ON ERRATA RECEPTA. 31 



ON ERRATA RECEPTA, WRITTEN AND SPOKEN. 



BY THE REV. DR. SCADDING, 



lilBEAEIAN TO THE CASABIAN INSTIXUTB. 



(Continued from Vol. IX. p. 326.) 

 III. EoEEiGK "WoEDS Anglicised — {continued). 

 2. Anglicised Italian Words. 



We have already seen that our familiar word inh represents th& 

 Italian incMostro, a corruption of encaustum, a term expressive of the 

 caustic, biting character of the old writing fluids. Beam also, deno- 

 ting a certain quantity of paper, is the Italian risma, an abbre- 

 viation of arisma, which is from the Greek arithmos. — Pencil, looking 

 as if through the Erench pinceau it were allied to pennello, an Italian 

 diminutive of penna, is in reality penicillum, its classical synonym. — 

 Desk, so associated in our minds with the act of writing, is desco, the 

 Italian form of discus, and means simply a circular table. Dais for 

 the upper table in the dining-hall, is the same word. This term, its 

 origin having become obscure, acquired the sense (1) of the tester or 

 canopy over the principal seat at the high-table; and (2) of the 

 raised step on which the high-table was placed. — Desco is also used 

 in an abstract sense, as " Chair" in English, for " Chairman" and 

 the authority temporarily vested in the Chairman of a public as* 

 sembly. 



Boll (of papyrus for example, or parchment), keeping somewhat 

 nearer its original than the Erench role, comes to us from the Italian 

 rotolo, ruolo, which is the Latin rotulus. A duplicate or check-roll 

 was in Erench a contre-role. Hence control. — Our invoice is the 

 Italian avviso {ad visum), to which we have adhered more closely in 

 the commercial phrases "advise," "letter of advice." 



''Policy", in the expression "policy of insurance", is borrowed 

 ivom polizza, a corruption oi polyptycha (pi.) a Greek word denoting 

 a set of writing tablets with many leaves. DiptycJia for a pair of 

 such tablets, is a more familiar word.* — A register (Ital. registro) is 

 properly a document in the papal archives — a book in which the gesta 



* As a mere guess, pollex, the Latin for the thumb, has been suggested as th» 

 original of this term, the thumb having been employed symbolically in making 

 agreemen'.s. "Policy", denoting a line of conduct, has an origin entirely dif' 

 ferent. 



