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About The Conservative (Nebraska City, Neb.) 1898-1902 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 10, 1901)
8 Conservative * Curious and SOME OLD amusing , though WORDS. not meant to be so , arc the struggles of the early missionary-monks to turn the scriptures from the Latin which they loved so well into the vile jargons 1 gons that our barbarian forefathers spoke. Many a word has changed its I : meaning since then , and some pas sages are understood differently from the way the good fathers interpreted them. As a rule , they know nothing of Greek , and their monastery Latin was not that of Cicero's time. The beverages mentioned in the New Testament narratives seem to have bothered them ; not for paucity of vocabulary , our ancestors always had drinks in sufficient variety and names enough for them ; but to decide which of the fluids of their acquaint ance probably corresponded most nearly to that designated by Holy Writ. In the book of Luke , certain liquids arc named from which John the Bap tist was to abstain. Tyndale's trans lation , in 152(5 ( , uses the same words that have prevailed since : "He shall nether drynke wyne ner stronge drynke , " says Tyndalo. Wycliffe , in 1380 , thought "wyn and sydir" were probably about what was meant ; the Anglo-Saxon translator , 400 years earlier , gave his voice for "win no beer ; " and Bishop Ulfilas , working at it in the 4th century , set down be sides "woiii" a liquor no doubt pop ular among his Gothic flock in that ' ' leithu. ' ' hoary antiquity , called "Beor" was certainly a good deal in the minds and on the tongues of the f the real Anglo-Saxons Anglo-Sax ons , who came over from Schleswig- Holstein after the Romans left Brit ain ) and it seems to have sat in their councils on the day of the battle of Hastings , or the Normans might not have come off so well. Anyway , no assembly had any air of joyousness to them , from which that cherished bev erage was t'lbsont. This is why a feast is called in their translations a "beer- ship , ' ' but the effect is funny some times. "Beware of the scribes , " we read , "who love the foremost settle at bcerships ; " "when tliou makest a beership , call the poor , " and so on. It is said that the Lord's Supper is called a beership , but the writer has not seen the place. Our word whisky is the Gaelic ulsge , which means water ; uisgebealh is living or lively water , and that is how the word came into our language. It is a little startling to come upon it sometimes in a Scotch bible. "John baptizeth you with uisflre ; " "who drinketh of the uisye that I shall give him shall never thirst ; " "let him dip the tip of his finger inuixge , " are $ a few such places. For the fertilizer in the case of the fig tree in the gospel of Lnko , the translators had only to turn to the husbandmen of their acquaintance , who were not at a loss for suitable words. "Till I digge ronndo aboutc it and it " "bo- donge , "says Tyndale ; - throw it with meoxe , " says the Anglo- Saxon version , a mixoii being a dung hill in Somerset to this day ; and ' ' til I delve aboute it and sondo toordis" is the language of Wycliffe , the morn ing-star of the Reformation. Wycliffe's expressions are often ' strange and weird. Ho says it is pre ferable to enter "gogil yghed" into the kingdom of God in some cases , the later rendering being "having one eye ; " after the miracle of the loaves and fishes , he says that "xii coffyns full" of fragments wore taken up ; his use of "Nay , I gesso" is exactly equivalent to the colloquial "I guess not" of today. . A. T. R. To become very NEGATIVE MEN. popular and to at tain and retain , even for a short time , the unanimous acclaim of the multitude in the United States , negativism is essen tial. The complaisant , non-combative man who can agree , or seem to agree with almost everybody , on almost every question , is always a popular man. The public life of the United States , during the last seventy-five years , has been luminously illustrat ive of the success of the negative men. Conkling was a positive , able accomplished statesman and as a stu dent of statecraft had few equals among his contemporaries in congress , either while lie was a member of the house or senate. To Conkling all the tricks and compliancy , the pretence and the subserviency of the mere place-hunting politician were disgust ing and nauseating. He never de scended to the level of the negative class of statesmen. But his bitter , rival , James G. Elaine , seldom rose above it. Elaine was never any thing else than negative at the dawn of a new question or condition. Elaine only became positive after a seemingly strong public sentiment had concentrated and expressed itself among members of the republican party. In that way he sometimes posed quite successfully as a positive character. But as a rule lie never fn- tended to be positive on any question which had not been positively an swered either affirmatively or nega tively by the republican party. Even today there are men before the American people who , though natur ally negative , seem very positive. Men sometimes misinterpret the mind , trend and intentions of the people and committing themselves in accord ance with the erroneous interpreta tion are too negative to recant. Such v i * > - men hang on to all kinds of fallacies , long after their repudiation by the mass of the people whom they first sought to conciliate and to follow , while posing as their leaders. The men who have no records are usually the most successful in partisan poli tics. The man who has a life as blank as a sheet of unwritten paper is not so easily criticised as one whoso entire existence has been of strenu ous endeavors and ceaseless struggles. A lawyer without a client , a states man without a statute , a soldier with out a battle , a financier without a dollar lar , a philanthropist without a single human being bettered by his works , or a general counsel and solicitor giv ing advice never asked for , is al ways invulnerable to assaults , be cause ho has made no positive and only a negative record. Many years ago GET MONEY FROM before the soil of THE STATE. Nebraska had been proven capable of producing apples , plums , pears , , cher ries and other fruits common to this latitude , some pioneer pomologists , Masters , Donohoe , Gilmore , Allen , Furnas , Grinnell and others , formed a Nebraska horticultural society. Those ardent and industrious friends and promoters of fruit growing met twice a year. The meetings wore in January and September. At the form er the flavor , keeping , quality ( and hardiness of the tree ) , of each kind of apple were discussed. Experiences were compared. Careful observations upon the habit and growth of each variety were submitted. At the September meetings , which wore generally held at an orchard agreed upon , the debates and deduc tions were illustrated by the trees and their fruition. That ancient organization for en couraging and promoting the cultiva tion of orchards and the production of fruit in Nebraska did an intelligent - gent , useful and patriotic work. That organization was the primary cause of every fruit farm now flourishing in this state. But it subsisted and flourished and accomplished without becoming a charge upon the public revenues. Then the amateur as well as the adept in horticulture gave time , ex perience and mon- Then and Now. oy to the advance ment of that beau tiful and satisfying branch of rural industry. Then for such work no public funds wore demanded. Then demonstrating by cultivation , the value of Nebraska land for fruit pro- dution was a work of altruism , freely contributed to the general welfare. Then the experiences , experiments , failures and successes of pioneer horticulturists ticulturists were valuable and prec-