ABSTRACT
The idea that there is a natural correspondence between sound and sense, and that words acquire their contents and value through a certain sound symbolism, has at all times been a favourite one with linguistic dilettanti, the best-known examples being found in Plato's Kratylos. Greek and Latin grammarians indulge in the wildest hypotheses to explain the natural origin of such and such a word, as when Nigidius Figulus said that in pronouncing vos one puts forward one's lips and sends out breath in the direction of the other person, while this is not the case with nos. With these early writers, to make guesses at sound symbolism was the only way to etymologize; no wonder, therefore, that we with our historical methods and our wider range of knowledge find most of their explanations ridiculous and absurd. But this does not justify us in rejecting any idea of sound symbolism: abusus non tollit usum!
