Introduction

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INTRODUCTION

IN a former volume, entitled 'A Student's Pastime,' I reprinted a considerable number of my occasional contributions to 'Notes and Queries' during the years 1866-96.

In the year 1898 many kind friends were so good as to contribute a sum of money for the purpose of presenting my portrait to Christ's College, Cambridge. As somewhat more was contributed than was required for this purpose, a portion of the surplus was made over to me for the purpose of reprinting some more of my rather numerous stray articles without much risk of loss. This act of kind consideration, in conjunction with the good will of the Clarendon Press, is practically responsible for the appearance of the present volume; and these circumstances have suggested the reproduction of some of my articles on English philology which may perhaps be of no great interest to the general public, though I venture to hope that a few serious students of our language may find them useful. It is owing to the same circumstances that the tone of this introduction is more autobiographical than it would otherwise have been, and I gladly take this opportunity of thanking the kind friends who have done me this good turn.

How the articles in the present volume came to be written is easily explained. After the appearance of my larger Etymological Dictionary in 1884, it was not long before I discovered that it required both corrections and additions. It was in the same year that the interest of all English scholars was keenly excited by the appearance of the first part (A—Ant) of the New English Dictionary on Historical Principles, a work which has been edited with a skill and fullness beyond all expectation, and is now, to our great gratification, nearly half complete. It has always been my ambition to contribute, in however humble a way, to the etymological portion of the work; and as I could only do this at odd times and in occasional intervals of leisure, I wrote, in successive years, several short articles which were read as papers at various meetings of the Philological Society on twelve several occasions, as noted on pp. 1, 2. The first article was written on a single word as early as 1882; the next ten at various dates, from 1884 to 1899; and the last in 1900. All but the last have already appeared in the Transactions of the Philological Society, but are not easily accessible except to members of the Society or to readers in public libraries; and that is why they are reprinted here. I have also included a very small number of notes which have appeared in the Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society and in recent numbers of Notes and Queries.

The words thus commented on appear in alphabetical order; pp. 3-325. Next follows a paper on the Language of Mexico, which was written solely from the point of view of ascertaining how much that language had contributed to English. At pp. 335-41 will be found an attempt to enumerate English words of Brazilian origin, which I have found it is necessary to supplement largely. Words of Peruvian origin follow at pp. 342-5; and words of West-Indian origin at pp. 345-50. These lists are merely offered for what they are worth. They make no claim to completeness, and I cannot be sure that all the words are accurately treated. At the same time, an honest attempt at verification of their alleged origins has in general been made; and even this is something, for some dictionaries easily arrive at rather imposing results by the simple process of copying what they can most readily find; and the compilers most carefully refrain from giving any authorities.

Another way in which, as it seemed to me, it was possible to supply the needs of the editors of the New English Dictionary, was to attempt the compilation of a list, however incomplete, of such Anglo-French words as it seemed desirable that they should be able to find with ease whenever they required them. Perhaps I may say that this idea is one for which I claim such credit as it may deserve; for I cannot find that any other English student of our language has ever given direct assistance to the compilers of our dictionaries in a similar manner. Of course there are several glossaries, such as that by Mr. H. T. Riley in the second volume of the Liber Custumarum, in which Anglo-French words are explained; but all such lists are subject to the sad drawback that you have to know the Anglo-French form before you can look it out, whereas that is just the very thing of which you may not be sure; to say nothing of the trouble of consulting many scattered glossaries and (still worse) of reading through such volumes as are not glossed at all, on the mere chance of coming across the word which you want. It is very difficult, for example, to find a quotation for the A.F. form of duty; but my index gives at once a reference to the forms dueté, deweté, with the sense of debt or obligation, as occurring at pp. 211, 213 of the Liber Albus; and the value of these references is all the greater when we find that, though the New English Dictionary cites the A.F. forms dueté, duité, and deweté, it supplies no reference for any one of them; neither is the word recognised at all in Godefroy's Old French Dictionary, which often cites A.F. forms. The word duty is of special interest from the fact that it is unknown to continental French (which only has devoir) and to all other Romance languages likewise. It is often forgotten that Anglo-French was once a live spoken language, with ways of its own, and quite capable of originating forms which have no parallel elsewhere. For some further remarks upon this subject, see pp. 354-61. A list of some of the principal books which contain specimens of this interesting dialect is given at pp. 361-3.

