Now words may be akin in either of two ways. They may be related in blood.
Or they may be related by marriage. Let us consider these two kinds of
connection more fully.
As an illustration of blood kinships enjoyed by a native English word take
the adjective _good_. We can easily call to mind other members of its
family: goodly, goodish, goody-goody, good-hearted, good-natured, good-
humored, good-tempered, goods, goodness, goodliness, gospel (good story),
goodby, goodwill, goodman, goodwife, good-for-nothing, good den (good
evening), the Good Book. The connection between these words is obvious.
Next consider a group of words that have been naturalized: scribe,
prescribe, ascribe, proscribe, transcribe, circumscribe, subscriber,
indescribable, scribble, script, scripture, postscript, conscript,
rescript, manuscript, nondescript, inscription, superscription,
description. It is clear that these words are each other's kith and kin in
blood, and that the strain or stock common to all is _scribe_ or (as
sometimes modified) _script_. What does this strain signify? The idea
of writing. The _scribes_ are a writing clan. Some of them, to be
sure, have strayed somewhat from the ancestral calling, for words are as
wilful--or as independent--as men.
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