Studies in Words

by C.S. Lewis

Language - in its communicative and playful functions, its literary formations and its shifting meanings - is a perennially fascinating topic. C. S. Lewis's Studies in Words explores this fascination by taking a series of words and teasing out their connotations using examples from a vast range of English literature, recovering lost meanings and analysing their functions. It doubles as an absorbing and entertaining study of verbal communication, its pleasures and problems. The issues revealed are essential to all who read and communicate thoughtfully, and are handled here by a masterful exponent and analyst of the English language.

Genres: Nonfiction, Writing, Linguistics, Philosophy, Language, Literary Criticism, Essays

343 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1939

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Clive Staples Lewis was one of the intellectual giants of the twentieth century and arguably one of the most influential writers of his day. He was a Fellow and Tutor in English Literature at Oxford University until 1954. He was unanimously elected to the Chair of Medieval and Renaissance Literature at Cambridge University, a position he held until his retirement. He wrote more than thirty books, allowing him to reach a vast audience, and his works continue to attract thousands of new readers every year. His most distinguished and popular accomplishments include Mere Christianity, Out of the Silent Planet, The Great Divorce, The Screwtape Letters, and the universally acknowledged classics The Chronicles of Narnia. To date, the Narnia books have sold over 100 million copies and been transformed into three major motion pictures.

Lewis was married to poet Joy Davidman.
W.H. Lewis was his elder brother]

Reviews

[Manuel Alfonseca · Rating 4 out of 5]

ENGLISH: Second time I've read this book through, but I've used it several times as a reference book, especially the chapter on Nature (with Phusis, Kind, Physical, etc).

The chapter on Life is extremely informative and is supported by innumerable quotations. Reading it, I couldn't but being amazed at the amount of work behind this chapter and the whole book.

10 chapters full of extremelly interesting philological information. The author exhibits a tremendous mastering of Greek, Roman, French and English literature.

The last chapter, which serves as a corollary, provides a deep analysis of the way in which words are "killed" by charging them with emotional content and emptying them of meaning.

Finally, one quote that I have found strikingly meaningful: One of my old headmasters once wisely said it was a pity that "amare" was the first Latin verb we all learn. He thought this led to an imperfect grasp of the difference between the active and the passive voice. It might be better to begin with "flagellare." The difference between flogging and being flogged would come home to the business and bosoms of schoolboys far more effectively than that of loving and being loved.

More about this in my blog: https://populscience.blogspot.com/201...

ESPAÑOL: Es la segunda vez que leo este libro, pero lo he usado varias veces como libro de referencia, especialmente el capítulo sobre Naturaleza (con Phusis, Kind, Physical, etc.).

El capítulo sobre la palabra Vida es extremadamente informativo y viene respaldado por innumerables citas. Al leerlo, no pude evitar sorprenderme por la cantidad de trabajo que hay detrás de este capítulo y, en general, de todo el libro.

10 capítulos llenos de información filológica interesantísima. El autor exhibe un dominio enorme de las literaturas griega, romana, francesa e inglesa.

El último capítulo, que sirve como corolario, proporciona un análisis profundo sobre la forma en que las palabras pueden ser "asesinadas" cuando se las carga de contenido emocional y se las vacía de sentido.

Finalmente, una cita que me ha parecido sorprendentemente significativa: Uno de mis viejos maestros dijo una vez con sensatez que era una pena que "amare" sea el primer verbo latino que todos hemos aprendido. Pensaba que esto daba lugar a una comprensión imperfecta de la diferencia entre la voz activa y la pasiva. Sería mejor empezar con el verbo "flagelare". La diferencia entre flagelar y ser flagelado llegaría mucho más eficazmente al cerebro y al corazón de los escolares que amar y ser amado.

Más sobre esto en mi blog: https://divulciencia.blogspot.com/201...

[Bob · Rating 3 out of 5]

Two kinds of people will read this book (and some would think they are one and the same--people like me who love the work of C. S. Lewis and will read anything he wrote, and people who love words and how their meanings develop and change over time.

This is a work of literary scholarship that explores how the meanings and connotations of words have developed and changed over time. Each chapter is devoted to a word, or a few related words and explores their usage through time. Lewis cites numerous instances of the use of these words in literature as well as in everyday speech. The words include "nature", "sad", "wit", "free", "sense", "simple", "conscience and conscious", "world", "life" and "I dare say".

