Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 5.djvu/138

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io< s. v. FEB. 10, im.

ataman. The title still exists, but I believe has lost much of its importance.

We have heard lately of kniaz and its deteriorated meaning. I have read of a gang of labourers working under a khan. Shades of Genghis and Hulagu !

FRANCIS P. MARCHANT.

Streatham Common.

PORTMANTEAU WORDS AND PHRASES. Could anybody suggest some parallels to the following portmanteau words and phrases, that is to say, words and phrases formed by compromise of two similar or synonymous ones ?

" Preet "=pretty + sweet.

" Chortle ' =chuckle-f snort.


 * Mobus "=motor+oranibus.

" He is the greatest of any man " (of all-p- greater than any man). B. KENT.

DUTCH EPIPHANY CUSTOM. On the feast of the Epiphany a special kind of bread is made. In it is buried a bean, and the person who gets the bean has to treat the house. Can any reader of * N. <fe Q.' give the origin of this curious custom, and the meaning ? ANDREW OLIVER.

acquaintance has a small volume of poetry, which was given her by the late Sir John Simon, F.R S., to whom it was presented by the author. Unfortunately, Sir John omitted to tell my friend the author's name, whicl she is very anxious to know. It will not be found in Allibone or any of the ordinary works of reference. The book is a thin octavo volume, with the following title page :
 * POEMS OF EARLY YEARS.' A lady of my

"Poems | of | Early Years | in | Vine Chaplets | By a Wrangler | of Trin. Coll. Cam. M.A. | London | William Pickering | 1851."

Some Cambridge correspondent of 'N. &Q. may perhaps be able to favour me with the name of the author. W. F. PRIDEAUX.

VAMPHORN. Could any of your readers give me information about the vamphorn at what period it was used, and if it wa played for the benefit of village choirs ? I is a tall horn shaped instrument, very ligh in weight. There is an ancient one to be seen in Braybrooke Church, Northampton the oldest parts of which date from lat Norman times. L. M. GIBB.

Wimbledon.

LUSTRE WARE. Could any one give in formation as to the origin of lustre ware now becoming so valuable to collectors?

L. M. GIBB.

Wimbledon.

"HOAST." (10 th S. v. 66.)

MR. BAYNE does well to call attention to lis most interesting word, which is not only cnown to many English dialects (see * Eng. )ial. Diet.'), but is an old Indo Germanic word of untold antiquity. It is well known o philologists as affording a good example f the development of the initial Indp- aermanic #, which is represented by k in Sanskrit, Irish, Slavonic, and Lithuanian, >y p in Welsh, and by hiv in Anglo-Saxon, s noted by Brugrnann. There are two bases : ne with short a, and one with long a A.-S. o). Hence we find Irish cas-achdas, a ough ; Russ. kash-liate, to cough ; Welsh les-wch, a cough ; Welsh pas, a cough ; jithuan. kos iu, I cough ; Skt. root has, to ough ; A.-S. hivos-ta, a cough ; Ger. hus-ten. besides these, we find A.-S. ge-pos, a catarrh, vhich (as the p shows) was borrowed from British, and is interesting from its use by Chaucer in the form pose, and from its ap- jearance as pose in modern English dialects, ["he o of A.-S. ge-pos is wrongly marked as ong in Bosworth and Toller. The final -t n hoas t (A.-S. Invds-ta) is a suffix allied to ,he Idg. past particle in -tos, and does not Belong to the root. I give po&e in my ' Con-

cise Etym. Dictionary.

WALTER W. SKEAT.

In the district around the head of the Yorkshire Calder ost, with the o long and open as in horse, is used by the old natives exclusively in the sense of cough, e.g , whooping-cough is called "kink-ost."

ABM. NEWELL.

Longfield Road, Todmorden.

Persons hereabout and in the Midlands speak of one with a catching in the throat as hoasting when an attempt is made to clear it. "A hoast cold " is also a common term for a "rusty" throat. Cattle, horses, and espe- cially sheep are said to hoast when they cough on account of suffering from colds. THOMAS RATCLIFFE.

Worksop.

George Douglas, in * The House with the Green Shutters,' applies this word to the cough of a person in the last stage of con- sumption. FREDERICK T. HIBGAME.

Wherever I have found this word in dialect it has indicated a peculiar form of cough a " dry " cough. In the Cumberland dialect hoast is the name given to the curd (or dry part) of curdled milk before it is