Pitch-word, called the Even Pitch, as pell, far; pellach, farther; pellaf, farthest; pelled, as far (as something else).

Younger may mean younger reckoned from young, or younger reckoned from old; as ‘Alfred at 80 is younger than Edward at 85.’ In this case we may well say less old.

Worse (wyrse) is shapen from wo, wa, we, a stub-root which means wrong, atwist, bad in any way, and is our woe.

The r in weor is most likely of a forstrengthening and not a comparative meaning—weor, wyr, very bad; weorer, wyrer, still more strongly bad. But, not to double the r, men might have put a strengthening s, and so had weors.

TIME-TAKING.

You cannot behold a thing in your mind otherwise than in or under some doing or in some form of being.

Every case of being or doing is a taking of time, as ‘the lily is white,’ ‘the man strikes,’ ‘the bird flies or was hit.’ For though the being white, or the striking or flying or hitting was only for the twinkling of an eye, it took time; for the eyelid takes time, however short it may be, to flit down and up over the eyeball. Thence the word commonly called the verb may be called the Time-taking word or Time-word, as it is called by the Germans Das Zeitwort; or, as it is the main word of the thought and speech, it is the Thought-word or Speech-word; or, as it is called in Latin and other tongues, the Word.

Welsh speech-lore has called the verb the soul[1] of the thought-wording.

Among the thousands of sundriness of time-taking there are some wide differences which should be borne in mind.

Unoutreaching or Intransitive.

Time-takings, which must or may end with the time-taking thing, as

To be. John cannot be another man.

To sleep; to walk. John cannot sleep or walk another man.

Outreaching (Transitive).

Time-takings that may begin with the time-taking thing, and reach out to another, as

To strike; to see. John may strike or see another man.

Time-giving.

If a man, A, takes time against another, B, as to see B, we should more truly say of B that he gives, not takes, the time which A takes.

The time-words for unoutreaching time-takings may be called Unoutreaching; of the outreaching ones, Outreaching; of the time-givings, Time-giving.

In some cases there is between the time-taking thing and the time-giving thing a middle one—the thing, tool, or matter with which the time is taken, as ‘John hit William with a stone’ or ‘a cane.’ But then, again, this wording is shortened by the putting of the name of the mid-thing as a time-word, as ‘John stoned or caned William.’ And this brings in a call for the marking of two sundry kinds of time-words—the strong or moulded, and weak or unmoulded time-words.

A time-word, when it tells a taking of time by one thing against another, is in the outreaching (active) voice—‘John strikes the iron.’ When it tells of the giving of time, it is in the time-giving (passive) voice. When it tells of an unoutreaching time-taking it is in the middle voice.

For the causing of another thing to take time some tongues have set shapes of the time-word, as, in Hindustani, durna, to run; durāna, to make another run.

We have hardly any of such words, though such are—

• Lie, lay.
• Sit, set.
• Rise, raise.

Time-takings for becoming or making another thing become otherwise are marked by the ending -en on the mark-word, as

• To blacken.
• To whiten.

Misdoing by the fore-eking mis-:—

• Mistake.
• Misread.

Longer-lasting time-takings marked by the ending -er, as