COMMENTARY

am

(p. 14). Professor John W. Clark, of the University of Minnesota, writes: ‘You might reconsider your association of are and art with am and is. You agree with the OED, Wyld, Sievers, but disagree with Holthausen and Prokosch (A Comparative Germanic Grammar, p. 221), who, I cannot help feeling, have the best of it; their opponents would seem necessarily to assume the r to be Vernerian, or at least a case of rhotacism of some kind, and I don’t see how it can be.’

boy

(p, 56). In Medium Ævum, October 1940 (IX, 121–54), The Etymology and Meaning of Boy’ and again in 1943 (XII, 71–76), ‘Middle English and Middle Dutch Boye’—Dr E.J. Dobson has scrupulously and lengthily surveyed the problem, yet arrived at no firm solution.

burden

(2), on p. 64. In Anglia, 1956, Professor H, M. Flasdieck writes instructively and eruditely upon Elizabethan faburden (F faux-bourdon) and E burden, as well as upon a number of related words.

capital

(p. 78, 1. 4). The noun capital mentioned is the monetary capital; the EF-F n capital prob stands for EF-F ‘fond capital’. As elliptical for ‘capital city’, it was app prompted by late

Origins 3860

EF-F capitale, for EF-F ‘ville capitale’; as elliptical for ‘capital letter’, by F capitale, for F ‘lettre capitale’. But ME-E capital, the ‘head’ or top part of a column, derives from OF-MF capitel (cf the OF-MF chapitel, var of OF-F chapiteau): LL capitellum (cf L capitulum)—dim of L caput, head.

cart

(p. 81) comes, more prob, from the syn ON kartr.

cotton

(p. 123). The OF-F coton perhaps derives rather from It cotóne, itself from the Ar word: Sp cotón is printed cotton, the word for cotton being algodón, with the Ar article al retained.

dream

(p. 166). For a closely argued and philologically buttressed treatment, see Professor Simeon Potter’s ‘On the Etymology of Dream’ in Archivum Linguisticum, Vol. IV, pp. 148–54, published in 1952.

elephant

(p. 179). For a more comprehensive treatment, see ‘Elephantine’ in my book, A Charm of Words, 1960.

feud

Commentary 3861

(2), on p. 209. In The Review of English Studies, 1956, Dr from an early northern ME fae-hude, ‘foehood’ or enmity. as well it may, then cf FOE (p. 244) and the suffix -hood at

E.J. Dobson derives the word If that etymology be correct,

-bead.

filch

(p. 212). In Modern Language Notes, 1955, Professor Kemp Malone proposes derivation from OE gefylce (ge-fylce), a large body of people, an army, an army division or troop, and traces a possible semantic development.

flamenco

(p. 218)—treated at FLANDERS, para 3 (p. 218). But Professor Dr Don Francisco SánchezCastañer, of the University of Valencia, holds that the Sp word flamenco is, in fact, two homonyms with disparate—almost contrasted—meanings: (1) from Gmc Vlaming, Fleming, with the secondary meaning: stout, strong, fair-haired, ruddy-cheeked (as the Spanish King’s Flemish guardsmen); (2) from Ar fellah mengo, Moorish troubadours, predecessors of the Catalan and Provençal troubadours, hence Gipsy musicians, singers and dancers, esp of Sevilla and Andalusia, hence romantic, dreaming, languid, sentimental. For a general discussion, which, however, implicatively disagrees with Sánchez-Castañer’s twofold etymology, see J. Corominas, Diccionario Crītico Etimológico dē la Lengua Castellana (vol. II, 1954) at heading ‘Flamenco’.

ginger

(p. 254), In his book, Etymology: with Especial Reference to English, 1958 (and therefore much too late for me to be able to consult it), Professor Ross brilliantly summarizes the evidence. That book contains a section of ‘Selected English etymologies’ meriting the attention of even the most erudite, and including notably ale, cross, jade (horse), last, snow, walrus, yolk, yule.

haggis

Origins 3862

, treated at hack (2), para 4, s.f., on p, 274. In Romance Philology, 1958, Professor C.H. Livingston, article ‘Etymology of English “haggis” ’, derives it from ONF haguier, to chop or hash. (Admittedly the derivation from ON höggva presents certain difficulties.)

keelson

(p. 327). In Notes and Queries, 1955, Mr D.B. Sands in his article ‘A New Approach to the Etymology of English “Keelson”’ points out that Continental cognates pretty clearly indicate a compound of keel and swine and suggests the sort of symbolism involved.

macabre

(p. 370). In Stadia Philologica et Litteraria in Honorem H. Spitzer, 1959, Professor H. Sperber deals with the semantic difficulty and suggests that the author of some early dance of death felt that it would be an excellent idea to revitalize the stereotyped character of the preacher by identifying him with the ‘notorious’ Judas Maccabaeus.

market

(p. 382). In The Modern LanguageReview, April 1952 (XLVIII, No. 2, pp. 152–4), Professor Norman Davis discusses ‘the route by which the word market, which obviously goes back ultimately to Latin mercatus, came into the language’. He suggests that market ‘came into English from a Germanic language rather than from French’—esp OHG and OS—and adduces some convincing evidence.

mayonnaise

(p. 388). In her Madame de Pompadour, 1957, Miss Nancy Mitford suggests that the name celebrated the capture of Fort St Philippe at Mahon by the Maréchal dē Richelieu. There being no butter or cream on the island, the Marshal’s chef devised a sauce made only of eggs and oil—and honorifically called it sauce Mahonnaise.

