Again, for expressing our Passions, our Interjections are very apt
and forcible; as, finding ourselves somewhat agrieued, we crie, Ah!
if more deeply, Oh! if we pity, Alas! when we bemoan, Alacke!
neither of them so effeminate as the Italian Deh, or the French Helas:
In detestation we say Phy ! (as if therewithall we should spit) in
attention, Haa; in calling, Whowpe ; in hollowing, Wahalowe: all which
(in my Ear) seem to be deriued from the very Natures of those
severall Affections.
Grow from hence to the Composition of Words, and therein our Language
hath a peculiar Grace, a like Significancie, and more short then
the Greekes, for example, in Moldwarpe we express the Nature of the
Animal; in Handkercher the thing and the use; in the word upright,
that Virtue by a Metaphore; in Wisdome and Doomesday, so many
Sentences as Words; and so of the rest: for I give only a Taste,
that may direct others to a fuller Observation of what my sudden
Memorie can represent unto me. It may pass also the Masters in
this Significancie, that all the proper Names of our People do in a
manner import somewhat, which from a peculiar Note at first of some
of the Progenitors, in process of time inverted itself in a possession
of the Posterity, even as wee see the like often befall to those
whose Fathers bare some uncouth Christian Names.
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