Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 4.djvu/339

 ii s. iv. OCT. 21, i9ii.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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BARROW'S reply, there was a later one, for James Cuffe, eldest son of James Cuffe of Elm Hall, co. Mayo (born in 1748), M.P. for Mayo and a Privy Councillor, was created Baron Tyrawley in 1797. He died 15 June, 1821, when the peerage became extinct. There is a mezzotint of him in the Irish National Gallery, by John Raphael Smith after William Cuming, R.H.A.

WILLIAM MACARTHTJR. Dublin.

In my reply on p. 271 the locality of " The Sebright Arms " should have appeared as Flamstead, not " Hamstead."

W. B. GERISH.

THACKERAY: WRAY (11 S. iv. 283). I find myself alluded to in this article, but I cannot agree with some of the statements therein made.

That Thack is short for Th' ack, and means " the oak," is highly improbable. We are told that it arose from " a venerable or remarkable oak growing on the site, and known by that name even before there was a house there." But we are not told that there is any evidence for the tree having been known by that name. Much more likely it was called aik. The Old Yorkshire for " the oak " would have been th' aik, on the doubtful supposition that the th was prefixed.

Surely thack is the common A.-S. thcec, a thatch, covering, roof, &c., and occurs in Thack-thwaite and Thaxted (Thack-stead). It was used of thatching material as well as of a roof ; for which see the ' E.D.D.'

Wray is, as rightly stated, " a corner." Whether the compound had reference to "long, coarse grass," as in the 'E.D.D.,' or to a " thatched house," I do not presume to say ; but I do strongly advocate the recognition of the dialect word thack in the present connexion.

What I mostly deprecate is the handling of the etymology of wray in a way which philologists cannot endorse. It is connected, we are told, with the verb to rise ; that is to say, we are expected to admit that the w in wray and the s in rise both go for nothing. On the contrary, the w is most significant ; there was never such a verb as to wrise.

Next, we are told that wry seems to have a distinct root, whereas it is well known that wray and wry are closely connected, and are only distinguished by vowel-gradation, as was shown two years ago at least. In the ' Vergleichendes Worterbuch der Indoger- manischen Sprachen ' by A. Fick, and in

the Third Part of it, edited by Falk and Torp in1909, at p. 417, will be found the root wrih, with the derivative wrigon, A.-S. wrigian, to wry or turn aside, and (on p. 418) the derivative wraiha, adj., turned aside, and wriga, adj., wry, twisted. Of course wraiha goes with the A.-S. wrd, a corner. Mid. Eng. wro, because the Teutonic ai always appears as a in A.-S. And the same ai comes out as ai in Northern English, as in A.-S. dc, an oak, North E. aik. So the Southern wro is the regular variant of the Northern wrai or wray. Wro is duly recorded, with six examples of its use, in Stratmann's ' Mid. Eng. Diet.,' under, the correct heading wrd, at p. 694.

The conceptions denoted by rise and wry are radically different. Rise meant, originally, to go up (or down) in a vertical direction ; whereas wry meant to wind in and out on a horizontal plane. It makes a great differ- ence.

The * English Dialect Grammar ' records more than twenty pronunciations of oak; but ak does not appear. The fact is that oak appears as ak only when another con- sonant follows; "oak- town" appears as Ac- ton because e t follows the fc-sound.

It is interesting to find that wray exists in Greek. The A.-S. a is the Gk. ot, and the Teutonic h is the Gk. K. And Greek drops initial w. Now write out the Teut. wraiha (final -a = Gk. -09), and it appears, letter for letter, as poiKos, which means " crooked." WALTER W. SKEAT.

In considering the meaning of the name Thackeray it may be well to remember that in Yorkshire thatch is called thack, and a thatcher becomes a thacker. Thacker, Theaker, and Theakston are all known as surnames, the last-mentioned being obviously of a local origin. Mr. Bardsley ('English and Welsh Surnames ') interprets Thackeray as " the corner or place set apart for storing thack or thatch." ST. SWITHIN.

There was a place in the parish of Hutton Bushell, near Scarborough, called Cocker- way, Cockwray, or Cockrah ; see Yorkshire Arch. Jour., vii. 45 ; North Riding Rec. Soc., N.S., i. 221. W. C. B.

A FIGMENT ABOUT JOHN BALLIOL (US. iv. 225). In my note I pointed out that the text of the ' Chronicle of Lanercost ' which de- scribes the cause of the foundation of Balliol College must be corrupt, and that cervicisse is a blunder for cervicose. I have now taken an opportunity of consulting the only