Linguistic Discussions, 



315 



mology. Not because it is a rose, for it is a polyanthes and more like 

 a lily, but it is a result of trying to Anglicize its French name 

 tubereuse. When the English captured Canada and the adjacent 

 territory, French names along the coast fared hardly when pro- 

 nounced by the unlettered sailors of England, and thus ^^i^e des Cousins 

 or Bay of Mosquitos, has now become Nancy Cousins bay. Typhoon 

 is generally considered to come from the Greek iyplios — a furious 

 storm, but it really is a Chinese word tai-fung, meaning a great wind. 



Crank is a word which, as now used, was given to our country by 

 an off-hand remark of a sheriff in "Washington when the nation was 

 paralyzed by a crime unparalleled for the sliameful motives that led 

 to it, and the ferocity with which it was perpetrated. It now signifies 

 a person of not well balanced mind — whose judgments are incorrect 

 and whose temper is such as to lead him to acts of personal violence in 

 case his purposes are thwarted. In German it means to be sick or ill. 

 In some dialects of the English language cranks are pains and aches 

 and cranky means poorly. In New England and on the east end of 

 Long Island sixty years ago it was used to express the idea of return- 

 ing health alter a sickness. Thus a man so circumstanced would say I 

 am getting crank again — that is recovering his usual health and vigor. 

 This usage is found in Howell's letters where he says : "We use the 

 Dutch word crnnh in English to be well-disposed, which in the original 

 signifieth to be sick." In nautical language it applied to vessels in- 

 clined to heel over — such as were too narrow and high for their width. 

 It is from this use of the word, I presume, it came to mean what it 

 does in the current newspapers of the day. 



In 1876, bewildered by the French use of the word exposition, the 

 Americans seemed to be at a loss whether their affair at Philadel- 

 phia was an exposition or an exhibition. Both names were used in the 

 newspapers and guide-books, but the majority were in favor of calling 

 it an exhibition, and they w^ere quite right, as it was the English and not 

 the French language that we were using. The French word exhibition 

 denotes a single act, as to exhibit the contents of a purse. The French 

 word exposition is a formal exhibition of many things to the gaze of the 

 world. The French expositioji, then, is the exact equivalent of the 

 English exhibition. 



When the thing represented by a w^ord ceases to exist, the word 

 dies also. Our English ancestors ground their wheat in a hand-mill 

 called a quern — but since wind, water or steam- mills have ground 

 the grain of the race, the quern and its name alike have both quietly 

 dropped out of existence. So the addition of a new thing to the 

 treasure house of the world necessitates the coining of a name to 



