April 2, 1888.] 



♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



129 



To lift a thousand pounds on the health-lift is no very 

 remarkable feat for a person of average strength, giving 

 sufficient time daily for a few months to practice. i\Ir. 

 Blaikie learned in this way, at the age of seventeen, to lift 

 a thousand pounds after only six months' practice. These 

 who prefer to lift an actually measured weight will find it 

 necessary to adopt some such plan as was employed by 

 Topham, preparing a framework to bear the weight, and 

 standing in its midst so as to lift the weight by means of 

 symmetrically-attached straps. For the body cannot, when 

 all aelant, bear such a weight as a thousand pounds. 



Whether such exercise is good for the body as a whole 

 depends a good deal on the opportunities which a man has 

 for corx-ecting an abnormal development of the lifting 

 muscles by means of other exercises, increasing the develop- 

 ment of other muscles and giving activity as well as strength 

 to the frame. 



NOTES ON AMERICANISMS. 



Habitak. Corruption for the French word Iiahifant, 

 a landed proprietor on a small scale. The word is seldom 

 heard outside Canada on the northern side, and Louisiana 

 on the southern. When heard in the middle States, it 

 usually has a sound as entirely different from the Fiench 

 pronunciation as " Movey Star " is different from "Mauvaises 

 Terres," or " Lagrange " (rhyming with " range ") from the 

 French " Lagrange." 



Had have. Hadn't oughter, and kindred combinations 

 and abominations are heard about as frequently in the 

 States as in the old country. Would that Bartlett " had 

 have " been justified in imph'ing that Americans only use 

 expressions which they " hadn't oughter " such as these. 



Hail fro.m, To. The good old sea-phrase, " hail from " 

 for come from, bdomj to, is heard in America as in England, 

 though America has done her best to destroy her own sea- 

 carrying trade. But to call " Hail from," thus used, an 

 Americanism, is as absurd as it is to call " Hang out," for 

 live inside, American. Bartlett naturally does both, seem- 

 ing to know as much about English usage as the Saturday 

 Riview knows about Americanisms. 



Hamsiock. 1 . The use of this word for a swinging- bed, 

 though of South American origin (Spanish Jamaca) has 

 now been for more than a century so widespread that to 

 regard it as an Americanism would be absurd. The use of 

 the " hammock '' as an open-air couch in gardens, on porches, 

 and so forth, is, however, undoubtedly much more common 

 in America than in the old country, the summer climate 

 inviting to lazy ways of lying (or " laying," as nine tenths 

 even of the " society people " of America call it), reclining, 

 sitting, and so forth. The grandsons — aye, and the .sons, 

 too — of men who in England would be ashamed to be lolling 

 and sprawling half the time, loll and sprawl all the time in 

 America. But for the constant infusion of new blood, the 

 American population would develop in a few generations 

 into a race no longer using chairs, except of the lazily 

 rocking sort, and regarding the upright position as involving 

 an exhausting tax on the energies. 



2. The word Hammock is used in the Southern States, for 

 " a piece of ground thickly wooded, whether a prairie or a 

 hill, and distinguLshed from the immense forests of thinly 

 scattered pines, which with a few exceptions cover the 

 whole face of the country" (where the word " hammock" is 

 in vogue). This definition is from an article in the Xorth 

 American Revien: The word is not found in either Webster 

 or Worcester. I can find no evidence as to its origin, since 

 it is clearly quite distinct from the old word " hummock " 

 for rounded knolls. It is painful to have to admit ignorance 



about an Americanism, with the Saturda;/ Revieir ready to 

 pounce on everj^ indication of my having undertaken in 

 these " notes " a task for which I am totally unfitted. I 

 may, however, remark that even as I had been myself using 

 for years two of the Americanisms which that omniscient 

 weekly strove to exploit as " recent inventions," I know by 

 actual experience what "hammock land" is, though I am 

 unable to say how the word " hammock " came into use. I 

 write these lines with half a dozen tracts of hammock land 

 in view, and with one such tract within five minutes' walk, 

 a portion of which has been cleared away for my own 

 special " potato patch " (the " potato " growing on it being 

 at present grape vines, however). I must ask the readers of 

 these " notes " to excuse me for occasionally reminding them 

 that I have had (and have) somewhat exceptional oppor- 

 tunities for comparing American with English expressions 

 and ways. I should not have thought of so doing had not 

 the greatly daring review which has recently made itself for 

 ever famous by attributing to Sir William Jenner the in- 

 vention of vaccination — when he was presumably a very 

 young man, a century ago — written of my modest "notes" 

 in terms implying that they had been evolved from 

 my moral or immoral consciousness. Yet are there some 

 things, strange to say, which the average Saturday Review 

 writer really does know, and know by the best of all 

 possible evidence, and among these is the fact that some 

 writers would for a consideration pen a treatise about the 

 Himalayan Snows, with no wider experience than a back 

 attic in Grubb Street would afford, or discuss the campaigns 

 of Napoleon or of Moltke with no better knowledge of the 

 military art than may be obtained in school- boy scrimmages. 



Haxd. — It will hardly be believed that Bartlett includes 

 the expres.sion " hand " used in reference to proficiency — as 

 when we say that a man is a " good hand " at fighting, or 

 a " poor hand " at accounts — among Americanisms ; but he 

 does ! 



Handsome for generovs, is of course as thoroughly English 

 as any usage can well be. But Bartlett who includes this 

 usage among Amei-icanisms, overlooks an expression which, 

 though occasionally heard in England, is so much more 

 commonly heard iu America, that it might well have been 

 one of Bartlett's set. In America the expression' " he did 

 the thing handsome " would not be thought remarkable, 

 though a small percentage might be aware that it is 

 incorrect. 



Hang. To get the " hang " of anything, meaning to 

 learn its nature and peculiarities, is an expression which has 

 long been in use in the old country, but is perhaps oftener 

 heard in America. 



Hang, Arol-nd, To, signifying to loiter about, is only an 

 Americanism in regard to the word " around," which is 

 used here where in England we should say "about" 

 or " round." I am inclined to think that the word 

 " around " constantly used in America where we say 

 " round," is in reality the more correct adverbial form, 

 " round " being a corruption by clipping, which in strict- 

 ness should be written " 'round." I have myself become so 

 accustomed to the American usage that I have found the 

 word " around " making its appearance frequently in my 

 ^vriting, insomuch that an English friend of mine whoiskindly 

 helping me in the revision of my " Old and New Astronomy " 

 has had occasion to alter " around " into the more usual 

 "round" in quite a numter of places. I was thus led to 

 examine my earlier works, written before I had lived in 

 America, as I have during about six years out of the last 

 fifteen, partly expecting to find that I used the word 

 "around " as freely then as now. But in my " Saturn and 

 its System " I find that where I should now be apt to 

 write" " around " I wrote either " about " or " round," the 



