Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 3.djvu/33

 12 s. m. JAN. is, Ian.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

^up, which was as followeth, Sir Francis Chile 1860, Sir Richard Levit 1660, Sir Peter Danie 1616 ; but it being too late then, they Adjourned

till this day (October 4,) where being met upon the

Hustings, they declared Sir Francis Child to be

duly Elected.'*

The incoming Chief Magistrate was evi- dently determined even to enhance the popularity thus proved, for, when he returnee to the City on Lord Mayor's Day, after being sworn at Westminster,"

".in Cheapside he had proper Speeches made to Mm by Persons upon 4 several Pageants, which have been laid aside for several Years,"

these apparently including

" a curious new Pageant, on which was the Repre- sentation of a Goldsmith's Shop, with Men at work, and a person representing St. Dunstan, who is -the Patron of the Goldsmiths, who made a Speech

ttherefrom.

ALFRED F. ROBBINS.

WE must request correspondents desiring in- formation on family matters of only private interest to affix their names aud addresse-s'to their queries, In order that answers may be sent to them direct.

ENGLISH COLLOQUIAL SIMILES. For some time past I have been collecting material for -a book on ' Intensifying Similes in English,' i.e., proverbial phrases such as these : " As black as night," " As open as day," " As clear as the sun," " As pale as the moon," " As merry as a grig," " As mad as hops," &c. It is, of course, absurd that a work of this kind should be undertaken in a non- lEnglish country, far away from English libraries and English-speaking surroundings, but present conditions make it unavoidable. I have now brought together some 10,000 quotations, comprising some 3,000 such similes and matter bearing upon them ; but much is still left in a rather unsatis- state owing to the following

factory causes

obliged

help. I shall for information

(i.) In existing collections, such as Hazlitt's Proverbs,' Lean's ' Collectanea,' &c., T

similes are given without any context, which ' V^ 1, a PP e ^ \ ihe r in many cases makes it impossible to ascer- the land help> L tain their sphere and application. There is, e.g., in Lean the phrase " as hot as pepper." Who or what can be thus hot ? A kitchen, a woman's temper, or a highly spiced dish or drink ?

(ii.) In many cases the meaning is tolerably clear, but my information con-

cerning the period during which a simile has been used is unsatisfactory. In Ray's ' Proverbs ' there is the simile " as sick as a cushion," which is also used by Swift in his ' Polite Conversation,' but no later instance has as yet been found. Was the phrase already obsolescent in the beginning of the eighteenth century ? On the other hand, " as hard as nails " is now a very common simile, but it does not seem to be recorded before the middle of last century. Is no earlier instance known ? (Similes with " doornail " are known many hundred years earlier.)

(iii.) It is often extremely difficult to under- stand what has given rise to a particular simile. Why is an extremely angry person said to be " as mad as hops " or " as mad as a wheelbarrow " ? And why has the " cushion " been taken as a type of sickness ? " As nice as a nanny-hen " is a phrase given by the ' Slang Dictionary.' What is a " nanny-hen " ? The word does not seem to be known to any other dictionary.

(iv ) In some cases I have reason to suspect that the form given by collectors is a spurious one. " As plain as a juggem ear " in Hazlitt is a case in point. The word juggem" puzzled me very long, until I discovered that the phrase must be quoted from Bohn's ' Handbook of Proverbs,' p. 320 (ed. 1855), where we read : " As plum as a juggem ear, i.e., a quagmire, 58." When transcribing this for his book Hazlitt must have had his eye on the preceding [ine : "As plain as the nose on a man's face." Hence the misquotation. But the matter does not end there. At p. 57 of Bohn's Handbook ' (58 must be a misprint) there is : "As plum as a jugglem ear." This is also found in Ray, 1768, and probably also ibid., 1678, and no doubt is a misprint for ' juggle- mear " or " juggle mear," which is he form given by Lean, who nevertheless also copies Bonn. In the same way " nanny- len " may be the result of misquotations or misprints.

As the works of reference at my disposal in most cases give little or no information,

of ' N. & Q.' for be very much concerning the

correct form, the meaning and app heat ion, the origin, and the frequency in modern English, of intensifying similes. References to the ' New English Dictionary,' the ' Dialect Dictionary,' Farmer and Henley's ' Slang Dictionary,' and the back volumes of ' N. & Q.' are not solicited.