Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 2.djvu/369

 io- s. ii. OCT. is, low.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

301

LONDON, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 15,

CONTENTS.-No. 42.

NOTES : Punctuation in MSS. and Printed Books, 301 Webster and Sir Philip Sidney, 303 Southey's 'Omniana ' Spelling Reform, 305 "Peri," a Guiana Term Prof. Wilson and Burns, 306 St. Katharine's by the Tower of London " looker " Heverend Ksquires, 307.

QUERIES : English Graves in Italy H in Cockney- Italian Author Edmunds, 307 Belphete Holborn Quotations, English and Spanish, 308 Cruikshank's Designs for 'Tarn o 1 Shanter 1 Wall : Martin Bdward Vere, Earl of Oxford "Grant me, indulgent Heaven " First Gentleman in Europe Roger Casement Gold- smith's 'Present State of Polite Learning' S. Bradford Edwards Avalon, 309.

REPLIES : The Pelican Myth. 310 The Tricolour Prin- cipal Tulliedeph " Silesias" : " Pocketings" Upton Snodsbury Discoveries Journal of the House of Com- mons Mazzard Fair, 312 Sex before Birth Vaccination and Inoculation Storming of Fort Moro Potts Family Whitsunday in the ' Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,' 313 Pepys's 'Diary': a Reference G. Steinman Steinman Mes- merism in the Dark Ages, 314 Disproportion of Sexes "Sun and Anchor" Inn Mineral Wells, Streatham. 315 Y Iktin, 316 Anahuac Lemans of Suffolk " Free trade "=Smuggling Northern and Southern Pronuncia- tionDean Milner, 317.

NOTES ON BOOKS : Reich's 'Foundations of Modern Europe ' McCall's ' Story of the Family of Wandesforde ' McKerrow's 'Works of Nashe 'Buckle's 'History of Civilization '' Kings' Letters' 'Gerald the Welshman' ' Mother Goose's Melody ' ' The Story of Arithmetic ' ' Burlington Magazine.'

Notices to Correspondents.

PUNCTUATION IN MSS. AND PRINTED BOOKS.

I AM indebted to the courtesy of the Court of Governors and Librarians of Sion College for access to some rare MSS. in their fine library ; also to Mr. A. E. Bernays for some references kindly supplied to Lindsay, Hirsche's * Thomas a Kempis,' the ' Oxford English Dictionary,' Skeat, and others, and some notes which I have embodied herein.

The notes which are appended to these remarks were made in an attempt to answer at once some questions asked by friends and pupils.

1. Is the explanation of the dot over our i correct which says that it was intended to distinguish the letter in words like imminui- mini? (The 'Oxford English Dictionary,' for instance, explains it in this way.)

2. Is it the fact that 6, occurring, e.g., in a tenth-century MS. of Plautus (Edd. B), is the origin of our note of exclamation ? (So Prof. Lindsay, ' An Introd. to Lat. Text. Emend.,' 1896, p. 57.)

3. Is it true that in the upper part of our mark of interrogation there is the descendant of a letter Q (for qucero or the like) ?

4. Are we to see in our, (in comma, semicolon, apostrophe, quotation mark) the petrified remains of something once signi- ficant, a letter or part of a wora ?

5. Is our & directly traceable to et ?

6. What is the origin of the mark of diaeresis, as in aerated, cursed ?

7. Is the modification mark in German ii of the same origin as the diaeresis ?

8. Is the French figure for 5 the same figure as our own ?

9. Was the old-fashioned f =s a mistake ?

10. What is the full-stop ? and the colon ?

11. Does Jno = John represent a MS. inver- sion, and may it be compared to IHS=Jesus 1

12. Does the paragraph mark IF stand for

13. What is the Greek interrogation mark?

14. Is the abbreviating semicolon in old printing (q;) related with (3), and both with z in viz. 1

15. Is the old - fashioned ye = the an archaism 1

The answers to the questions, taken in order, are as follows, the superior figures referring to the illustrations at the end of the article :

1. The dot on the i. The dotting of i and of u is sporadic throughout the whole of our era, and in the earlier papyri. Even the Greek iotas and the other Latin vowels are found surmounted by dots. There is no general rule discoverable, though the ten- dency is to confine the dotting to initial i and v. The dotting in the earliest and in the latest centuries is by double dgts, though the single dots occur. In the fifteenth century we have : a Greek MS. with i; a MS. of a Cretan scribe with v and 'i; a MS. of an ^Eginetan scribe with v and t (undotted). After this the printing varies between single dots and omission of dots, and the single- dotted i gradually prevailed.

The reference of i by the ' Oxford English Dictionary' to i (with an acute accent) is quite untenable.

2. The exclamation mark (!). The state- ment that 6 is its origin is made by Reusens, Chassant (I think), and W. M. Lindsay. It is made in each case quite briefly, and with- out any evidence of the genealogy of the sign. I assume, therefore, that the assumption has been made, nemine contradicente, simply.*

It is just possible that a narrow track of

in this way. The subject is extremely unsatis- factory, ana scholars have hardly thought tedious investigation worth while, perhaps.
 * Pronouncements on punctuation are often made