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Intensives and Down-toners: a study in English adverbs (Heidelberg: Winter, 1901) + Studies in English, Written and Spoken (Zutphen, 1894)

What it is about

The first volume studies intensives: adverbs that begin as words of completeness and weaken to a high degree (Stoffel's examples include "pure" as in "purblind", "full", "very", "right", "quite", "so", and the colloquial and vulgar intensives). The author's main point is that a word used as an intensive can be read in its etymological sense only when it gets an unusual stress; he compares German "gewiss" and Dutch "zeker" in this way. The second part treats down-toners, adverbs that lower the degree, with "rather" and "pretty" as the main examples. The scan of the first volume has about 49,500 words, and the second part of the book, Studies in English, has about 155,700 words in its scan. That second part is a set of notes for continental students, on functions of "for", on "no" and "not", on "only" as "except", on "to think long", and on Scriptural phrases in modern English.

Ideas

For Mova

Chapters: 15. Adjectives and adverbs (degree adverbs and intensives), 32. Politeness and hedging (down-toners as hedges), 37. Register and variation (colloquial and vulgar intensives), 08. National varieties. Code: en/src/morph.rs and the en/src/dict.rs lexicon for the adverbs, prag for hedges, world/src/dictionary.rs for the senses of "for". Measures: rank agreement on held-out adjective-adverb pairs; accuracy of the degree rule against human readings; sense accuracy for "for" by UD label. Run twice and compare outputs before any claim.

Cite

The paper itself, not this card. BibTeX from the library's record of the work.

@book{stoffel1894intensives,
  title = {{Intensives and Down-toners: a study in English adverbs (Heidelberg: Winter, 1901) + Studies in English, Written and Spoken (Zutphen, 1894)}},
  author = {Stoffel, Cornelis},
  year = {1894},
  url = {https://archive.org/details/intensivesdownto00stofuoft}
}

References

23 references, 0 of them with a card of ours. ↗ leads to the work, «find» searches for one we have no id for yet.

