Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from The Philosophy of Speech
At the present time the theorists on this subject are divided into two schools, who we may call the evolutionists and the agnostics. The former hold that language evolved from natural cries and ejaculations and from imitations of natural sounds Thus the noun ache is merely the ejacula tion ack! The cry of pain; the pronoun me is the ejaculation ahem I by which the intend ing speaker calls attention to his own presence (in Sanskrit aham I). The evolutionists admit that the chain of association in the case of many words consists wholly of missing links, and content themselves with exhibiting those few which still exist in a perfect state. The word whose interjectional pedigree has been most satisfactorily established is ugly. Chance has preserved to us several fragments of old Scotch poetry which seem designed to confirm the evolutionist theory. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
