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Linguistic Discussions. 



whoever has heard nursery rhymes has become familiar with cats that 

 fiddle as well as stride in boots. But there are some men who think they 

 dive deeper into the wells of knowledge than their fellows and such as 

 these suggest that the Cat and Fiddle is a corruption of the C%at Fidele. 

 But the faithful cat has no point or significance whatever. There are 

 no faithful cats. The Bell and Savage is another attractive incongruity. 

 What does a savage want of a bell ? While it was calling him to dinner, 

 it would be frightening away his supper or his next dinner„ But some 

 philologist thinks the origin of this sign is the helle sauvage, which 

 might bo allowed if London innkeepers were in the habit of attracting 

 custom by exhibiting on their sign boards French rebuses to be read 

 by Englishmen who could not even read their own vernacular. 



In reading a novel by Mortimer Collins a few years ago, I was start- 

 led by meeting the phrase " necoteric kettledrum." Necoteric kettle- 

 drum! what could it mean ? Well, I went to the dictionaries — but 

 they furnished no assistance. Necoteric, at least, had a Greek look 

 about it — so I turned to my Greek lexicon. And there it was — or 

 its root rather, for the full developed adjective is not in the Greek lan- 

 guage, and was coined from the author's own mint. Xecos- - that is 

 strife — and necoteric, of course, is strife-stirring. The strife-stirring 

 kettledrum ! And I laughed as I realized what a fine classic euphem- 

 ism our author had invented for what the ladies on the east end of 

 Long Island would term an old-fashioned tea-fight. 



The Chinese are thought to exceed other nations in national self-es- 

 teem and in the application of uncomplimentary epithets to foreigners. 

 And yet the English were not backward in this habit as is evident 

 from these phrases in vogue in 1800: 



Dutch comfort. — Thank God it is no worse. 



Dutch concert. — Where each one plays or sings a different tune. 



Dutch feast. — Where the host gets drunk before his guest. 



French leave. — To go off without paying one's debts. 



Spanish coin. — Fair words and compliments only. 



Spanish faggot. — The sun. As if the Spaniard were too lazy to 

 gather faggots or too poor to buy them. 



Spanish trumpet. — The braying of an ass. 



Irisli apricots. — Potatoes. 



Family names suffer violence in the vicissitudes of migration 

 and the ferment of peopling and reducing to civilization the wilder- 

 ness of a new country. Thus the French De Boeudereau has been 

 gradually worn down to Budrow. Le Sieur has changed to Lesier. 

 Vermeille to Yermilye. The Dutch Kiersen has been reduced 

 to Keese and Keys and Oblinus has been hibernicized to O'Blenis, 



