Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 2.djvu/305

 12. II. OCT. 7, 1916.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

299

generally, come from the mouths and pens of men and women of all ages and in all s-ations of life, and even, as will be observed, fr.>m myself. The distinction between the uneducated and the educated is not so much in grammar or choice of words, as in pronunciation and accent. There are ex- pressions in everyday use by educated people who never drop an h and always use \ he fashionable " one," from which " quite all right " would recoil in horror.

But these things will all be changed after the war. REGINALD ATKINSON.

Forest Hill, S.E.

" BLUE PENCIL" (12 S. ii. 126, 174). I sent the numbers of ' N. & Q.' containing the discussion of this phrase to a friend who is a proof-reader at the Clarendon Press. His comment is :

" We underline with blue pencil all our queries to authors on press proofs, and this is no doubt the blue-pencilling the Rev. A. L. Mayhew refers to."

This explains satisfactorily Mr. May hew' s use of the term " blue pencil " in his preface to Prof. Skeat's ' Glossary of Tudor and Stuart Words,' though it is not the meaning "blue pencil" generally bears in the world of journalism.

I may add a recent example of " blue pencil " as a verb. " Spero," discussing in Ihe August number of The London Typc- yraphical Journal some pitfalls in English, said (p. 5) :

" Prof. .Lounsbury once did me a rather good turn. Our head-reader brought to my box his most funereal face with, ' Look here !. . . .You've passed two split infinitives on one page.... The book is being privately circulated. Its author kiio\ys nothing about grammar, and he gave us the job on condition that we would correct his errors. Some of his kind friends will be sure to pounce on these splits, and then he will consider th;it we have defrauded him.' ' Well, somebody should have blue-pencilled his copy.' "

" Box," it may be explained, is short for the usually works. Its more dignified descrip- tion is " reading-closet."
 * iny room in which the corrector of the press

J. R. THORNE.

" COALS TO NEWCASTLE " (12 S. ii. 250). ' The Oxford Dictionary ' gives quotations from Graunt's ' Bills of Mortality,' 1661, and Fuller's 'Worthies' before 1661 ; also from Heywood's ' If You Know Not Me,' second part, 1606, the following : " as common as coales from Newcastle."

G. L. APPEHSON.

Brighton.

Jiotis on

The Races of Ireland and Scotland. By W. C. Mackenzie. (Paisley, Gardner, Is. Qd. net.)

WE welcome this learned treatise upon the origin, of the Celtic races, an admittedly difficult subject, which has baffled many. Mr. Mackenzie claims that his book is one of independent research, and grounds himself largely upon a study of place- names, which he says cannot lie. They may not lie, but they can deceive xis, as, indeed. Mr. Mac- kenzie has to admit. They are the keys on which we have to rely for unlocking the treasures of truth, but they come down to us often so rusted with the accretions of ages or warped by rough usage that they refuse to enter the wards to which they belong. However that may be, it is on the study of place-names that the author is content to base his researches into race-origins and pre- historic antiquities. The results are always in- teresting if sometimes too speculative. How far mere guesswork weakens the inquiry is manifest from the pages of possible solutions of the word " cat " (pp. 278-82).

He is met at the threshold of his investigations by those enigmatical tribes the Fomorians, the Firbolgs and the Tuatha, de Danann, whose obscurity has repelled many from further inquiry. These he patiently tackles with abundance of philological skill and daring, and comes to the conclusion that the Fomorians were Phoenician pirates, their name meaning " sea- refugees," being derived from Cymric ffo, flight, and m6r, sea. Hitherto the word has been inter- preted mythologically as " giants " and " beings under the sea," which, Mr. Mackenzie objects, cannot both be correct. See, however, Job xxvi. 5. As to the Fir-bolg or " Bag-men," whom some imaginative writers have identified with the Bulgars or Bulgarians, he arrives at no satisfac-tory conclusion : and he likewise gives up the Tuatha de Danann. He rejects Sir John Bhys's theory that the Scoti may have had their name from " scotch- ing " or tattooing themselves (Gaelic sgath), and thinks they may rather have been " shooters " (Icel. skjota). The mysterious St. Kilda, who is unknown to the hagiographers, seems to have been evolved from a mere misunderstanding of the name of the well Kelda (childa) imagined to be sacred to him (p. 269).

As the scope of the work embraces mythologyr and philology, folk-lore and tradition, history and anthropology, it would be a marvel if there were not occasional errors, but we are bound to say they are neither so serious nor so numerous as they might have been in the hands of a less learned and patient investigator. We are surprised that Mr. Mackenzie has a hankering after the old derivation of Beltine from Baal (p. 5). Some of his obiter dicta we have no hesitation in rejecting. " Old Nick" certainly does not represent the Scandi- navian Ndk, the water-horse (p. 49) : and "ape " has as little to do with Cymric ab. denoting quick- ness of motion (p. 274). The explanation of the name Carmichael as a " great marsh " (p. 298), instead of " favourite of Michael " (like Cardew, " dear to God "), will commend itself to few.

The Fortnight It/ h'HH> qualifications, we liked well, especially Mr. Edward Clodd on Sir Alfred Lyall, which gives, if a