It was fascinating, for example to reflect on the different but connected senses of wit as "intelligence" and "humor". Likewise, his chapter on "world" explored at length the variety of ways we use this to refer to the world of people, the world as the physical place we live, the world as the cosmos, and the world as an evil system in league with the flesh and the devil. Even his chapter on "I dare say" (which felt tossed into the mix) pointed out how this mild-mannered language which is on the order of "I venture to say" was at once bold, truly a dare.

He makes a perceptive comment on neologisms (new words) with which I will conclude:

"Aspiring neologists will draw the moral. Invent a word if you like. It may be adopted. It may even become popular. But don't reckon on it retaining the sense you gave it and perhaps explained with great care. Don't reckon on its being given a sense of the slightest utility. Smart little writers pick up words briskly; but only as a jackdaw picks up beads and glass." (p. 268)

[Levi · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Do not let your nerves and emotions lead you into thinking your present predicament more abnormal than it really is.”

“Happy work is best done by the man who takes his long-term plans somewhat lightly and works from moment to moment ‘as to the Lord.’ It is only our daily bread that we are encouraged to ask for. The present is the only time in which any duty can be done or any grace received.”

“If active service does not persuade a man to prepare for death, what conceivable concatenation of circumstance would? Yet war does do something to death. It forces us to remember it. The only reason why the cancer at sixty or the paralysis at seventy- five do not bother us is that we forget them. War makes death real to us: and that would have been regarded as one of its blessings by most of the great Christians of the past.”

This was a good read in the midst of our current struggles — we have today and tomorrow will brings its own worries. For all our culture’s discussion of living in the moment, our current times of excitement, frustration, and fear test that preoccupation of ours. Are we making the most of our time and being mindful of our end? Are we participating in life as it comes to us and as we experience in each of a day’s moments?

This will provide much food for thought in the coming weeks and I highly recommend anyone to read it!

[Graychin · Rating 4 out of 5]

My great-grandmother was a school teacher. Many years ago I was given an old Philology text book she taught from, with her name written inside the cover. I lost track of it somewhere along the way, but I remember how that word “philology” mystified me as a young person. To some degree it still does. It means more than the mere love of words suggested by its etymology. James Turner wrote a doorstop of book a few years ago titled Philology: The Forgotten Origins of the Modern Humanities which I hope to read one day (supposedly, it’s less dry than one might fear). But I know old-school philology when I see it, and that’s what C.S. Lewis provides in Studies in Words. To be clear, this is not standard-issue Lewis by a long shot. If you just loved the Narnia books, well, that’s no guarantee at all you’ll care for this volume. You might hate it; it’s a fairly academic exercise. But for those of us who thrill to etymological sleuthing, the history of language, Greek and Roman roots, and the native oddities of the English tongue, this is hard to beat.

[samhucko · Rating 5 out of 5]

Túto esej/kázeň čítam na začiatku každého roku ako určité memento, ktoré má rámcovať môj študijný život. Môže to znieť pateticky, ale každým rokom tam nachádzam niečo iné a hlbšie. Čoraz viac oceňujem Lewisovu schopnosť tak presne adresovať ťažkosti intelektuáleno či duchovného života a formulovať svoje vhľady.
Tento rok to naberá trochu iné rozmery, nakoľko v našom susedstve sa bojuje naozajstná vojna, so všetkým čo to prináša, a myslím, že dnes sa viem viac vžiť do kože študentov, ktorý túto kázeň v roku 1939 počúvali. V zmysle Lewisovho argumentu, vojna ale iba zvýrazňuje prekážky, ktoré život kladie intlektuálnemu či kultúrnemu životu a iným "neužitočným" činnostiam. Nezanevrime na ne, ani nečakajme na "vhodný moment".
Ako by povedal profesor John Keating: "...And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for."

[Jeremy]

The words that Lewis tackles are nature, sad, wit, free, sense, simple, conscience and conscious, world, and life. He also looks at the phrase I dare say.

J. R. R. Tolkien, a philologist, wrote this in a 1960 letter to his son Christopher: "I have just received a copy of C.S.L.'s latest: Studies in Words. Alas! His ponderous silliness is becoming a fixed manner. I am deeply relieved to find I am not mentioned. . . . He remains at best and worst an Oxford 'classical' don—when dealing with words. I think the best bit is the last chapter, and the only really wise remark is on the last page: 'I think we must get it firmly fixed in our minds that the very occasions on which we should most like to write a slashing review are precisely those on which we had much better hold our tongues.' Ergo silebo. [Therefore I will keep silent.]"

