C'est dommage que de son
temps on ne cultivat pas encore le sanscrit, l'hindotistani, le
thibetain et l'arabe: il les eut contraints a lui livrer des
etymologies francaises. Il ne se met pas en peine des chemins par ou
un mot hebreu ou carthaginois aurait pu passer pour venir s'etablir en
France. Il y est, le voila, suffit! L'identite ne peut etre mise en
question devant la ressemblance, et souvent Dieu sait quelle
ressemblance! Compare Ampere, _Formation de la Langue Francaise_, pp.
194, 195.]
All experience, indeed, proves how perilous it is to etymologize at
random, and on the strength of mere surface similarities of sound. Let
me illustrate the absurdities into which this may easily betray us by
an amusing example. A clergyman, who himself told me the story, had
sought, and not unsuccessfully, to kindle in his schoolmaster a passion
for the study of derivations. His scholar inquired of him one day if he
were aware of the derivation of 'crypt'? He naturally applied in the
affirmative, that 'crypt' came from a Greek word to conceal, and meant
a covered place, itself concealed, and where things which it was wished
to conceal were placed. The other rejoined that he was quite aware the
word was commonly so explained, but he had no doubt erroneously; that
'crypt,' as he had now convinced himself, was in fact contracted from
'cry-pit'; being the pit where in days of Popish tyranny those who were
condemned to cruel penances were plunged, and out of which their cry
was heard to come up--therefore called the 'cry-pit,' now contracted
into 'crypt'! Let me say, before quitting my tale, that I would far
sooner a schoolmaster made a hundred such mistakes than that he should
be careless and incurious in all which concerned the words which he was
using.
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