Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 8.djvu/82

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. vm. JULY 27, 1907.

dimes from the Mint, and began to give them out in change at the excess value. This broke the market, and put an end to the custom. It is a fact that there was a foreign coin which had the local name oi " bit," but it has not been seen for half a century. It never was legal tender, but it circulated by sufferance. It disappeared previously to the war of 1861, to the great joy of every one, for the foreign coin was not bankable, and at last was worth only its bullion value. The names remain, particularly in the South and West. On the Pacific coast the man who says a quarter, or twenty-five cents, is sized up for a tenderfoot. The Forty- niners and their descendants would say two bits. At San Francisco in compara- tively recent times the daily newspaper was sold on the streets for a dime or bit ; yearly subscribers did not pay so much. Smaller coins were seldom seen, and the cent was wholly despised, though useful at the Post Office in limited amount for the purchase of postage stamps. In those days the postage on a letter between New York and San Francisco was ten cents.

In New Orleans there is a newspaper of old standing and great influence known as The Picayune. The name indicated the price, and it shows that the little silver coin, the half dime, was what the proprietors were after. Their newspaper brought them wealth and renown. The Baltimore Sun and the Philadelphia Ledger sold for one cent. The idea was to catch the smallest circulating coin by making it the price of the newspaper, and the speculation paid.

The half dime is no longer coined, a five- cent piece of nickel taking its place. In the North and East the old words are dropping out of use. In Philadelphia the old-time names of " levy " and " fip " are no longer heard ; nor does New York speak of the shilling and sixpence. In the Gulf States the quarter dollar is universally two bits, and also in the West. Homogeneity of population might account for the per- sistence of the name in the South, while the influx of new-comers who know nothing of the old ways would be a sufficient reason for disuse of the words here. It is hard for old customs to die.

I have been told that in England there was once a coin called the guinea, and that coins were issued of the value of one-half and one-third of a guinea respectively. The name remains, but the thing has dis- appeared. In the same way the word " bit "

will probably remain in local use until a new scheme of coinage is legalized.

JOHN E. NOBCBOSS. Brooklyn, N.Y.

" YEP " : " NOPE." (See 10 S. vi. 381.) " Yep," heard by MB. DOUGLAS OWEN in California, is not " a union of ja and yes " : it originated, or at least originated independently, in country New England, where there was no German infusion ; and I have shared in its growth from " the egg " in my childhood, so that I imagine it arose without borrowing in many different centres. It was taken over by the adults from the boys. The original form was a drawled " yes " which produced something very like " e-us," in two distinct syllables, a mere lengthening of the consonantal sound at the beginning into a plain vowel sound ; then the s was dropped, and it became " e-uh " (entirely without relation to ja) ; then the lips were closed on it, turning it into " e-up," which is the real set of sounds usually caricatured as " yep." " Nope " originated in the same way and places, from " no-h " (the h here representing a mere closure in the throat), turned into " nop," by closing the lips. A true story illustrates their New England origin. An old professor in one of the old colleges some quarter-century ago was taken to task by his society daughter for replying " Nope " to some question. He pleaded " old habit." " Why, father," said she, " were you brought up to say nope ' ? " He meditated a moment, then a reminiscent smile lit up his features, and he answered, " E-up."

FOBBEST MOBGAN. Hartford, Conn.

BEDDOES SUBNAME. What is the origin of the surname Beddoes ? According to Bardsley, ' Dictionary of English and Welsh Surnames,' it is a double patronymic, part English, part Welsh, ab-Eddow-s, " the son of Eddow." This is not impossible, but seems very improbable. There actually exists a Welsh Christian name Bedo, so it would be simpler to look upon Beddoes as meaning " son of Bedo," formed like Jones, Evans, Williams, et hoc genus omne. There were at least two old Welsh poets who bore the personal name Bedo.

JAS. PLATT, Jun.

" NON OLET (PECTJNIA)." The source of bhis familiar saying has, I believe, never 3een discussed in ' N. & Q.' I heard a earned Latinist lately maintaining that the words were a quotation from Suetonius,