[curtis · Rating 4 out of 5]

The most obscure work of Lewis’s I’ve read thus far, this is unlikely to appeal to anyone who doesn’t already love philology and semantics. Since I love BOTH of those, this was quite a treat, if a slow burn. Lewis has few peers as a philologist, of course, and he conveys here the history of some chosen words very deftly indeed. As is often the case, I found myself as interested by the works he cited (or nearly so) as I was by his own observations.

[Luke Paulsen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Whenever I see an academic work by a favorite writer-- J.R.R. Tolkien, say, or C.S. Lewis-- make it into wider print, I'm of two minds about it. On the one hand, I'm hungry for whatever morsels of their clever, sensitive thought and writing I can scrounge up. On the other hand, there's a reason they're famous for other works and not these. I don't want to become a cultish fan of the person as opposed to their best works, and I can't help wondering whether other competent academics might have produced equally valuable but more underrated books.

I still don't have a general answer to this dilemma, but in the current case-- Studies in Words, taken from a set of lectures by Lewis-- the optimistic view was the one that proved to be right. It's not only an interesting book, but a clearly valuable one in at least two ways.

The first is that it shows off Lewis in his "day job" to great effect. Though best known as a novelist and apologist he was also a serious student of literature. His Christianity doesn't enter into this book except incidentally by way of illustrations, and also in one or two passages that hint at a contrarian cultural outlook. On the other hand, every page of the book displays erudition, academic precision, and (perhaps most surprisingly) a kind of deep-seated rationalism. That is, Lewis has great faith-- more than most modern academics'!-- in the power of detached, systematic analysis to answer vague and complicated questions. He'll admit, for example, that the history of a word like "world" is full of cross-pollination between meanings; but then he'll go on to draw out and distinguish, with examples, a dozen different shades of logical meaning where it would never have occurred to me to look for more than one or two. His evident care and thoroughness as a scholar here speak well of his reliability when it comes to even thornier subjects.

The second great value of Studies in Words is as a window into philology-- the quasi-extinct discipline, literally "the love of words", that unites what we'd now describe as linguistics, language studies (including English), literature studies, and history. Philology, though, has its own "flavor" that's easily distinguished from any of these. It's all about understanding how people used words-- especially in order to improve one's understanding of historical texts. Technically Lewis was a professor of medieval and Renaissance literature, not of philology, but Studies in Words is full of it. The most succinct way to describe this book is as a practical guide to translating archaic English.

This is much harder than it sounds-- maybe harder, in fact, than translating a foreign language-- because, as Lewis points out, contemporary English usage tempts people to read into older texts meanings (what he calls the "dangerous sense") that couldn't possibly have been there. To remedy this, he delves deep into the history of one word per chapter-- often along with cognates, synonyms, variant forms, and classical forebears-- and gives a detailed analysis of when, how, and why it took on the various meanings that it did. The process is fascinating and unlike anything else I've read. I found myself agreeing with a blurb on the back: the only really disappointing thing about Studies in Words is that it covers so few of them. Highly recommended.

[Kirk Lowery]

As a writer of prose, C. S. Lewis is one of my heroes. Perhaps more well-known as a Christian apologist, we should remember that Lewis was first and foremost a Cambridge professor of Middle and Renaissance English. "Studies in Words" originated in his university lectures and has the student in mind. The book has a philological purpose: he examines the semantic history of 8 words, beginning with their Greek and Latin roots. It is more than a history of words. He also gives an intellectual history of how the meanings of those words have changed, how modern readers often will misunderstand what the earlier authors wrote, especially when the modern sense fits into the context of the ancient text. If you are completely unfamiliar with the Greek and Latin philosophers, historians, playwrights et alia, Beowulf, Shakespeare, Pope, Stearne, Milton and their contemporaries, the many short citations he gives to illustrate his points may confuse or -- worse yet -- bore you. If you're willing to tackle the citations and follow his arguments, you will gain a new appreciation for those scholars (ahem!) who devote their lives figuring such things out. I am not a fan of 19th century philological views of language, but this work is the best of the breed and shows the importance of this methodology for the study of any literature of any era. I found it refreshing to read about the many connections between the use of language and the moral and political purposes of those using words. The study of language often ignores this factor in the production of prose, poetry and imaginative literature.

[Ján Pastorek · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bojovať za mier je síce dôležité. No dôležitejšie je to čo príde po smrti.

