Notes and Queries/Series 7/Volume 8/Number 190/Words that are not Wanted
Words that are not Wanted (7th S. viii. 85).—I am sorry to find in ‘N. & Q.’ statements about the good, useful, well-formed, and ancient word reliable, of the kind that one used to see in the pre-scientific stage of our knowledge of English. It is now twelve years since Mr. Fitzedward Hall published his scholarly and exhaustive treatise ‘On English Adjectives in -able, with Special Reference to Reliable’ (Trübner, 1877), in which he exhibited the authority for the word; and it is somewhat marvellous at this time of day to see it characterized as a word resting merely upon “some rare examples in good authors, and innumerable examples in current literature.” Every one who knows the history of the word knows that it has been used freely by good writers for nearly a century, and that it was current English as early as 1624 at least. The tirade against this long-established word appears to have been begun by some uninformed writer in Punch about 1861, who, ignorant of the fact that it had been freely used by Coleridge, Martineau, Gladstone, Newman, Mill, Mansel, Peel, Rawlinson, Dickens, Charles Reade, and scores beside, feebly tried to brand it as “this American solecism.” When its American origin was disproved, another writer audaciously asserted that it had been invented by the newspapers during the Crimean War! Well might Mr. Fitzedward Hall say, in the work already cited, “With nine in ten of the occasional critics of words who contribute their superficial views to newspapers and magazines, a declaration of personal approval or disapproval, generally accompanied by some audacious historical invention, is propounded as if it ought to be received as conclusive.” There is no particular objection to the sciolist railing at reliable as vulgar, absurd, low, outrageous, malformed, stupid, ungentlemanly; these are expressions of his own good taste; but when he proceeds to invent a history of its origin and use, it is time to protest in the interest of historical truth. As to the form of reliable, it is quite as good as that of accountable, unaccountable, laughable (Shakspere, Dryden, Pope), and a score of other words in -able.
It may be added that residential has been good English at least since 1690, and that residence, resident, residential, are as good a series as confidence, confident, confidential. Of regrettable good English examples can be quoted from 1632 onwards. When will people learn that the history of words, as of anything else, can be learned only by putting oneself in the position of a learner, and ought not to be invented to give support to pet prejudices or aversions? Let a man who has a chronic antipathy to reliable say frankly, “I know nothing about the history of this word, and I care less; but its colour irritates me and drives me furious.” We should then know where we were, and keep out of his way, recognizing that the case was one not for the etymologist or lexicographer, but for the pathologist.
Oxford.