£RRATA RECEPTA. 



ON ERRATA RECEPTA, WRITTEN AND SPOKEN. 



BY THE REV. DR. SCADDIWG, 



IrlBBABIAir TO THE CAKASIAK INSTIIUIB. 



(Continued from Vol. X. p. 232.) 



IV. VERNACULARISMS. 



All that a man of one language can do, when foreign words and 

 phrases fall upon his ear, is to extract from them such a meaning as 

 he best can, according to the principles of his. own solitary vernacu- 

 lar. The English sailor deduces strange meanings from the sayings 

 of the Dutch and Chinese ; and the Dutch and Chinese probably in- 

 terpret, in a manner equally odd, the words of their eccentric 

 British friend. The Chinese indeed, we know, have made out of our 

 English tongue a dialect of their own, which is now even adopted by 

 those who trade with them. At Hong-Kong and Canton grave 

 British merchants, in conversation with Chinese, seem suddenly to 

 fall into a premature second childhood, and to indulge in the infantile 

 babble of the nursery. 



In all ages a certain amount of intercourse, somewhat like this, 

 must have been carried on between different races and tribes ; and it 

 can easily be seen how a complete misunderstanding on both sides 

 may in some instances have arisen ; and how singular blunders may 

 have been transferred from one tongue to another, and at length in- 

 corporated in the languages of nations as vernacular expressions autho- 

 rized by custom, however wrong in their first use. 



Traces of such international misconceptions are observable in nu- 

 merous common terms, but especially, as was to be anticipated, in the 

 names of peoples and tribes, of countries, cities and particular locali- 

 ties, of kings and distinguished personages, as handed down to us l^y 

 annalists and historians. 



Sometimes names that have a real significance become, when ver- 

 nacularized in_another language, simply conventional ; while, on the 

 other hand, names that seem conventional, or the etymology of which 

 is not perceived, assume a meaning quite foreign to their actual im- 

 port. Sometimes, again, when a meaning cannot be forced into the 

 whole name, a sellable of it is made to give out a vernacular sound i 