Commentary 3863

Pall Mall

(p. 466—but treated at MALL, para 1, on p. 374). In Anglia, 1954, Professor H.M. Flasdieck’s article ‘Pall Mall’ occupied an entire issue and dealt with certain associated words.

physic

, para 6 (p. 493). But J.H.Randall, Aristotle, New York, 1960, points out, at p. 108, that the name metaphysics did not, after all, originate with Aristotle, who usually called it ‘first philosophy’. The lectures or notebooks were first assembled, 250 years later, by Andronikos of Rhodes, who called them Ta Meta ta Phusika, ‘the Writings that come after those on Physics’—in the Andronikos edition. (With thanks to David A. Kuhn).

plow

(p. 504) has, by Professor Simeon Potter in ‘On the Etymology of Plough’ in Nadbitkaz Prac Filologicnych (tom xviii cz. 2), Warsaw, 1964, been shown to be, not of Germanic but of Celtic origin: Gaulish *plo-, as in Pliny’s plaumorati. Professor Potter convincingly suggests that the plough was invented by the Rhaetian Gauls (cf Walshe’s guess) and says that the word passed to the Germans, hence to the Scandinavians, finally to the English.

pyramid

(p. 538) was conclusively shown by Professor Doctor Karl Lang in his article ‘Die Etymologic des Wortes Pyramide’ in Anthropos, XVIII– XIX (1923–1924), pp. 551–3, to be an Egyptian word: pi, the masculine article+mr, a pyramid.

Origins 3864

rack

(7)—on p. 546—has, by Klas Bernhard Johannes Karlgren in Philology and Ancient China, 1926, been derived, not from Ar, but from other and earlier sources; it exists, as arakke, in Ainu, ‘a language that entered the Japanese islands in pre-historic times’. Dr Karlgren summarizes thus: ‘In the stem arak-, rak-, we have a Central and North Asiatic word which already in pre-Christian times reached all the races of the extreme Orient, was incorporated in Chinese, and conquered the whole world via Arabian’.

racket

(1), in its underworld sense, may have (as Dr Nicola Cerri, Jr, proposes) been influenced by It ricatto, blackmail, kidnapping, or even derived from it and then f/e reshaped after racket, din.

rash

(2)—a rash on the skin—and rasher (both on p. 551). Professor C.H.Livingston—‘Old French essüer, ressüer in English’ (Romance Philology, 1957–58, Vol. XI, pp. 254– 67)—derives dial rash, adj and v (‘dry’), from ressüer, a compound form of OF essüer, and from dial rash, v, he derives rasher, from which, in turn, he derives the obsolete rash, to cut or slash.

skein

—travel—trawl—troll—and reel. See Professor C.H.Livingston’s important monograph, Skein-Winding Reels (University of Michigan, 1957): dealing mainly with French terms, yet valuable for these five English words.

Commentary 3865

these

and those (treated at THE, paras 2 and 3 on pp. 709–10). John W.Clark writes: ‘I suspect, strongly, that NE [i.e., Modern English] those is not a reflex (with e added in accordance with modern spelling conventions) of ME thos, OE thās, with the mysteriously transferred meaning from pl of this to pl of that, but rather a reflex of ME tho, OE thā, plus an -se from these, which in turn I should take to be an ME pl formation from the masc sing n thes (OE thēs)—plus the levelled and generalized ME pl ending (adj) -e. This displaced, I take it, thas, thos, in the sense of the pl of this, and they have no reflex in NE at all. Those would, according to this view, be formed analogically from these, with a misapprehension of the composition of these as the-se rather than as thes-e. Otherwise OE thās seems to have undergone a most puzzling—and unlikely—change

from the sense of L illi to the sense of L hi.’

vain

, treated—on p. 757—at VACANCY, para 9. See ‘Aspects of Emptiness’ in A Charm of Words, where, admittedly, I deal with only the L members of the group. Nevertheless, I think that, despite the difference in quantity of the r vowels, L uānus is ult akin to the synonymous Gr kenos, touched on at CENOTAPH and, in ELEMENTS, at the 2nd CENO-.

water

(p. 797). See esp my article in A Charm of Words. The distribution of the word is even wider than I had thought; for instance, it occurs, in a clearly recognizable form, in several North American Indian languages or, at least, dialects. I hope that some day I shall be able to write a monograph on this word.

yule

Origins 3866

(p. 817). For the theoretical IE origins, see esp Alan S.C.Ross, Etymology, pp. 163–4.