Synonymic patterns

The synonymic resources of a language tend to form certain characteristic and fairly consistent patterns. In English, for instance, synonyms are organized according to two basic principles, one of them involving a double, the other a triple scale.

The double scale — ‘Saxon’ versus ‘Latin’, as it is usually called — is too well known to require detailed comment. There are in English countless pairs of synonyms where a native term is opposed to one borrowed from French, Latin or Greek. In most cases the native word is more spontaneous, more informal and unpretentious, whereas the foreign one often has a learned, abstract or even abstruse air. There may also be emotive differences: the ‘Saxon’ term is apt to be warmer and homelier than its foreign counterpart. Phonetically too, the latter will sometimes have an alien, unassimilated appearance; it will also tend to be longer than the native word which has been subjected to the erosive effect of sound-change. There are many exceptions to this pattern; yet it recurs so persistently that it is obviously fundamental to the structure of the language. It may be noted that the term ‘native’ need not be taken in a narrowly etymological sense: it may include words of foreign origin which have become thoroughly anglicized in form as well as in meaning, such as for instance the adjective popish as opposed to the learned papal.

It will be sufficient to quote a few examples of this synonymic pattern. All major parts of speech are involved in the process:

The ease with which examples can be multiplied shows how all-pervasive this pattern is in English. [...] It is symptomatic of our instinctive reactions that, when in danger, we call for help, not aid, and that we speak of self-help, not mutual aid.

In a few cases, these synonymic values are reversed and the native term is rarer or more literary than the foreign:

The explanation of the anomaly will no doubt lie in the history of the two words involved. In the case of the first pair, for example, ‘valley (from French vallee) is the everyday word, and dale (from Old English dcel, cognate with German Tal) has only lately been introduced into the standard language from the dialects of the hilly northern counties.’ [...]

Side by side with this main pattern there exists in English a subsidiary one based on a triple scale of synonyms: native, French, and Latin or Greek:

In most of these combinations, the native synonym is the simplest and most ordinary of the three terms, the Latin or Greek one is learned, abstract, with an air of cold and impersonal precision, whereas the French one stands between the two extremes. [...]