  1. Punch, Nov. 10, 1894, 227 a: |Tiead of Departement to his Private Secretary] I say, Tenterfore1 . . . don't you think these walls are a bit bare? Academy, Dec. 12, 1890: The other Harald at the battle of Stamford Bridge with Tostig, who was a bit of a bounder. Academy, July 16, 1898, 51 c: A smart little compliment, smacking of the Boulevards. It struck us in view of the solemn business that was to follow, 1 «Mr. Tenterfore* is the name by which Punch regularly designates clerks in any of the Government Departments, such as the War Office, the India Office, the Foreign Office, etc., the nominal office-hours in the various departments of the Civil Service being from ten to four. Compare Punch, Nov. 3, 1894, 207*: Yon would have read in a comic paper, that never will be nameless, that Government clerks were like the fountains in Trafalgar Square (old style), « because they played from teti to four*. Punch, January 20, 1894, 29*: He should have thought that Mr. Tenterfore (the Private Secretary) would have known better than to obtain admission at such a moment. find
  2. Punch, 1876 II 24 8*: Mr. Tenterfour, Sir? Yes, Sir, Mr. Tenterfour [the Admiral's private secretary], Sir, left his compliments. Sir, and said as it was such a fine day he's gone out fishing. Punch 1881 II (vol. 81) 9b: Civil Service [Volunteer Review]. — In deference to the notion that the Servants of the Crown *play from ten to four*, members of this gallant Regiment will inarch past reading the papers. Punch 1878 II (vol. 75) 97*: Mr. Henry de Snooks, of the Treasury, is at Ramsgate, and Mr. Tenterfour, of the War Office, will shortly leave Pall Mall for Boulogne. Punch 1879 I (vol. 76) 288»: Tenterfour left the Tin-Tax Office a quarter of an hour after the clock had struck the hour of closing. Punch, March 1, 1890, 98«: From Mr. C. Bounder to Mr. T. Tenter five . . . [Tenter five is a clerk in a Government Office]. as just the least bit trivial, tiie least bit inexpensive 2 ; ibid. 52b : But is it more than pretty? And isn't it just the tiniest mite facile, obvious, voulu? find
  3. The very smallest degree of a quality is sometimes found expressed by a leetle, with long e, the lengthening of the vowel emphasizing the force of the phrase: Punch 1876 find
  4. II 34b: . . . but ask it henceforth — To point just a leetle away from the North. The New Budget, May 16, 1895, 42 a: He is beginning to find out, possibly, that the game of pull-Devil-pull-Baker . . . may be carried just a lee-tie too far. Punch, January 4, 1896, 6a: Can't you move a leetle farther, good Grant Allen? Of this class of adverbs, rather and pretty present find
  5. Somewhat after this fashion, I think: ** To look in on a person ^ is a colloquial equivalent for " to call on ^] e. g, Belgravia, May 1884, 303: "Some few looked m on Bridget with the intention of making acquaintance with her, but her coldness repelled them". Hence, a look-in is, in the first instance, a "call", as in Til give you a look-in one of these days '*; Punchy 1875, Vol. II, 123^": '^The idea of a corpse walking to give any one wishing to see it, a look in""; Punch, 1853, Vol. H (Vol. 25), 247'': * Subsequently writing to Squash to tell him to give me a look in " *.) find
  6. Thus, **to have (give) a look-in^ means: 1) to make a call, to put in an appearance; 2) to take an active part in a thing; 3) to join a competition as a serious candidate; 4) to stand a- fair chance of success. We next come to shunt.ed, having had the shunt given him (100), originally a railway phrase, but now extensively used in colloquial parlance, without involving the reproach of vulgarity or low language. To shunt a train is ** to turn it into a siding, to switch it oflf"; hence metaphorically, to shunt is * to put oft* or aside, to disable, to baflle "; e. g. Punch, 1874, Vol. I, 257*: ''The House shunted the Bill by 237 to 94 "; Punch, Jan. 24, 1885, 37*; ** Let's rejoice, for we've shunted the dreamy delight — Of the pampered Conservative class ^. — It is especially used of the appoint- ment of officers in high command to some less responsible charge; e. g. Sidney Whitman, Imperial Oermany, 172 (T.): * No wonder the Austrian emperor judged it was time to shunt such a man". — *To shelve an officer ^ means to retire him altogether; e. g. Saturday *) To look up and the substantive look-up are used in pretty much the same sense as look in; e. g. Punch, Jan. 2, 1892, 9« : " Give a look-up to your agents all round; — ^To some give the sack, and to others a warning"; Judy, Sept. 26, 1888, 154": "Mr. Lilford Arthur insisted on my giving his Ttcket-of-Leave Man a look-up at the Olympic Prison*; Judy, Oct 24, 1888, 202«: "Sir Morell Mackenzie gave me a look-up this morning, and presented me with a copy of his work". 266 find
  7. Reitew, Vol. V, 261 (1858): ** Practically, General Peel is not shunted but shelved^. find
