record for it in
that verbal Who's Who, the dictionary, before we could understand how it
came by its scribal affiliations honestly. But once we begin to reflect or
to probe, we find we have not mistaken its identity. _Ascribe_ is the
offspring of _ad_ (to) and _scribo_ (write), both Latin terms.
It originally meant writing to a person's name or after it (that is,
imputing to the person by means of written words) some quality or
happening of which he was regarded as the embodiment, source, or cause.
Nowadays we may saddle the matter on him through oral rather than written
speech. That is, _ascribe_ has largely lost the writing traits. But
all the same it is manifestly of the writing blood.

The _scribes_ are of undivided racial stock, Latin. Consider now the
_manu_, or _man_, words which sprang from the Latin
_manus_, meaning "hand." Here are some of them: manual, manoeuver,
mandate, manacle, manicure, manciple, emancipate, manage, manner,
manipulate, manufacture, manumission, manuscript, amanuensis. These too
are children of the same father; they are brothers and sisters to each
other. But what shall we say of legerdemain (light, or sleight, of hand),
maintain, coup de main, and the like? They bear a resemblance to the
_man's_ and _manu's_, yet one that casual observers would not
notice. Is there kinship between the two sets of words? There is. But not
the full fraternal or sororal relation. The _mains_ are children of
_manus_ by a French marriage he contracted. With this French blood in
their veins, they are only half-brothers, half-sisters of the
_manu's_ and the _man's_.

Your examination of the family trees of words will be practical, rather
than highly scholastic, in nature. You need not track every word in the
dictionary to the den of its remote parentage. Nor need you bother your
head with the name of the distant ancestor. But in the case of the large
number of words that have a numerous kindred you should learn to detect
the inherited strain. You will then know that the word is the brother or
cousin of certain other words of your acquaintance, and this knowledge
will apprise you of qualities in it with which you should reckon. To this
extent only must you make yourself a student of verbal genealogy.

EXERCISE - Blood

(Simple exercises in tracing blood relationships among words are given at
the end of the chapter. Therefore the exercises assigned here are of a
special character.)

1. Each of the follow