" _Appreciate_ means
"set a (due) value on." We may perhaps say "really appreciate," but
scrupulous writers and speakers do not say "appreciate very much." A
_humor_ (compare humid) was once a "moisture"; then one of the four
moistures or liquids that entered into the human constitution and by the
proportions of their admixture determined human temperament; next a man's
outstanding temperamental quality (the thing itself rather than the cause
of it); then oddity which people may laugh at; then the spirit of laughter
and good nature in general. Normally we do not connect the idea of
moisture with the word. We may even speak of "a dry humor." But we should
not say "now and then a dry humor crops out," for then too many buried
meanings lie in the same grave for the very dead to rest peacefully
together.
Even apart from reading old literature and from having, when you use
words, no ghosts of their pristine selves rise up to damn you, you may
profit from a knowledge of how the meaning of a term has evolved. For
example, you will meet many tokens and reminders of the customs and
beliefs of our ancestors. Thus _coxcomb_ carries you back to the days
when every court was amused by a "fool" whose head was decked with a
cock's comb; _crestfallen_ takes you back to cockfighting; and
_lunatic_ ("moonstruck"), _disaster_ ("evil star"), and "thank
your lucky stars" plant you in the era of superstition when human fate was
governed by heavenly bodies.
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