rd _mambro_ had a run of
nearly two years, its last use was as an adjective signifying ugly or
horrible.

The history of such a word in a child's language is a type of what
goes on in the language of men. In the larger history we see similar
extensions under similar motives, checked and controlled in the same
way by surrounding usage.

It is obvious that to avoid error and confusion, the meaning or
connotation of names, the concepts, should somehow be fixed: names
cannot otherwise have an identical reference in human intercourse. We
may call this ideal fixed concept the LOGICAL CONCEPT: or we may call
it the SCIENTIFIC CONCEPT, inasmuch as one of the main objects of the
sciences is to attain such ideals in different departments of study.
But in actual speech we have also the PERSONAL CONCEPT, which varies
more or less with the individual user, and the POPULAR or VERNACULAR
CONCEPT, which, though roughly fixed, varies from social sect to
social sect and from generation to generation.

The variations in Popular Concepts may be traced in linguistic
history. Words change with things and with the aspects of things,
as these change in public interest and importance. As long as the
attributes that govern the application of words are simple, sensible
attributes, little confusion need arise: the variations are matters of
curious research for the philologist, but are logically insignificant.
Murray's Dictionary, or such books as Trench's _English Past and
Present_, supply endless examples, as many, indeed as there are
words in the language. _Clerk_ has almost as many connotations as
our typical _mambro_: clerk in holy orders, church clerk, town clerk,
clerk of assize, grocer's clerk. In Early English, the word meant "man
in a religious order, cleric, clergyman"; ability to read, write, and
keep accounts being a prominent attribute of the class, the word was
extended on this simple ground till it has ceased altogether to cover
its original field except as a formal designation. But no confusion is
caused by the variation, because the property connoted is simple.[1]
So with any common noun: street, carriage, ship, house, merchant,
lawyer, professor. We might be puzzled to give an exact definition of
such words, to say precisely what they connote in common usage; but
the risk of error in the use of them is small.

When we come to words of which the logical concept is a complex
relation, an obscure or intangible attribute, the de