"Disloyal" and a Primer on Gentleman by C. S. Lewis: Twelfth Week

 My word this week is "disloyal." This is a common enough word today, but it is what Johnson says about its possible usages that is interesting. The lexicographer gives four usages:

1. Not true to allegiance; faithless; false to a sovereign; disobedient.

2.  Dishonest; perfidious. Obsolete.

3. Not true to the marriage-bed.

4. False in love; not constant. The three latter senses are now obsolete.

Johnson relates that only the first usage was in use in his day. The last three had fallen out of use. The obsolescence of a word over a period of time is also commented on by C. S. Lewis in his preface to Mere Christianity.   

Here Lewis explains that the word gentleman once meant "something recognisable; one who had a coat of arms and some landed property." The term merely described a state of being of the man and was not describing one who possesses honorable character. The latter meaning is certainly the normal usage in contemporary speech.  How did the change come into being? Lewis declares that it was the desire to be charitable, to spiritualize the word that brought the change. Spiritualizing the word not only changed its meaning but also changed its fundamental character from objective to subjective. Gentleman became a means to express praise, with the decision to give or withhold the praise a matter of personal approval because of what one perceives gentlemanly behavior to be. Lewis says this destroyed the utility of the word. Saying more about the viewpoint of the praiser rather than an objective consideration of the object at hand, gentleman became a "useless word." Sufficient words for praise already existed and the new use rendered the old objective use untenable without voluminous explanation. 

Trading objectivity for subjectivism in lexicography is a fallacy in fundamentals. The very nature of words are changed. Just as objectively describing the material possessions of a person is fundamentally different from describing their character; so is gentleman as a term of praise compared to a term describing what a man owns. The dichotomy is irrefutable. One is not the same as the other; neither can it be. 

This is why it is so important to understand that word meanings can and often do change over time, but being able to recognize whether the change is small and nuanced or is gross and a shift in identity from objective to subjective. Not seeing and comprehending this shift can wreak havoc in determining context, identifying properties, and discovering the truth. Substantial* and perhaps even intellectually fatal mistakes are sure to follow. This impediment defeats the would-be scholar even before he begins and instills a frustration and disheartedness that careful teaching and practice would have eliminated or kept from happening from the beginning. Little could be more important to the textual student and teacher alike.

Until next week.

John

* Case-in-point: One will need to delve into the connection between substance and substantial to understand how and why "Substantial" was chosen to convey the intended meaning of the sentence. I would encourage the reader to use this as a starting point of discovery to a better understanding of this topic.