Butler — Household Words: Their Etymology. 377 



tions. America was reckoned a part of India till after the 

 birth of Shakespeare bv geographers, and long after in popular 

 usage. The word America is found in Shakespeare only once, 

 and then is followed by "the Indies'' as if it needed explanation 

 by an alternate name, just as in the same connection the word 

 Pelgia is followed by [N'etherlands. Both phrases illustrate 

 Shakespeare's habit of bringing in an easier word directly after 

 a hard one to clear up its meaning. The Indies here, according 

 to the context, mean West Indies, a name under which a thou- 

 sand American islands to this day are classed. But Turkey in 

 English eyes was the dominant power in Asia and not least over 

 India, and so all things from India might be deemed Turkish, as 

 all things American have now become Yankee. Thus a fowl 

 which came from any corner of India, a Turkish conquest, might 

 naturally be called turkey, all the more inasmuch as a gobbler, 

 or gobble-cock, when spreading himself at sight of a red rag ri- 

 vals the traditional fierceness of a Turk. In buying turkey, and 

 on countless other occasions, we need scales. The modem pat- 

 ent platforms scarcely deserve the name of balance which is ety- 

 mologically two dishes. The old pair of balances hung in even 

 scale and gave a demonstration of accuracy which no eye could 

 fail to see. What artist will ever dare pluck the balance from 

 his painting of the goddess of justice ? Returning to food-names 

 we note strange vicissitudes in import of the self -same vocable. 

 Thus oil took its name from the olive which yielded it, but now 

 gives name to products more or less similar, but which are ob- 

 tained from manifold sources which seem totally dissimilar, as 

 cotton-seed. East Indian ground nuts, fish, fowls, beasts, and the 

 bowels of the earth. 



The first syllable in hidter is allied to bossy, our colloquial 

 nlame for cow, and according to Curtius (Sec. 227) its second 

 syllable is thought to be the same with tur in the word distui'bed, 

 so that the word butter means cow's milk shaken. Cheese ap- 

 pears to be cognate with case. If so, it is milk pressed in a case. 

 Buttery would seem to get its name from butter, but linguists 

 derive it from the vessels or butts of liquor which were there 

 stored. Food and drink, however, being' laid up in the same 

 room led to confusing the namie with pantry which is bread- 

 room. Pantry is related to pan in companion — one with whom 



