DISCOVERY 



A MONTHLY POPULAR 

 JOURNAL OF KNOWLEDGE 



Vol. II, No. 17. MAY 1921. 



PRICE Is. NET. 



DISCOVERY. A Monthly Popular Journal of Know- 

 ledge. 



Edited by A. S. Russell, M.C, D.Sc, 4 Moreton 

 Road, Oxford, to whom all Editorial Communications 

 should be addressed. 



Published by John Murray, 50.^ Albemarle Street, 

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 should be addressed. 



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Editorial Notes 



It is a great thing when a man, who knows his subject 

 and wants others to share his knowledge, can so 

 express himself that we, the general public, may not 

 only follow him intelligently, but become interested 

 in his subject, fascinated perhaps. The expert is 

 sometimes prevented from \vTiting on his subject so 

 that his readers get the ma.ximum pleasure possible 

 in reading him, not because he is incapable of writing 

 informingly and interestingly, but because unfor- 

 tunately he is afraid of a bogey-man. The bogey-man 

 sits up at the back behind the ninety-and-nine who 

 want the matter explained simply, and spoils every- 

 thing. The lecturer or the writer cannot let himself 

 go. He dare not be funny. He must not e.xprcss 

 his personality. For there before him is the bogey- 

 man detecting every error, charging him ironically 

 with bringing down matters to his level, muttering 

 " superficial " or " writing down " or " childish 

 analogies," and so it is that sometimes writers who 

 were once good men become stiff and starchy, difficult 

 and drj'-as-dust. 



***** 

 Professor Weekley, of Nottingham, is not one of 

 these. He is one of those who believes that, inasmuch 

 as books are written to be read, a good book should 



be, above all, interesting. His books on Surnames 

 and The Romance of Words have done much to 

 popularise the highly interesting subject of the origin 

 and meaning of words, but this new book of his, the 

 dictionary,* is his best book. It is a triumph. He 

 has given us a jolly book without being superficial 

 or inaccurate. He offers it to those lovers of our 

 language who, " without wishing to stumble about in 

 the dim regions which produce prehistoric roots and 

 conjectural primitive-Teutonic word-forms, have an 

 educated interest in words and an intelligent curiosity 

 as to their origins and earlier senses." 



***** 



This dictionary does not, of course, fulfil the function 

 of an ordinarj^ dictionary. It does not give pronuncia- 

 tion of the words, and the only definitions given are 

 brief indications necessary to suggest the region of 

 ideas to which an unfamiliar word belongs ; there is 

 all the more room, therefore, for an exposition of 

 how, why, and when words and phrases came into 

 our language. The vocabulary is that of The Concise 

 Oxford Dictionary or Cassells New English Dictionary, 

 but a great number of scientific and technical words 

 which, for Professor Weekley 's purpose, can hardly be 

 regarded as forming part of the English language, have 

 been omitted. Slang words and expressions, hitherto 

 passed over by etymologists, are here historically 

 explained, and foreign words are included if they are 

 likely to occur in reading and in " educated conver- 

 sation." He has attempted, indeed, to include the 

 whole of the literary and colloquial vocabulary so far 

 as the former is not purely archaic, and the latter not 

 purely technical or local. Quotations form an impor- 

 tant feature of the dictionary. Professor Weekley 

 feels that a dictionary " without quotations is too 

 unrelieved in its austerity. Those included here range 

 chronologically from the Venerable Bede to Mr. 

 Horatio Bottomley. . . . Some are given to prove the 

 occurrence of a word, others to illustrate an interesting 

 phase of meaning or an obsolete pronunciation, . . . 



' A n Etymological Dictionary of Modern English. By Ernest 

 Weekjey, M.A, (John Murray. 42s. net.) 



109 



