150 ON ERRATA RECEPTA. 



All crafts, I suppose, have similar technical shortenings. In the poli- 

 tical arena we see, if we do not hear, Rep. by pop. '^ There is a ten- 

 dency in such abridged terms to become at length actual words. Our 

 language exhibits a few examples of terms which, originating in abbre- 

 viations, have in the course of time become legitimised, although in 

 most cases they have not divested themselves of a certain taint of vul- 

 garity. A hundred years ago, mobile (excitable, fickle) was a cant 

 term for the populace. The complete phrase, either founded on some 

 such expression as that of Csesar, in regard to the Gauls (B. G. 4. 5.) 

 " Galli sunt in capiendis consiliis mobiles," — or obliquely glancing 

 at the much sought for, but never found, " perpetuum mobile " — 

 was " mobile vulgus." This mobile was curtailed at length into our 

 familiar word mob, followed at first by the period of contraction, but 

 afterwards written without any such distinction, and so it has passed 

 into the language. Again ; Rhubarb is now a very respectable word, 

 -—representing an equally respectable thing — whether drug or escu- 

 lent. It is properly, however Rha. Barb, manifestly an apothecary's 

 abbreviation of either Rha Barbaricum, or Rheum Barbarum. Incog.. 

 and infra dig., have almost lost, in familiar language, their actual 

 character. Nem. con. and crim. con. are not very ambiguous. We 

 might venture to write philomath without a mark of abbreviation. By 

 a kind of synecdoche of the first syllable for the whole term we have 

 made out of cabriolet, Hachney, and Hochheimer, cab, hack, and 

 hock. From Grogram (grossa grana, a coarsely woven material) and 

 Genievre (the French corruption of Juniperus — further anglicised by 

 us into Geneva) — have come the names of two unmentionable liquids. 

 Cit. once passed for citizen ; but the modern Gent, has not yet suc- 

 ceeded in being recognized as Gentleman ; nor his pants as panta~ 

 loons ; nor his nobs as nobiles. Fib. for Fabida is one more abbre- 

 viation from the Latin. Pi or pie, denoting certain old Ecclesiastical 

 ruleSj is the first syllable of iri-va^, the Table or Index, which detailed 

 them. Type va. pie, is type that must be re-arranged — put back into 

 the ■iri-va$ or case. Pica is lit era pic a-t a — letter pitch-black. Mag- 

 pie is properly, as given in Shakspeare, maggot-pie, i.e. pica morosa, 

 the whimsical Pie. Sub. for subaltern in the army and elsewhere ; 

 Spec, for speculation at the Exchange ; phiz, for physiognomy, in the 



1 It To the "foreign" reade'r it may be necessary to say that a certahi dangerous reef run- 

 ning right across the lake of Canadian politics is thus named. The full form of the appel- 

 lation is "IRepresentation by Population." 