  8. Cut out (112), * supplanted, defeated", is another colloquialism with nothing decidedly vulgar about it. Spiked (130), "beaten **, is a slang term of military origin; to spike u gun is to render it unserviceable by driving a spike into the vent. Plucked (134), dismissed at an examination, rejected as not up to the mark; originally University slang. Webster seems to hint that the allusion is to the crow that is stripped of its borrowed peacock's feathers, a suggestion that does not strike me as very plausible. The Encycl. Diet. i. v., on what authority I know not, gives the following explanation: "When degrees are conferred the name of each person is read out before he is presented to the Vice-Chancellor. The proctor used at one time to walk once up and down the room, and any one who objected to the degree being conferred, might signify his dissent by plucking or twitching the proctor's gown. This was occasionally done by tradesmen to whom the candidate was in debt. This method of objecting to a candidate has long gone out of use, and the term " plucked " is confined to a person who has failed to satisfy his examiners". A more recent term for " to pluck ", in the sense of ** to reject after an examination", is to plough, which can hardly be a cor- niption of the former, as the Encycl, Diet, suggests. The 81. Diet, cd. 1858 has: "About twenty years ago, * pluck', the word then used, began to be superseded by ^ plough^ " ; and the edition of 1873 has the apocryphal story, that the use of the latter term has arisen from a man who could not supply the examiner with any quotation from Scripture, until at last in sheer despair he blurted out : " And the ploughers ploughed on my back, and made long furrows" {Psalm 129, vs. 3). find
  9. London Society, April 1885 [Recollections of Oxford], 362 : " There's a hold tradition as how a freshman who got ployxjhed in a corlidge (= college) examination, once hung hisself on that 'ere hook"; Punch, Dec. 8, 1866, 229*; "A motion being carried in favour of a return to spade husbandry [at the Agricultural College], by the votes of those undergraduates who are averse to a *^ ploughing " ; Punch, 1875, Vol. II, 136^ : " He knows three other first-rate fel- lows (all ploughed in last Exam.) " ; Oxford Days, 42 : " Failure in any one subject rendering a candidate liable to a * pluck', commonly called ^plough\ 267 find
  10. Floored, a school term for " having had a set-down given to one " is frequent in Tom Browne's Schooldays^ and is originally fistic slang for ** thrown by one's opponent". Hence, it is also used for ** plucked at an examination", e, g. Farrar, Julian Home, 339: ''My earnest hope was that he would not be '^ floored^. The metaphor by which an examination is likened to a pugilistic encounter, in which the examinee and the papers set represent the two parties, leads to the verb to floor being used in the sense of *to answer satisfactorily (the questions set)"; for instance. Punchy 1883, Vol. II (Vol. 85), 254'': ** If I don't floor the next (examina- tion) paper — well, all I can say is", etc.; Pufich, 1882, Vol. U (Vol. 83), 292*^ : " Hurrah ! Floored it (an examination paper). Thir- teenth on the list. By Jove, that fellow Binks is a first-rate cram- mer, and no mistake ! " Floored is also used in the more general sense of " baffled ; taken down a peg or two; puzzled": Punchy July 7, 1866, 11": "Till at Guardians' meetings the paupers felt floored (= unable to speak, utterly puzzled) — To say which was the stone-yard and which was the board " [on account of the utter want of feeling shown by the Guardians]; Punch, 1863, Vol. II (Vol. 45), 201^ ** Mr. Naggleton (floored). I wish you would leave my dressing- table alone". — In Dickens's Bleak House, I, 34 (T.), Mr. Laurence Boythome offers young Esther, with whom he is travelling in a stage-coach, a goose-liver pie by way of refreshment, and on her declining the kind offer on the ground of the pie being too ** rich " for her, he says : " Floored again ! " * Which ", Esther Summerson adds, "I didn't at all understand". Dutch "in zijn wiek ge- schoten " ; Oerman " abgeblitzt ". find
  11. Squelched (191), "crushed," put down; the word is colloquial, not quite slang, and given in Webster. To squench, which the Dictionaries have as an obsolete variant form of to quench, is col- loquially used in the same sense as to squelch; e. g. Punch, 1871, Vol. I, 268" : " A sketch of what we are to expect when the In- ternational has swamped the National all over the world, and Kings suppressed. Priests squenclied, and Capital made away with — the Commune rules the roast " ; Punch, 1875, Vol. I, 214* : " For the man we once looked to to squench him, — While drowsy as Dizzy is he, — How long shall his own brass entrench him, — This Duffer, M. P.?"; Punch, 1879, Vol. II (Vol. 77), 26: "Lord Stratheden shut up, stung but not squenched, his motto being " Mersus emergam " ; 268 find
