Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 5.djvu/211

 .V.MARCH 3, 1906.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

171

T(OJ> 7rapt\8ov<r<jjv oStoy, and ('Phil.' 1170) Ay ore TUV irplv CVTOITWV. Such phrases are especially common with Thucy- dides. It is enough to mention a^ioAoywraroi/ ruv TTpoyeycvrjfjLevwv in his first paragraph. Antipho^C Herod./ 17) has tSiOrjv irapavo- fUttraTa airdvTiov dv6p<j!J7rwv ; and Theocritus (xvii. 121) /xovi/os TWV TrpoTepaiv.

Among the Romans we find Tacitus using similar phrases, e.g. ('Agr.' 36), "ceterorura Britannorum fugacissimi ' and (' Hist.' i. 50, G) "solus omnium ante se principum."

Similarly in Goethe's ' Hermann and Dorothea' we find the phrase "von ihren Schwestern die beste."

In English the classical instance occurs in 4 Paradise Lost/ iv. 323-4 :

Adam the goodliest man of men since born His sons, the fairest of her daughters Eve.

Hazlitt (' English Poets/ p. 374) writes : "Moral poetry is the highest of all others ...... " ; and I have a note to the effect

that he uses a similar construction on p. 308 of his 'Elizabethan Literature/ but I am unable at the momeut to verify this. Kcu

TOLOVTWV

JOHN B. WAINEWRIGHT.

One of the oldest of these is slantendicular, which appears in print so early as 1844. Bishop Wilberforce'ss#mirso?i is often quoted, but I presume the querist wants original examples, not well-known ones. Most fami- lies have invented one or two, which pass current only in a limited circle. Among my own people I frequently hear aggranoying^ for " aggravating "^ and " annoying " ; brunch for a nondescript meal between break- fast and lunch ; circument as a compromise between "circular" and "advertisement," <kc. Of similar structure are shagarette, which we employ for a cigarette of strong tobacco, and shup, which stands for " shut up." JAS. PLATT, Jun.

An old Yorkshire friend of mine (now dead) used the following words frequently. He thought they were good English :

" Disastrophe " = disaster + catastrophe.

" Insinuendo " = insinuation 4- innuendo.

" Metropolypus " = metropolis 4- polypus (a central diseased overgrowth, which was quite the opinion my friend held of London).

" Sarcasarasms " = sarcastic + sarcasms.

" Sarcasarastical " = sarcastic -f- critical. Probably these were not conscious combi- nations, but were what their author would have described as "Slipsus tonguse," into which he had twisted " lapsus linguae," and

which, for mistakes in writing, he modified into " Slipsus penguse."

Kindred examples (though not strictly "portmanteau" words) which I have found useful are :

"Cheerook !" the exclamation of an opti- mist frog, in a poem by one of the students of the Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, N.Y.

"Cheepspeeps "=cheerful people; a phrase invented by one who argues that birds are always "cheeps," and say so themselves; and further, that if " people " means several persons, one person must be a " peep " ; of which the plural is, naturally, " peeps."

H. SNOWDEN WARD.

Hadlow, Kent.

LACONIC LETTERS (10 th S. v. 108, 153). There may be a few examples in George Seton's ' Gossip about Letters and Letter- Writers ' ( Edinburgh, Edmontone & Douglas, 1870). I noted from this book some years ago the remark that these laconic letters are generally comic, and chiefly unauthenticated. 1 also noted two examples from the same book which perhaps deserve to come under this category, although given under other headings by Setpn. Sir Walter Scott said that the most pointed letter he knew was the answer of Lord Macdonald to the head of the Glengarry family :

M Y DEAR GLENGARRY, As soon as you can prove yourself to be my chief, I shall be ready to acknowledge you ; in the meantime, I am yours,

MACDONALD.

The following is quoted as Francis Jeffrey's wicked reply to a begging letter :

SIR, I have received your letter of 6th inst. soliciting a contribution in behalf of the funds of

. 1 have very great pleasure in subscribing

[with this word the writer contrived to end the first page, and then continued overleaf] myself, Yours faithfully,

FRANCIS JEFFREY.

L. R. M. STRACHAN. Heidelberg, Germany.

A most amusing laconic correspondence is as under, between Arthur, Duke of Wel- lington, and Sarah, Lady Jersey. Of course I cannot vouch for the truth of it. I only tell it as it was told to me :

MY DEAR ARTHUR, The Emperor Nicholas is coming to visit me. How shall I receive him ? Yours, &c.,

S. JERSEY.

MY DEAR SARAH, Receive him as you do your other visitors. Yours, &o.,

WELLINGTON, F.M.

MY DEAR ARTHUR, But he loves me. Yours, &c.,

S. JERSEY.