1066 - The Ink-horn Controversy

The "Ink-horn" Controversy

Loanword Antipathy

Criticism of the abuse of hard words and ornately obscure language took shape of the “Ink-horn” controversy

Ink-horn (= 'inkpot') terms were the words that were lengthy and therefore used up more ink

The common sentiment of the time ran like this: “The most auncient English wordes are of one sillable, so that the more monosyllables that you use the truer Englishman you shall seeme, and the less you shall smell of the Inkehorne”

“Smelling of the ink-horn” was a common way of talking about a pedant

A letter from a gentleman asking for help in obtaining a vacant benefice can serve as an example of the "ink-horn":

Ponderyng expendyng [weighing], and reuolutyng [revolving] with my self your ingent [enormous] affabilitee, and ingenious capacitee, for mundane affaires: I cannot but celebrate and extolle your magnificall dexteritee, above all other.

In the sixteenth century the feeling was widely held that borrowing had gone too far, and that the Germanic word stock was at risk

Some even tried to restore an Anglo-Saxon character. Edmund Spenser revived obsolete Anglo-Saxon words (“Chaucerisms”): algate “always”, eld “old age”, hent “seize”, sicker “certainly”, yblent “confused”, and yode “went”

John Cheke replaced Classical terms whenever he could: he preferred crossed to crucified and gainrising to resurrection

As time went on, however, a natural selection of Latinate vocabulary seemed to have taken place: over a third of all neologisms which entered the language at that time are not recorded after 1700. The "inkhorn" terms that went out of use include:

accersite “summon”

adnichilate “destitute”

cohibit “restrain”

concernancy

deruncinate “weed”

disaccustom

dominicall “lordly”

eximious “excellent”

omittance

suppeditate “supply”