62 ERRATA RECEPTA. 



Bible, may be stated. — The familiar word, "helpmate," sometimes 

 used as a synonym for " wife," had its beginning in a defective print- 

 ing of the Scripture terms "help meete." It would appear that, by 

 accident, first the space dropped out from between these two vocables, 

 and then the double e of " meete," as, in the old Enghsh, it would 

 be written, was taken to be an a. Again : there is a certain passage 

 in the History of the Jewish Kings (vide 1 Sam., xxvii., 10.), which 

 to us, in these days, sounds as if it contained a misprint, of " road " 

 for " raid." King David, a fugitive from his native land, has made a 

 rush over the border, with an armed band ; and, after slaughtering^ 

 men and women, has carried back with him " the sheep and the oxen, 

 and the asses and the camels, and the apparel." Achish, his protec- 

 tor, in the place of his exile, on seeing the spoil, asks, " AVhither have 

 ye made a road to-day?" But here is no misprint. "Road" and 

 " raid " are the same words ; the former the Southern, the latter the 

 Northern, form. Both are luodifications of the Anglo-Saxon rad, 

 which denotes not only the act of riding, but also the provisions made 

 for its exercise ; namely, a cleared highway. We have the word in 

 Shakespeare, in lines 36 — 39, act 1., sc. 2., K. Henry V. : — 



" We must not only arm to invade the French, 

 But lay down our proportions to defend 

 Agdinst the Scot, who will make road upon us." 



In the Geneva version, in my old copy of 1603, the inquiry of 

 Achish is, "Where haue ye bene a rcuing, this day?" The word 

 " raid," now so familiar to our Canadian ears, is not to be found in 

 lexicons printed a few years since. It is not in my copy of Worces- 

 ter, of the date 1847, nor is it in the body of Ogilvie's Imperial, of 

 the date 1850. In the Appendix to the last-named Work, it is given 

 as a Scottish provincialism. — Another word become, of late years, 

 known to us, in a modern sense of its own, is " Philistine." It is not 

 improbable that this, in its present English shape, is the offspring of 

 a misprint. In my Geneva version, of the date 1605, to which I 

 have, already, more than once referred, " Philistine " is everywhere 

 printed " Philistim ; " or, rather, in the plural, somewhat pleonasti- 

 cally, Philistims ; just as we now, in our English way, say " Cheru- 

 bims," when "Cherubim" is, already, plural. It is to be suspected 

 that, on some occasion, the last member of the final m has been taken 

 for an e, and then printed accordingly. "Philistine" was next assu- 

 med to be the possessive of the poetic Pldlislia^ the very un-Hebrew 



