no 



discovi:hy 



and a few no doubt, because their quaintncss, appealed 



to tlic compiler." 



***** 



A review of this book by one who is not a profes- 

 sional philologist, may decently be confined to a few 

 quotations therefrom. Portmanteau words form an 

 interesting class. Many of these arc much older than 

 the name itself, which was invented by Lewis Carroll, 

 in 1871, to explain slilhy, mimsy, and other words 

 occurring in Through the Looking-glass. (" You see, 

 it's like a portmanteau — there are two meanings 

 packed up into one word.") Pelerloo (St. Peter's 

 Fields X Waterloo), for example, was invented in 

 1817. A good portmanteau word should indicate both 

 its meanings clearly, and should not offend a purist 

 too much. Hunshemk is not a good example, nor is 

 petrollick. Bakerloo and Eitrasiati are better. 

 ***** 

 Proper names that have given rise to words like 

 hiDtkiim, bowdlerise, boycott, and Mrs. Grundy, form 

 a second interesting class. Mrs. Grundy was a 

 character in Morton's play. Speed the Plough, produced 

 in 1798. Several times in it there is spoken the now 

 famihar phrase: "What will Mrs. Grundy say?" 

 The definitions of boivdlerise and of boycott are well 

 known. Bunkum comes from a county called 

 Buncombe in North Carolina, the member for which 

 once insisted, towards the end of a wearisome debate 

 in Congress, on " making a speech for Buncombe," 

 i.e. showing his constituents that he was doing some- 

 thing for them. Judge Halliburton's opinion may be 

 quoted in substantiation : 



" All over America, every place likes to hear of its 

 member of Congress and see their speeches ; and if tliey 

 don't, they send a piece to the paper, inquirin' if their 

 member's died a natural death, or was skivered with a 

 bowie knife, for they hante seen his speeches lately, and 

 his friends are anxious to know his fate. Our free and 

 enlightened citizens don't approbate silent members. . . . 

 So every feller, in bounden duty, talks, and talks big too, 

 and the smaller the state, the louder, bigger and fiercer 

 its members talk. Well, when a crittur talks for talk 

 sake, jist to have a speech in the paper to send to home, 

 and not for any other airthly puppus but for electioneer- 

 ing, our folks call it ' Bunkum.' " 



***** 

 The dictionary shows that many well-known phrases 

 are older than one might suppose. " Queen Anne is 

 dead " cannot occur before Queen Anne's time, yet 

 in her time there was an earlier version : 

 " What news, Mr. Neverout ? " 



" Why, madam. Queen Elizabeth's dead." — Swift, 

 Polite Conversation. 



Hobson's Choice may be earlier than the time of 

 Hobson, the Cambridge livery-stable keeper, who 

 refused to let out his horses except in strict rotation. 



to whom the phrase is usually ascribed. It occurred 



modified as Hodgson's Choice in a letter written as 



early as 1617. 



A fountain-pen was described in France in 1658. 



and Fanny Burncy used one in 1789. The slang word 



wangle dates from 1888. On the otiicr hand, some 



phrases are startlingly modern, journalism {1833). 



Tommy Atkins (1883) {Thomas Atkins, a specimen 



name used in filling up Army forms, dates from 1815), 



Tommy (for the soldier) (1893), week-end became general 



about 1885, and the nonconformist conscience in 1890 



at the time of Mr. Parnell's fall. Motor-car was used 



in 1895 (it was in November 189G that a motor-car 



was first allowed without a red flag), and joy-ride in 



1909. 



***** 



It is good to meet again words like villain and 

 prevent, whose original meanings have been altered in 

 time. There are others whose meaning has been 

 distorted, owing to a misunderstanding of the source 

 from which they came. The journalistic phrase " the 

 psychological moment," meaning approximately " just 

 the right moment," is due to a misunderstanding of 

 the German psychologisches moment, the psychological 

 factor. This phrase was used by a German newspaper 

 in 1870 in reference to the anticipated effect of the 

 bombardment of Paris on the moral of the besieged 

 It has now passed, as the New English Dictionary 

 put it, "nonsensically into English journalese." 



It is curious that the phrase the Pilgrim Fathers 

 apparently dates only from 1799. The Puritans who 

 landed in 1612 at Plymouth Rock in Massachusetts 

 were called pilgrims, not pilgrim fathers. It is a pity 

 if this be true. Perhaps America can supply a quota- 

 tion of the phrase which will save the situation. 

 ***** 



Professor Weekley has continued the Johnsonian 

 tradition in allowing humour and cheerfulness occa- 

 sionally to break through. Thus he describes un. 

 questionably as a word which is used " in philology 

 usually in reference to some hazy recollection of an 

 amateur theory propounded in the correspondence 

 column," and adds this quotation : 



" Dreyfus has nothing to do with ' tripod.' It comes 

 unquestionably from the city of Treves." — Observer^ 

 December 31, 1916. 



Of astrolabe, after giving its derivation., he says, 

 " Used in desperation by Swinburne," and gives the 

 verse from Poems and Ballads. Values enables him to 

 give Mr. H. G. Wells a little dig. Following its defini- 

 tion, are these two quotations : 



" We apologise to Mr. Wells for using the word ' values,' 

 since he dislikes it. — Times Lit. Supp., June 5, 1919. 



" The hooligan sees none of the values of the stranger. 

 — H. G. Wells, T/ic Observer, January 18, 1920. 