„keby ľudia odkladali hľadanie poznania a krásy dovtedy, kým nebudú v bezpečí, hľadanie by sa nikdy nezačalo“. Nikdy neboli a nikdy nebudú podmienky ideálne. Ani dnes. O to dôležitejšie je mať odvahu zatiahnuť na hlbinu a nestratiť sa vo víre mnohých „zaručene dôležitejších aktivít“, pretože inak budeme ako topiaci kopať okolo seba na každú stranu. Len ak sústredíme našu pozornosť na skutočne dôležité veci, koordinujeme svoje pohyby a naučíme sa plávať. O tom je štúdium."

[Douglas Wilson · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is no way around it. Lewis was fantastically learned.

[Jana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting read for me as a linguistics student. Really enjoyed the close examination of certain words.

[Katie Fitzgerald]

One of my reading goals for 2020 is to read 5 books about linguistics. I typically like C.S. Lewis's writing, so I thought I would give this one a try, but it's just more academic than I can really handle right now. The information is interesting, but it's more than I really want and kind of dry overall. I think what I'm looking for are books geared toward the layperson rather than the expert. So this is a DNF for now.

[Julie Biles · Rating 5 out of 5]

At Oxford in the autumn of 1939, Lewis preached this sermon, addressing scholars predominantly, who were surely considering the impact of war on Christian living and the pursuit of academic learning, In particular, during war-time. He answers the question, Is this and all work futile?

This read caused me to stop and ponder…are we not at war, always, in some form or another? This I know is relative. How can I compare middle class American life lived “at ease” in 2022 with that of the survivor of the Nazi Holocaust, the Vietnam war or any other horrific war-time conflict? I am not making that sort of ridiculous comparison, but I am asking, are we all not fighting some battle, struggling or wandering in some sort of difficult wilderness, until we reach our eternal home? During war-time, we see more clearly…

“If we thought we were building up a heaven on earth, if we looked for something that would turn the present world from a place of pilgrimage into a permanent city satisfying the soul of man, we are disillusioned, and not a moment too soon.”

“War makes death real to us: and that would have been regarded as one of its blessings by most of the great Christians of the past. They thought it good for us to be always aware of our mortality. I am inclined to think they were right.”

I believe I agree with Lewis’s remarkable line of thinking. This reality check should be regarded as one of the blessings of war-time.

[Tait Jensen · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you have any remote interest in the origins of words, particularly that class of words which are so ubiquitous as to have lost their meaning, this is an excellent book for you. Who else but CS Lewis could shed light on words like "life" or "simply," delineating between the shades of nuance which remain inherent yet obscure in our own language usage? You walk away from this book with a greater grasp of English, not only of its history, but of that curious linguistic process termed pejoration. This book is a call for proper usage, not from a position of self-righteous indignation, but as an observer of words' tenuous status in the cultural lexicon. The moment a word descends from its original meaning (no doubt an inevitable process), it become susceptible to retaining no meaning at all. This is something we rarely think of in our daily conversations or writing, making Lewis' book a very good reminder to watch what we say and to take care to express precisely what we mean.

[Monika · Rating 5 out of 5]

C. S. Lewis odpovedá na otázku, či je štúdium dobrom samým o sebe. Odpovedá, že ním je. Jeho odpoveďou na námietkou o dôležitosti vojny oproti napr. teoretickej matematike odpovedá protipríkladom - mohli by sme sa pýtať rovnako na to, že prečo robíme hocičo, keď nám popri tom v každom momente a v každom rozhodnutí ide o večný život. A predsa sa ľudia hrajú, smejú, tvoria a pracujú. Živo si pamätám jeho opis toho, ako sú ľudia zvláštni, lebo aj v obliehanom meste a v strede vojny dokážu tvoriť umenie alebo hrať šach.
Ďalšie myšlienky:
Vojna je podľa Lewisa niečo, kvôli čomu sa oplatí zomrieť, ale neoplatí sa pre to žiť.
Veľmi ma zaujala a povzbudila časť o tom, že našim poslaním je pravdepodobne to, kde práve sme, lebo na to očividne máme schopnosti a prostriedky.

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Simply brilliant - both in Lewis' analysis of the subject matter (word history) and in his writing. If you have even a slight interest in the origins of words, you'll find this a very rewarding read.

[Steve Campbell · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a brilliant study of words and the way their meanings change over time. Lewis selects ten words (or more accurately, nine words and one phrase) to undergo his scrutiny. One might wonder why he narrowed his list to these particular words, but I suspect that Lewis believed that these words were particularly important and their shifts in meaning significant in the history of language, at least up to his time. Lewis unpacks the historical development of each word and reveals a complexity that often leads to misunderstanding. What we mean when we speak or write a particular word may not be the meaning that the listener or reader brings from his or her experience. His concluding chapter deals with the use of language in literary criticism, but it has a broader application. His point seems to be that the words we use to criticize say more about us and our understanding (or lack of understanding) of words than they do about the person we are criticizing. This is a thought-provoking work.