  12. There are a few more vulgar phrases, verbs and adjectives, expressive of being 'down on one's luck', or of an undesirable state of things in general, not represented in our texts, but occasionally employed in 'Arryese. One of the most telling phrases is a peculiar use of cheap in vulgar English: a man * feels cheap", if he is treated with contempt and has to put up with it, if he is 'out of the hunt' altogether, if he has been 'on the spree' overnight, etc. The Dutch terms are **beroerd% '^ lam " ; Punch, Febr. 18, 1893, 77^ "I've been feeling uncommonly cheap all the evening " ; Punchy 1882, Vol. I (Vol. 82), 154'': "They '11 tell the old man (what I've been up to), and there'll be no money from home for this child. Felt cheap at this, so went up Bond Street, and had a B. and S. at Tail's ". find
  13. Impecuniosity is a frequent complaint with those who affect slang, and is accordingly represented in their vocabulary by a great number of descriptive terms, such as hard-up, dotvn on one's luck^ up a tree, lodged in Queer Street, etc. etc. I subjoin illustrations of some of the more recent ones. Stone broke, utterly ruined, penniless; sometimes stoney broke or stoney ; the word is ignored by the Dictionaries, but not uncom- mon; only Baumann, Loiidinismen has ** 5/o;^e6roAT, ganz zu Grunde gerichtet". W. Besant, Lament of Dives, 7: "It is, indeed, a con- dition of mind which sits ill upon all youth, even on the very stonebroke'' ; Punch, 1882, Vol. II (Vol. 83), 27^: "They 're only paste, or, if they are diamonds, he stole them; he's stone broke ^ ; Punch, 1884, Vol. I (Vol. 86), 298' : " Yours impecuniously, Ben- jamin Backbill. 221, Stonebroke Street, Stumer Square ' ; Punch, Sept. 24, 1892, 133 f'Arry at 'Arrj-gate]: "And it (the illness) left me a yaller-skinned skelinton, weak, and wot's wus, stoney^ broke, — If it had n't bin for my nunky (= uncle), your pal might have jest done a croak" (= died); Punch, 1881, Vol. I (Vol. 80), 264" : " You are upon Geologist " (a race-horse), I replied. ** Well, a geologist breaks stones, and if you get stone broke, why — ' ; Punch, March 23, 1889, 14 1*': "Still Mammon-nurtured shalt thou rise, — Whilst other nations are stone-brolce " ; Punch, Sept. 29, 1888, 156^* ['Any on Marriage] : " When they do get stone-broke prematoor like, as 'appen it may to the best, — Then they looks for a Missus with money, and rucks in along o' the rest"; Punch, Sept. 24, 1892, 133 ['Any at 'Arrygate]: "That Fifty (banknote), is nearly played out, and my slap at the Ebor (racing) went wrong — I'd a 269 find
  14. Yorkshire tyke's tip, too, old man ; but I'm sionetj, though still * going strong" ; Judy, Nov. 23, 1887, 241 : " And I was that there sorry that I felt upon the choke, — For if they'd mashed my orgin, I'd a' bin like 'im, sio7ie broke''; Jiidy, Sept. 14, 1887, 122": * Would not an inordinate love for bric(k)-{i-brac have a tendency to send a builder stone-broke?^ Hence, stone-broker, one who is ruined, done up financially; Punch, Febr. 2, 1889, 54\- ** Who's that knocking at the door?— Paupers? Stone-brokers? You've been Mumped down' here before"; Punch, Oct. 15, 1887, 169" ['Arry on Ochre]: "The world loses larks, mate, you bet, when among the stone-brokers is 'Arry"; Punch, Jan. 3, 1885, 4" ['Arry]: "But 'Any, for once in a way, 's a stone-broker, and not in the hunt"; Judy, Dec. 23, 1885, 302'*: " Stonebroker No. 1.— Going anywhere this Christmas?... Stonebroker No. 2. — Never was harder up in my life", etc. find
  15. Stone-broker is, however, also used in an altogether different sense, if it is short for curb-stone broker^ i. e. an interloper, an irregular stockbroker, who does business, not on 'Change, but stand- ing on the curb-stone of the pavement or sidewalk; e. g. Judy, Nov. 23, 1887, 250": * There are some men there who stand in the street and do their business. These are designated curbstone broket^s, and are said to have their oflBces in their hats". find
  16. Stumped, * penniless, hard up, cleared out " ; also * puzzled, non- plussed", Du. * verbouwereerd"; originally a term in Cricket, where a batsman is put out of play by the stumps of his wicket being knocked down, while he is out of his ground, in which case he is said to be stumped. Punch, Aug. 14, 1886, 82'': **I am stumped; all our fellows are more or less cleared out, and pay-day is still three weeks ahead"; Belgravia, July, 1884, 78 : " Piper had not been able to lend him any money, and he was regularly stumped in consequence "; Punch, 1875, Vol. II, 136": ** John (generally called Jack) Harkaway, having come a howler [see Index i. v.] over the Leger, is stumped^. find
  17. For to stump in the sense of ** to puzzle, to nonplus, to baffle, to disappoint, to leave nowhere", compare the following quotations, which prove that the word is rapidly gaining acceptance: Punch, 1883, Vol. II (Vol. 85), 243'' : ** However, on this occasion, I think I can stump them"; Literary World, Aug. 12, 1892, 109"": "As for Mr. F.'s book, all that we can say of it is that it has fairly stumped 270 us. When we could make nothing of the text, we turned to the analysis, but without any benefit *; Punchy 1883, Vol. I (Vol. 84), 69": "Returned from (Mr. Ruskin's) lecture .s/;/?wperf and thoughtful"; Punch, 1862, Vol. I (Vol. 42), 194\- "Wanted in the United States. A. Poet to stump Ix)rd Byron by composing a second Siege of Corinth'*; III Landon News, Nov. 10, 1888, 542^*: "When they show me their examination-papers there is not a question which (in their own phraseology) would not ' utterly stump ' me " ; Punch, 1870, Vol. 11, 97': " Which Cockalorum was besting the other, would have slumped the Great Dook himself"; 7W. iiondon News, May 12, 1888, SOO**: " What 'stutnps^ them (the candidates at an examination) is the being asked to put their own thoughts regard- ing any familiar matter into words"; Edmund Yat^s, Recollections and Experiences, II, 184 (T.): "One day 1 recollect his being completely ^ stumped^ by a man just brought before him". find
