itter," "sour,"
"sharp," referring originally only to immediate physical
experiences, to objects perceived through the senses, come to
have intellectual and emotional significance, as when we speak
of a "sour" face, a "bitter" disappointment, a "sharp"
struggle. Most of our words that now have abstract emotional
or intellectual connotations were once words referring
exclusively to purely sensible (sense perceptual) experiences.
"Anxiety" once meant literally a "narrow place," just as
when we speak of some one having "a close shave." To
"refute" once meant literally "to knock out" an argument.
To "understand" meant "to stand in the midst of." To
"confer" meant "to bring together." Sensation words
themselves were once still more concrete in their meaning.
"Violet" and "orange" are obviously taken as color names from
the specific objects to which they still refer. Language has
well been described as "a book of faded metaphors." The
history of language has been to a large extent the assimilation
and habitual mechanical use of words that were, when first
used, strikingly figurative.

The novel use of a word that is now a quite regular part
of the language may in many cases first be ascribed to a
distinguished writer. Shakespeare is full of expressions which
have since, and because of his use of them, become literally
household words. Many words that have now a general
application arose out of a peculiar local situation, myth, or
name. "Boycott" which has become a reasonably intelligible
and universal word, only less than fifty years ago referred
particularly and exclusively to Boycott, a certain unpopular
Irish landowner who was subjected to the kind of discrimination
for which the word has come to stand. "Burke"
used as a verb has its origin in the name of a notorious Edinburgh
murderer. Characters in fiction or drama, history or legend
come to be standard words. Everyone knows what we mean when we
speak of a Quixotic action, a Don Juan,
a Galahad, a Chesterfield. To tantalize arises from the
mythical perpetual frustration of Tantalus in the Greek
story. Expressions that had a special meaning in the
works of a philosopher or litterateur come to be generally
used, as "Platonic love."[1] Again words that arise as mere
popular witticisms or vulgarisms may be brought into the
language as permanent acquisitions. "Mob," now a quite
legitimate word, was originally a shortening of _mobile vulgum_,
and was, only a hundred yea