Everything about Inkhorn Term totally explained
An
inkhorn is an
inkwell made out of
horn. It was an important item for many
scholars and soon became symbolic of
writers in general. Later it became a byword for or
pedantic writers.
» And ere that we'll suffer such a prince,
So kind a father of the commonweal,
» To be disgraced by an inkhorn mate,
:—
Henry VI, Part 1,
William Shakespeare
An
inkhorn term is any
foreign borrowing (or a word created from existing word roots by an English speaker) into
English deemed to be unnecessary or overly pretentious, usually from
Latin. Controversy over inkhorn terms was rife between the mid-
16th to the mid-
17th centuries; at the time of the transition between
Middle English and
Modern English. It was also a time when English was replacing Latin as the main language of
science and
learning in
England, although
French was still prevalent. Many new words were being introduced into the language by writers, often self-consciously borrowing from
Classical literature. Critics regarded these words as useless, usually requiring knowledge of Latin or
Greek to be understood. They also contended that there were words with identical meaning already in English. Some of the terms did indeed seem to fill a
semantic gap in English (often technical and scientific words) whereas others coexisted with native (
Germanic) words with the same or similar meanings and often supplanted them.
Writers such as
Thomas Elyot and
George Pettie were enthusiastic borrowers of new words whereas
Thomas Wilson and
John Cheke argued against them. Many of these so-called inkhorn terms, such as,,,, and stayed in the language and are commonly used. Many other
neologisms faded soon after they were first used; for example which is now all but obsolete although the similar word survived. Faced with the influx of these new words from foreign languages, some writers either tried to deliberately resurrect older English words (for, for, for, for ) or create wholly new words from
Germanic roots (for, for, for ).
Few of these words created in opposition to inkhorn terms remained in common usage and the writers who disdained the use of
Latinate words often couldn't avoid using other words of foreign origin. Although the inkhorn controversy was over by the end of the 17th century many writers have attempted to return to what they saw as the purer roots of the language.
William Barnes created a whole lexicon of words such as
starlore for
astronomy and
speechcraft for
grammar but his words were not widely accepted.
» Bad writers, and especially scientific, political, and sociological writers, are nearly always haunted by the notion that Latin or Greek words are grander than Saxon ones, and unnecessary words like expedite, ameliorate, predict, extraneous, deracinated, clandestine, subaqueous, and hundreds of others constantly gain ground from their
Anglo-Saxon numbers.
:—
George Orwell,
Politics and the English LanguageFurther Information
Get more info on 'Inkhorn Term'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://inkhorn_term.totallyexplained.com">Inkhorn term Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