  18. If 'Arry has been got the better of in verbal warfare^ and the laugh goes against him, he describes himself as "sold", and his interlocutor will triumphantly address him with "Sold again, my boy!" Punch, 1882, Vol. II (Vol. 83), 229': " Why does a Card- sharper wear a side-pocket in his overcoat? — Just to *keep his hand in'. (Sold again) ^; Ibid., 292': "Told you as how you was wrong! Sold again F Among the adjectives by which 'Any expresses his disapproval of anything submitted to his judgment, many are of considerable age. find
  19. Footy, useless, bad, paltry, poor, mean ; probably connected with, vulgar French foutre. Davies, Supplem, Oloss., cites from Kings- ley's Westward Ho / ch. 9 : " Nobody wants you to shoot crooked ; take good iron to it, and not footy paving-stones"; an J from Marryat's Peter Simple, ch. 33: "I think it would be a very pretty bit of practice to the ship's company to take her out from under that footy battery ". Compare Punch, Oct. 15, 1892, 169 ['Arry at 'Arrygate] : "And then there's a footy old pump (= fogey) — Blows staggery toons on a post 'orn for full arf-a-hour each day "; Pimx*h, Aug. 24, 1889, 95" : " Which I consider fudge most footy "; Punch, 1881, Vol. I (Vol. 80), 301': "The infantry officer was what a riding-master would possibly have called *a slightly footy gent- leman' ". find
  20. In the following quotation footling seems to be a mere variant form of footy: Punch, Febr. 4, 1888, 57« [Schoolboy tog.]: 'The 271 consequens was I had to stay in a hole morning, and swot ') at those footling questions of yours ! " Scaly, mean, shabby; unsound; unreliable. The term is not unusual in colloquial parlance: Punchy 1871, Vol. II, ISS'': ** The fact that many a man is called a scaly fellow, may be accepted as a proof perhaps of our marine descent '';—P?/wcA, 1860, Vol. I (Vol. 38), 185": " A suit of armour, to which, without disparagement, we must apply the term ''scalif **; — I^inch, 1860, Vol. II (Vol. 39), 191": " But the Mayor is a Fishmonger, and the scalincss of the whole business showed his attachment to his Company". find
  21. Dicky, bad, son*y ; doubtful, questionable. Ptiiich, 1884, Vol. I (Vol. 86), 197'^: ** The Globe, where a short time ago things began to look rather " dwky " is flourishing, as I hear, with a new bouffc Opera called Dick''; Punch, March 12, 1892, 123": **But he does look dicky, Mister [speaking of a Sick horse]; I've tried bolus, I've tried blister, — But I haven't got him up to his old form by chalks, ') Sir, yet!"; P2inch, 1878, Vol. I (Vol. 74), 281": "Things look dicky, my dear William, precious dicky, — The weather's not tlie ticket, we can't pitch a decent wicket"; Punch, April 13, 1889, 177": The admirers of Mr. Mansfield as Richard the Third consider him **Very Dick". The non-admirers speak of his performance as '^Very I>w>% "; Punch, Aug. 27, 1887,96': ** Slow wickets and sticky, — Muck (= spoil) even the great Arthur Shrewsbury's play, and make Walter Read's chance of top-average dicky ^. find
  22. Fishy, doubtful, unsound, rotten — a term used to denote a suspicion of a ** screw being loose", or "something rotten in the state of Denmark", in alluding to an unsafe speculation {SI. Diet.)] when used of persons, it means ** done up, seedy ". Punch, 1883, Vol. I (Vol. 84), 238'': " With two cartoons about the Fisheries, ') To swot, to work hard, to cram, Oerm, ochsen; School and University Blang. "This word", says the SL Diet., "originated in the broad Scotch pronunciation of sweat by Dr. Wallace, one of the Professors at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst". Punchy Jan. 21, 1888, 28'': 'It's no use swotthig up that sort of thing — they never set it in Exams., you know!"; Punchy 1873, Vol. I, 19*: "For downright hard "^ swotting^ there's no place like school". find
  23. ) By chalks, by long chalk8 = by JFar, by a long way ; Ingoldshy Ijegends St. Ramnald: "They whipped and they spurred and they after her pressed,— But Sir Alured's steed was hy long chalks the best"; Punchy June 12, 1886, 285*': " She (an actress) can beat most of *em " hy chalks ", so why do it with bismuth?" (viz. by painting her face). — The allusion is to chalk being formerly used in scoring 'points' at games. 272 with Verses on the subject, and an account of the opening of the Exhibition, this is a Fishy number of Punch. Quite an exception, of course"; London Society, April, 1885, 367: ** You don't get on with your grub. By Jove, you do seem rather fishy, now I come to look at you**. find

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