeed of donjons, keeps, tabards, scutcheons, tressures, caps of maintenance, portcullises, wimples, and we know not what besides … ” This faintly petulant tone pervades the early remarks on Scott's contributions to the language. When the Waverley Novels appeared there seems to have been in the reviews considerable displeasure at the abundant intermixture of Lowland Scottish dialect, whence some words now very current have come to us. When The Monastery was published, a word-minded reviewer used one of Scott's innovations to solve to his own satisfaction the mystery of the Author of Waverley: “I believe that the author of ‘The Monastery’ and ‘Waverley’ has hitherto kept himself concealed, although these Works and several others … are attributed … to Sir Walter Scott, an opinion which is strengthened by the liberal employment in them of that feeble expression ‘he undid,‘ which so frequently disgraces the most beautiful passages in the Poems he avows.”
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- Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1953
References
1 Quoted in Lockhart, Cambridge Ed. (1901), ii, 35.
2 See Andrew Lang's introductions to Waverley, Guy Marmering, etc., Border Ed. (London, 1898).
3 From the review in the Gentleman's Magazine, Oct. 1820; quoted by Lang, Introd. to The Monastery, pp. xvii-xviii.
4 The Making of English (New York, 1904), p. 236.
5 The English Language (New York, 1912), p. 120.
6 Words and Idioms (London, 1925), p. 153.
7 See, e.g., Words Ancient and Modern (London, 1926), s.v. blackmail, raid, weird, yeoman; More Words Ancient and Modern (London, 1927), s.v. banshee, slogan, stalwart.
8 “Sir Walter Scott and the English Language,” Atlantic Monthly, cxlvii (Nov. 1931), 595.
9 Ibid., pp. 595-601. Other words that have been noted as Scott's introductions (aside from those discussed in OED articles), include following (“meaning ‘body of retainers’ ”—A. C. Champneys, History of English, N. Y., 1893, p. 6) and soothfast (W. Murison, “Changes in the Language since Shakespeare's Time,” Cambridge History of English Literature, 1939, xiv, 503).
10 Of course the majority of the words in Scott's vocabulary were common enough—e.g., house, dog, reply, understand, deceive, considerate—that they did not require checking. But words on which Scott's influence seemed only remotely possible—e.g., bewilder, battlement, coldhearted—were checked. In all about 10,000 words, roughly a third of Scott's total vocabulary, were checked against the OED articles. Even so, it is not possible to claim total accuracy. The word undo was not checked when it first occurred, presumably because it seemed too common to have been affected. But undo is probably one of Scott's contributions. Probably others were missed, though it seems unlikely that the error is large.
11 Samuel Johnson, A Dictionary of the English Language, rev. H. J. Todd, 2nd ed. (1827).
12 John Jamieson, An Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language (Paisley, 1879-82). (This work was originally published in 1808 with a supplement added in 1825; material added in the 1879-82 edition is kept distinct from that written by Dr. Jamieson.)
13 Of these the most important is The Teacher's Word Book of 30,000 words, by Edward L. Thorndike and Irving Lorge (New York, 1944).
14 I used Richardson (1844) and Worcester (1846). Appearance of a word in works so close to Scott in time may also be evidence of Scott's influence.
15 Of poets later than Scott, Browning, Tennyson, Housman, Emerson, Poe, and Lanier have been concordanced.
16 For example, the OED labels dour “Sc. and north. dial.” However, in present-day English numerous usages of the word in purely English or American contexts are to be observed.
17 The first number in the parentheses is the number of occurrences noted in Scott; the reference that follows is the location of the first occurrence.
18 This is the first occurrence in the published works, but Scott used the word earlier, in an 1815 letter to Morritt.
19 In Ivanhoe used as a substantive and not compounded—“Free Lances.” The regular term in Ivanhoe for these mercenary soldiers is “Free Companions.”
20 This is the only occurrence of the word in the modern form and meaning that I have noted. But compare also related forms in The Antiquary, Ch. xxiii, and The Fair Maid of Perth, Ch. xxxii.
21 This figure does not include figurative usages—“I am undone.” In this sense the participle did not go out of use in the centuries before Scott. Scott reintroduced the word in the literal meaning—“She undid the door.”
22 In the Shakespearian phrase “coign of vantage” and similar contexts.
23 In the meaning “one to whom allegiance is paid,” liege has never gone wholly out of use. Scott reintroduced liege alone and in combination in the meaning “one who pays allegiance.”
24 In the meaning “swagger.”
25 A saddle.
26 The verb.
27 Scott used the word privately in an 1805 letter to Miss Seward.
28 Here in the Scottish form—craigsman; cragsman occurs in Anne of Geierstein, Ch. ii.
29 A coat of mail. I include here also jackman, the term for the wearer of the armor; this latter occurs first in The Monastery, Ch. ix.
30 The adverb : “It is against my vow to love any maiden, otherwise than par amours, as I will love thee” (Ivanhoe, Ch. xxv).
31 The Elizabethan weapon.
32 A little flag or streamer.
33 A coat of mail.
34 The first figure in parenthesis is the number of occurrences counted in Scott; the second is the number listed in the Burns concordance.
35 The adjective. The noun retained some currency as an archaism throughout the 18th century.
36 George H. McKnight, English Words and Their Backgrounds (New York, 1923), pp. 178-179. I do not mean to associate this judgment especially with McKnight. It is expressed by Vendrys (Langage) and many others.
37 Scott must also have known this word in Hamlet: “The potent poison quite o'ercrows my spirit.” But twice in the three times he uses the word Scott explicitly refers to it as Spenserian: Rob Roy, Ch. xvii, Bride of Lammermoor, Ch. xvii.
38 I do not propose to make a study of Scott like those Miss Miles has made for the major English poets. I intend here to point out only an obvious difference between Scott and the other Romantic poets.
39 Major Adjectives in English Poetry, Univ. of Calif. Publications in English, xii, 314 ff.
40 Lockhart, ii, 397.
41 It is interesting that the hostile note is sounded even here. Each of these love terms has only a bad sense in Scott.