The Word 'Master' in Trade Names

IN THE preparation of a master's thesis in semantics, the object of which was 'to investigate as minutely as possible all the uses and all the meanings of the single word master in Modern English usage,' I was struck by the frequent occurrence of master as an element of trade names. It is impossible in so restricted a space as this to expound my classification of the meanings of master, and to indicate how those classifications were arrived at; yet some outline of my method is needed as a point of departure. The thesis presents master in forty-five clusters of meaning, thirty-seven of them being clusters of nominal (or nominal-attributive) uses, and eight of them groups of verbal uses.' This grouping is arbitrary, since in many instances one cannot assert that master has precisely the meaning a or the meaning b, but must be content to state that master seems to have primarily the meaning a, with a strong suggestion of the meaning b; and in some still more confusing occurrences, one must admit that either of two (or, often, many of several) meanings of master is involved, one of them being as significant and prominent as the other. And besides the frequent presence of more than a single meaning in a given occurrence of master, it is worth remarking that throughout the whole range of occurrences of master there is uniformly a shading of one meaning into another.