50 PROC. COTTESWOLD CLUB vol. xiii. 



adopted from generation to generation until the present 

 ^ day, as, for instance, Bath street and the entrance to the 

 Abbey Close, the latter being simply a modern representa- 

 tion of the ancient court of the temple. 



The common idea that the name of Bath occurring in 

 the Saxon Chronicle as " Acemannes ceastre," meant 

 " Sick men's city," will not stand examination. The 

 Saxon word for "sick man "was then practically what it is 

 now seoc man, for although ace was used for " ache," no 

 such form as "Ace-man" existed. It is simply an 

 unintelligent attempt to account for a name which was 

 probably the result of the abrasion which is so marked in 

 Celtic speech. Even down to our own time the Cornish 

 people, for example, clip many words till they are scarcely 

 recognisable. Miners say, instead of " Yes, I believe," 

 " Iss, bleh ! " and so on. This abbreviation was carried 

 on excessively with words adopted from Latin : as 

 Cathedra, which the Welsh make Cadr\ socitis, which 

 the Cornishman make soce, &c. There was also a 

 tendency in adopted words to bring forward the accent to 

 the first syllable (like the Italians sound O'tranto, 

 BrinMisi). But for this it is not easy to see why the 

 Englishman of the present day pronounces the name of 

 the eighth month as " Au'gust," or why he says sec'ond, 

 where a Frenchman says " sgohnd." This would lead the 

 Britons to make aqua, or aqiKV, a single syllable, just as 

 we know the Gauls did, for the French pronounce Aig 

 Mori, and Aix (that is, the exact sound of the 

 English " aches "). Then accenting the word Min'erva, 

 and dropping, in turn, the terminal syllables, as already 

 shown in Cath'edra, Aqua Minetvcc becomes ^V« min'er, 

 and then Ac'min (ceaster). In the Chronicle of Florence 

 of Worcester we get a glance at the intermediate form, 

 for he says the coronation of Edgar took place in 973, 

 "in civitate Acaruanni." " Aca" had nothing to do with 



