404 ERRATA RECEPTA. 



called a icayglite. Our Christmas icaits retain the name, even though 

 the tiling be no longer used by them. We mould into shaivm, cJialu- 

 meaux, from calamus, a reed ; whence also calumet, and haulm (Fr.. 

 ehaume)') an old word for straw. 



Popular sports and pastimes, especially Avben introduced from 

 abroad, might be expected to yield a crop of vernacularisms. The 

 technical terms of such amusements are almost sure to be taken, 

 either intentionally or by accident, in a local sense. In the case 

 of Cards the plainest-spoken man who calls a spade a spade, is wrong. 

 Spade is spada, Spanish for sword ; and as swords, " spades" appear 

 on Spanish cards. This suit was intended to represent the military 

 class. In "clubs" we have been inconsistent. "We have borrowed 

 the Spanish name lasta, "club or bludgeon," but have stamped upon 

 the card the object adopted by the French in this regard, merely a 

 trefoil or clover-leaf. This the French call the trejle. (What we 

 call the " club " the Danes call Mov-er : has this influenced the 

 term we use?) This suit is to be taken as standing for the agricul- 

 tural class. — "Hearts" have arisen from an English misapprehen- 

 sion of the French word cJicBur, i. e. choir. — It was imaginad to be 

 cceur. They represent the gens de cliceur, the ecclesiastical order. 

 On French cards the figure on this suit is that of a chalice, which we 

 modify into a heart, following np our verbal vernacularism by a pic- 

 torial one. — " Diamonds," little superficial lozenges or rhombs, now, 

 (in French, " quarries," carreaux,^ are conventional representations 

 of those minute specimens of coloured quartz and other products of 

 crystallization, which men have agreed to estimate so highly ; which 

 they find so peculiarly charming to the eye that they designate them,. 

 par excellence, " delights " {gaudia, gioja, joya, joye), intensifying 

 their expressions of affection in regard to them by the use of diminu- 

 tives, and calling them giojelli, joy els, joyaux, "jewels." — This suit 

 symbolizes the merchants, the great travellers of former days, who 

 brought home from their distant tours rare specimens of the objects 

 referred to. (Our jew-oi perhaps glances at what was not unfre- 

 quently the national descent of the dealers in these fascinating com- 

 modities.) — With the Spaniards "diamonds" are or os, golA. pieces, 

 and "hearts," copas, chalices or cups. Other modifications from the 

 Spanish, in Cards, are ace for as, trump for triunfo, pool for polio,. 

 i. e. stake, and omlre for hombre, i. e. "your man." The Spanish 

 naypes, for Cards, in Italian naipi, is the Arabic naib, i. e. represent 



