Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 2.djvu/85

 11 S. VIIL JULY 26, 1913.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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" Sew " to stitch is the only important English word in this division, and the illustrations for it range from c. 725 onwards, including one or t\vo curious uses : such as " sew up," in the sense of to make hopelessly drunk, and " to sew up one's stocking," in the sense of " put to silence," " confute." The articles on " sew," from exaquare, and its derivatives, incident- ally bring in instructive details of the growth of an important public service. The " commis- sioners of sewers " were originally charged with the maintenance of defences against encroach- ments of the sea, or of floods. A quotation from ' N. & Q.,' 9 S. vii. 436, gives the word " sewer " used of a commissioner.

The words beginning with " sex- " take up some fifteen columns, all whether belonging to the numeral, or to sexus, or, like " sexton," to neither of Latin derivation. They include several rare or nonce words such as Carlyle's " sextoncy " (for which Berners uses " sextonry") and Queen Elizabeth's " sexly." " Sextile " early in the nineteenth century was used at Eton for a sixth- form boy, and two or three other items from school vocabularies are recorded " shade," for a lamp with a fixed shade; "shadow," for a boy placed under the direction of another boy (the " substance "), and " shag " for any coat other than an " Eton " or " tails " all from Westminster. Those two words " shade " and " shadow," whether as substantives or verbs, are among the best accounted for in this section. By a note on the chromatological sense of " shade " we suppose the Dictionary definitely fixes Clerk Maxwell's technical use of it in distinction from " tint " and " hue " as the correct one. " To shade " as a technical term in painting and draw- ing would seem to date only from late in the eighteenth century. Once established, it is clear that it gave rise to a large number of idioms. " Shadowing " seems to have been the earlier expression for " shading." From " shadow " we notice the uncomfortable words " shadowgram " and " shadowgraphy." If some philologist of the more inventive order would provide us with a convenient English equivalent for " -graph," he would be doing our language an incalculable service. " Graphs " are certain, decade by decade, to multiply, and, if they are still known by that name, will occasion, either the making of an endless series of hideous hybrids, or the intro- duction of words which only the diminishing few who know some Greek will really understand, and which quite probably will be absurdly hard to pronounce. A pretty old use of " shadowy " for an inflorescence is illustrated from Turner's ' Herbal,' and again from Lyte, the idea being to describe what is shaped like an umbrella : "A shaddowy or spokye top with a round circle as dyll." "Shaft,' again, gives us two good articles, especially interesting in their numerous his- torical associations. The first quotation for "shaft," pithole, is drawn from the 'Durham Ace. Rolls ' of the first half of the fifteenth century. A fine list of quotations is provided for " shaft ment 1 " the hand -measure and it ends with the passage from ' The Antiquary,' " not a shathmont, as I may say ; the meaning of which word has puzzled many that think themselves antiquaries." Another curious old word is " shagling," which, in the late seventeenth century unlikely as it looked was used at Oxford, without any con- notation of disparagement, to denote a person

who lectured there by permission, but without an official status, and also the lecture so given. In the first illustration it is used by Wood of Linacre. Sixteen columns are occupied by " shake " and its derivatives. The substantive was once used tcl quel for an earthquake (1731, Gent. Mag., " In that and some following days they had no less than 50 shakes"), as it now again is in the United States. Under "to be no great shakes " is enshrined the amusing jest from Lord Broughton's ' Recollections ' : " W. said that a piece of sculpture there was nidlce magnce quassationes." Gobbet t would appear to be the inventor of the phrase " to shake in one's shoes."

The longest, most elaborate, and perhaps most meritorious piece of work included here is the account of " shall," with its past tense " should." The analysis 13 admirably done, and the representative nuances of meaning, having been well sorted out, are not less well arranged- We noted three quotations for " shall I ? shall I ? " the prototype of "shilly-shally.". A word with one or two odd meanings is " shallow," which among other things is or was in 1896 used for a costermonger's cart. About 1677 came up the word " sham " used in that year by Wycherley- Its origin remains obscure as ever. Used of material objects it did not invariably imply disparagement, being once used in tradesmen's lists for " imitation." It seems to have become popular at once, and the verb to have spread into several uses which are now obsolete. Thus Byron in 1821 wrote to Murray, " So, if you icttl, I shan't be shamm'd." Other words of unknown, origin are "shandrydan" and "shandygaff." Almost the only Celtic word here is " shamrock," for which Campion's ' History of Ireland ' (1571 ) is the first work drawn upon

W T e had noted a number of interesting in- stances under " sharp," " shark," " share," and " shape " all excellent articles but want of space prevents our doing more than mention this. Curious and non - European words also occur in considerable proportion: " shalgram " " shamiana," " shaganappi," " shadoof," " shara- waggi," and "shaster" to take a few examples..

The number of words here recorded is 1,414, as compared with 110 in the corresponding part of Johnson's ' Dictionary,' while the illustrative quotations number 8,736.

The Edinburgh Review for July gives the first' place to a vigorous article by Mr. J. E. G. De Mont- morency on ' Education and the Future of Eng- land.' This would, we think, have gained in point and usefulness if the writer had defined more exactly, with regard to method and detail, what he considers should be included in secondary education. Mr. Stephen Gaselee's interesting study of ' The Common People of the Early Roman Empire ' is based largely on Petronius, and contains some good remarks as to the prob- able literary knowledge of the class immediately above the slaves. Not much that is novel can be said at this time of day on the subject of translation, yet any good critical study of the- subject is welcome : Lord Cromer's paper has the merit of omitting the more obvious examples, and of furnishing some pretty instances of the translation of English epigrams into Greek. \\ confess to some disappointment over Mr; Herman Scheffauer's study of ' Nietzsche the Man,' based.