[Jenny · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was my first foray into Lewis's academic works this year. He examines ten words, and traces their history (in Greek, Latin, English, and sometimes other languages), illustrating how meanings change and develop through the centuries and reminding readers to be careful as they read books written in previous centuries, not assuming that the modern meaning is the one writers must have intended. I found the book fascinating (and useful too, in preparation for teaching Shakespeare), but at times felt utterly dwarfed by Lewis's intellect, and a little rueful at what is missing in our modern education. Many times, the phrase "as everyone knows" was used about something that I (and the vast majority of my peers) decidedly do not know. Lewis assumes a familiarity with Greek and Latin that we no longer have, and I found myself a little wistful as I imagined (with my rose-colored glasses) what education looked like a century ago.

Overall, a wonderful book, but one that would not delight many, I think, because of it's academic tone and niche audience.

[Tommy Grooms · Rating 5 out of 5]

Studies in Words is C.S. Lewis the scholar at his most accessible, if the reader has any interest at all in linguistics or how words come to be. Some Biblical translation exegesis is present (on the word "world"), notable for its rarity in Lewis’ writings. Although the book is about the way words develop, Lewis characteristically can’t help but make moral observations, since the way people think affects the way they speak (and vice versa). In the last chapter he sneaks in a welcome essay on the proper motivation and use of criticism in relation to the words critics use to condemn.

[Luis · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very interesting read about the story and change of meaning of several important words. Apart from the etimologic work, for me the highlight of the book is the work to unearth forgotten meanings in the words. As Barfield says in "Poetic Diction", creating new meaning is a kind of poetry, and in this case uncovering old meaning was a kind of poetry to me.

Speaking of poetry, the last chapter of the book has a very good argument about "emotional language", and how it has to be based on metaphor and similes, and not the words and what they mean.

[Steve Penner · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an example of Lewis as academician within the discipline of philology. Unless you are really into words or really into Lewis, it will not be a pleasurable read. I found the later chapters to be of most interest, especially on the word "world." It is interesting how words develop, adapt and change over centuries. If Lewis is correct it is generally a downward spiral from precise meaning to bland generality.

[JD Shaffer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not an honest "finished this book", to be frank. I found the first 25% very fascinating, but tiring.
I skimmed the rest, but with the intention to dip back into it from time to time to satisfy that "lexical curiosity" that I have.

As for Lewis and his writing, extremely accurate and detailed, as one would expect. Always top-class with Lewis and Tolkien!

[Dean · Rating 4 out of 5]

Let me beging by saying that it was a real pleasure to read this one...

Even though some things I couldn't grasp entirely, due to my lack of education; I'm not a scholar...
Not an educated man, you would say.

But nevertheless, I love Lewis's mind, logic, and how he explains things!!!
So, I have enjoyed it, plus have learned a lot!!!

Dean;)

[Peter Volkofsky · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating (and sometimes hilarious) exploration of the way words evolve and the dangers inherent in not knowing the pedigree of words; especially the dangers of reading our own meanings back into words found in old books. This is a book for those who love words.

[Jacques · Rating 3 out of 5]

An impressive feat of scholarship, but a difficult read. You'd need some Latin and Greek (and French would help) to fully appreciate it. The subtle differences in shades of meaning that Lewis illustrates were sometimes beyond me.

[Roger Rosenberg · Rating 3 out of 5]

Exhaustive discussion of words and how they acquired several different meanings for the same word. I had never really thought about why, for example “nature” has so many different meanings, so I found it interesting if difficult reading.

[Katarína Valiena · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kedy, ak nie teraz? Tak veľa výhovoriek niekdy človek má... ale nikdy nebude ideálna chvíľa. Ideálny čas na premýšľanie, hľadanie pravdy, vzdelávanie... vždy budú dôležitejšie, lákavejšie veci...a pritom je to tá najlepšia životná investícia ❤️🙏

ŽIŤ NA BOŽIU SLÁVU, tu a teraz, ŽIVOT VZDELANÝ...

[Hannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting and enjoyable, as with much of Lewis, a little above my reading level.

[Karla · Rating 5 out of 5]

The vocabulary usage Lewis chooses is profound.
It took me some time to absorb his philosophy of language usage. This is a wonderful read which will turn you into a zeitgeist if you let it.