Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 12.djvu/87

 11 8. XII. JULY 24, 1915.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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ST. SAVIOUR'S, SOUTHWABK (11 S. xii. 27). In reply to this query I refer MB. A. STANTON WHITFIELD to * N. & Q.,' 6 S. iv. 107, 231, 278, where the subject has been discussed in detail.

REGINALD JACOBS.

A Neiv English Dictionary on Historical Principles. Edited by Sir James A. H. Murray. -Trin k Turn-down. (Vol. X. ) (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 6*.)

WE regret the reason a long and serious illness which prevented Sir James Murray from com- pleting the letter T in this issue ; nevertheless, the section with which he has presented us is of extraordinary interest, showing the wonderful resourcefulness of man, the word-user, giving admirable instances of the birth and death of words, of the frequent triumph of the figurative over the concrete use in popular speech, and of the survival in dialects only of words with an ancient history.

The section of the ' New English Dictionary ' under review, ' Trink Turn-down,' contains, says the Prefatory Note, 3,937 words as against 282 recorded in the corresponding portion of Johnson's work. As a monument of human industry the ' Dictionary ' is, indeed, one of the most marvellous productions of modern literature. Its bulk comes from its catholicity and from its elaboration ; it accepts modern dressmakers' French, like " trotteur " skirt, and treats "turn " and its combinations under 286 sense-divisions. It might be more easy to consult, though not necessarily to compile, had the original scheme favoured a simpler treatment. The unleisured reader quails at the first sight of an article of the dimensions of " turn," fearing not to be able to see the wood for the trees ; it is to the leisured scholar, troubled by the occurrence of rare and ancient words and expressions, that each new part of the ' Dictionary ' appears as an unexampled boon.

The size of the work is, of course, enormously increased by the quantity of illustrative quota- tions employed, numbering in this instance 14,375 as against 1,490 recorded in the ' Century.' These are usually chosen with great skill, though they may represent, a thought too exhaustively, the modern newspaper press. The literary flavour of certain articles might have been increased by the selection of better-known or classical instances of the word in question. " Trump," for instance, seems to call for the absent ' Mrs. Battle on Whist,' " She saw no reason for the deciding of the trump by the turn of the card. W 7 hy not one suit always trumps?" The White Knight's many .admirers may regret that he has no place under '"tumble" to illustrate his remarkable feats behind " The Looking - Glass." The phrase " Tumble-down Dick," a Cavalier jibe at Richard Cromwell, and, incidentally, the name of an old inn in Southwark, might have illustrated the attributive use of " tumble-down " ; while the name of Robin Hood's jolly friar makes the absence of early quotations of " tuck," in the senses either

of food or appetite, a disappointment. Many of the articles, however, have just the right traditional or natural illustration. " Turn again, Whitting- ton," is inevitable, so is " Trip it as we goe." A curious point of the article on " tuft-hunting " shows Thackeray's partiality for this and kindred words.

" Tumbrel " is an article of very great interest,, the word surviving still, as is shown by a quotation in the Essex dialect. Nothing is said under sense 1 to clear up the question of the nature of this in- strument of punishment in early times. What is common, however, to the construction of both tumbrel in the sense of " cart," and tumbrel in the sense of ducking-stool, is wheels, and it is worthy of note that in the well-known London representation of the fraudulent mediaeval baker, the culprit who has the tell-tale loaf hanging round his neck is being dragged by horses. Exposure of an evildoer in a cart was a common primitive device in the Middle Ages. How the culprit's hands and feet were confined is not clear, but that there was some confinement of the kind is here shown by the quotation from Elyot (1538) : " a tumbrelle, wherein menne be punysshed, hauyng their heedes and fete put into it." Nevertheless, Fabyan (1494) maintains a distinction between the

tumbrell and pillory: "Syr Hughe punysshed

the bakers for lacke of syze by the torn ber ell, where before tymes they were punysshed by the pyllery." Sir James records the interesting fact that there is no record in French of its use in punishment, but English readers will best recall the "cart" sense of the word in connexion with the executions at the French Revolution, when, according to the 'Tale of Two Cities,' "six tumbrels" carried " the- day's wine to La Guillotine."

An admirable article is that on " tulip," showing the first use of the word by Busbek, the Emperor's ambassador (c. 1554), on the way from Adri- anople to Constantinople, where " ingens ubique florum copia offerebatur, narcissorum . . . .et eorum quos Turcas tulipan vocant." The later history of the flower is aptly illustrated by the quotation- from Tennyson's 'Gardener's Daughter,' "a Dutch love for tulips." Sir James has been less fortunate in securing early instances of " Trivium," with the mediaeval meaning of " the lower division of the seven liberal arts, comprising grammar, rhetoric, and logic," though the adjective "trivial," " belonging to the Trivium," occurs as early as 1432-50. Early instances of " troubadour " and " trouvere " seem to be hard to come by ; while the date of the first illustration of " trope," " a phrase . . . .introduced into some part of the text of the mass," is 1846. " Trope r," "a book of tropes," on the contrary, is found as early as 1073. The disappointingly late first quotation for " trunk-hose," dated 1637, records that these garments were already out of fashion. Surely, too, an earlier quotation for " tubercle-bacillus " could have been found than the mention, dated 1891, in the ' Century Dictionary.'

The coining of an unsatisfactory word and its abandonment is shown in " tuism," as opposed to egoism. " Troke," with the meaning of " to fail," dates from the eleventh century, but only survives in dialect : "A cow is said to truck when her milk fails."

It is impossible in the short space at our disposal to exhaust a thousandth part of the good things Sir James has put before us.