Many words for skill or wisdom have been thus debased. _Cunning_
meant knowing, _artful_ meant well acquainted with one's art,
_crafty_ meant proficient in one's craft or calling, _wizard_
meant wise man. The present import of these words shows how men have
assumed that mental superiority must be yoked with moral dereliction or
diabolical aid. Words indicating the generality--indicating ordinary rank
or popular affiliations--have in many instances suffered the same decline.
_Trivial_ meant three ways; it was what might be heard at the
crossroads or on any route you chanced to be traveling, and its value was
accordingly slight. _Lewd_ meant belonging to the laity; it came to
mean ignorant, and then morally reprehensible. _Common_ may be used
to signify ill-bred; _vulgar_ may be and frequently is used to
signify indecent. _Sabotage_, from a French term meaning wooden shoe,
has come to be applied to the deliberate and systematic scamping of one's
work in order to injure one's employer. _Idiot_ (common soldier)
crystallizes the exasperated ill opinion of officers for privates.
(_Infantry_--an organization of military infants--has on the contrary
sloughed its reproach and now enshrines the dignity of lowliness.
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