It will be understood that most of the etymological notes, as here reprinted, were more or less novel at the time of their appearance, or were taken from sources which were then new. In order to enable the curious to test the chronology in any given case, I have added the approximate date of publication at or near the end of each article, using 82, 85, &c., by way of abbreviation for 1882, 1885, &c. See pp. 1-2 for the exact list.

Many of the notes here given have been adopted by later writers of dictionaries, and have appeared, for example, in the Century Dictionary (1889-91) and in the new edition of Webster (1890). I do not say that the editors of these works did not, in some cases at least, obtain similar results for themselves independently, for I have been informed that this sometimes happened; I merely say that they had access to much of the material here given, and had my permission to make use of it. This at once explains a large number of the instances in which, for example, the new edition of Webster agrees with me as to results which nowhere appeared in the old edition of 1864. At p. 274, l. 3, I note, for example, that the old edition of Webster gives the wrong explanation of sophy, whereas the edition of 1890 is correct. The date of my article (see p. 274, last line but one) is 1888. The same is true of the next article but one, that on souse. Wherever I have myself been consciously indebted to others, I have endeavoured to say so.

As regards the New English Dictionary, I have steadily endeavoured to subserve its needs; and hence it is that many of my suggestions have found their way into it, as has been acknowledged not only in general terms but even, in some instances, particularly; as e.g. under chopine, cosset, dismal, (gooseberry) fool, furl, &c.

It is a source of much regret to me that I was unsuccessful in obtaining some of the etymologies here given till after the appearance of the word in the New English Dictionary. This, however, was inevitable; for experience shows that the discovery of a new etymology usually results from the sudden appearance of a fresh piece of evidence, for which one may have been on the look-out for half a dozen or even a dozen years. And such fresh evidence has in some cases been first brought to light by the full and searching articles in the N.E.D. itself. Hence it is that I have been able to throw new light on several difficult words, such as baste (I), bronze, bud1, bullace, burly, calf, clipper, crease, dally, darn, darnel, dude, frampold, funnel, gallop, and some others. The new solution of dandriff was contributed by Mr. Mayhew; and the etymologies of collop and the M.E. raimen are due to E. Björkmann. In the very difficult field of French philology, I think I may claim to have discovered the source of the O.F. beloce (for which see bullace, p. 23), and of the F. galop and galoper; besides giving a much clearer account of début than can readily be found elsewhere. At the present time of writing this Introduction, the N.E.D. has not proceeded much beyond Larboard; so that my notes upon all words subsequent to that word are independent of any results that may hereafter appear there.

It will be understood that I make these remarks by way of explanation only, and in order to show that most of the results here given are due to original research. Otherwise, it is not of much consequence to know to whom this or that explanation was originally due. The public is concerned with the results only; and if an etymology is true, it can easily be verified and requires no name for its support.

1 See the additional note on bud, at p. 476.

Perhaps I may add that, in a few cases, I have been able to supplement the N.E.D. by the discovery of earlier instances than those there cited. This is the case with regard to the words boatswain, boose, cat-in-the-pan, colè, and dell; and I give a transitional form under eyot which affords some help. I also explain the mysterious word clopping; and note the omission of the verb to cack, as used of a goose, of which the well-known frequentative form is cackle.

The above explanation of what has been here attempted will no doubt amply suffice. I venture to add a few remarks upon some other results of my rather long experience.

As it has been my lot, in studying MSS. and other early sources of information, to come across various facts which were not previously known, I here make a list of the chief of them for the reader's convenience and for the encouragement of other students.