And if you
trace their own lineage, you will find for some that it is but decent and
middle-class, for some that it is mongrelized and miscegenetic, for some
that it is proud, ancient, yea perhaps patriarchal.
It is contrary to nature for a word, as for a man, to live the life of a
hermit. Through external compulsion or internal characteristics a word has
contacts with its fellows. And its most intimate, most spontaneous
associations are normally with its own kindred.
In our work hitherto we have had nothing to say of verbal consanguinity.
But we have not wholly ignored its existence, for the very good reason
that we could not. For example, in the latter portions of Chapter IV we
proceeded on the hypothesis that at least some words have ancestors. Also
in the analysis of the dictionary definition of _tension_ we learned
that the word has, not only a Latin forebear, but French, Spanish,
Portuguese, and Italian kinsmen as well. One thing omitted from that
analysis would have revealed something further--namely, that the word has
its English kinfolks too. For the bracketed part of the dictionary
definition mentions two other English words, _tend_ and _tense_,
which from their origin involve the same idea as that of _tension_--
the idea of stretching.
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