Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 3.djvu/186

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. HI. FEB. 25, iocs.

A ward-staff, I find, is a constable's or watchman's staff. Some further information on the subject of this ancient "service of the ward-staff" would be very acceptable. I should also like to know something more about " Minchin-Lands." WM. NoRMAK.

6, St. James's Place, Plumstead.

In the immediate vicinity of Jedburgh there is a field which bears the name of " Lamb Skin." It belonged, along with other property, to the Ainslies, a family famous in the history of Jedburgh. One of them attained to some fame as a surveyor. John Ainslie was born in Jedburgh on 22 April, 1745, and one of his first efforts as a draughts- man, if not the earliest, was his 'Plan of Jedburgh.' On this plan the field above designated is marked very prominently. The copies now extant are very scarce, but one is to be found in the Bodleian Library, Oxford. Unfortunately there is no date on the plan, but as it was the first, and we know that Ainslie surveyed Selkirkshire in 1772, it is more than likely that the theory of Mr. George Watson, who fixes the year as 1770 or 1771, is correct. To quote again from Mr. Watson, who has devoted some research to the work of this townsman, " On 1 January, 1782, Ainslie's 'Atlas of the World' was published." It is interesting to note that instead of the familiar term now in general use, "as the crow flies" the earliest reference to which phrase Dr. Murray, in his ' English Dictionary,' gives in a quotation of date 1800 the term "distance thro' the air" was employed." J. LINDSAY HILSON.

Public Library, Jedburgh.

There is a Lam with, or Lamwath, stream in Holderness, East Yorkshire (see the index to Poulson's ' History of Holderness ').

W. C. B.

There is a village and parish called Lamberhurst in Kent, some five miles from Tunbridge Wells. Other than those men- tioned by the querist, the only place-names which I have come across in which the name appears are those of Lambrigg in Westmore- land, Lambcote in Warwickshire, Lambcroft in Lincolnshire, Lambourne in Essex, Lamb ston in Pembrokeshire, Lambton in Durham, Lambeth in Surrey, and Lamb Abbey (or Lamorbey), near Bexley in Kent. The manor of this last-mentioned place at one time belonged to the Lamienbys. Lamerton in Devonshire is sometimes called "Lamberton." R. VAUGHAN GOWER.

Lambholm is an island in the Orkney group. Lambrook is in Somerset, Lambston

^n Pembroke, Lambeg in Antrim, and Lamber- nurst in Sussex. Then we have Lamba, an !slet in the Yell Sound, and Lambe, an islet in the Firth of Forth.

CIIAS. F. FORSHAW, LL.D. Bradford.

The 'Post Office Guide' near Glasgow.

jives Lambhill, IARRY HEMS.

SPLIT INFINITIVE (10 th S. ii. 406 ; iii. 17, 51, 35). The statesmanlike note of PROF. SKEAT, if I may be allowed to use the phrase, has set this question on a proper basis. The dis- ussion has, however, been useful, as it has shown that the " split infinitive " is neither ungrammatical nor illogical, and that its employment is purely a matter of taste. It maybe hoped that "those who have failed in literature and art " will now allow its use without mast - heading every writer whose views or tastes differ from their own. The great point is that the English language, like the English Constitution, is a living organism. A continual process of growth is going on, and to say that Shakespeare or Milton did not employ a certain locution is no argument against its legitimate use at the present day. Both Shakespeare and Milton employed many forms which will not be found in Chaucer or Gower, just as at the present day we do not always follow the constitutional methods which prevailed in the time of Edward I. or Henry VIII. If writers like Browning or Meredith have thought that by "splitting the infinitive" the expression of their ideas has gained in precision, in emphasis, or in euphony, they have been perfectly right in disregarding the critics, and in following their own opinion. W. F. PRIDEAUX.

We are given to understand by those to whom the split infinitive is abhorrent that its use is carefully eschewed by standard English authors. It may, therefore, be of interest to mention that Dr. Hall's paper in The American Journal of Philology (1882, pp. 17-24) is chiefly composed of a list of examples of the idiom, with full references. The authors quoted range from Wyclif to W. H. Mallock and Leslie Stephen, and in- clude such names as Lord Berhers, Tyndale, Dr. John Donne, Sir Thomas Browne, Samuel Pepys, Dr. Richard Bentley, Defoe, Edmund Burke, Dr. Samuel Johnson, Robert Southey, S. T. Coleridge, Charles Lamb, W. Words- worth, Lord Macaulay, De Quincey, Herbert Spencer, Charles Reade, Matthew Arnold, Bishop Wilberforce, and John Ruskin. It would, of course, take up too much space in