Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 9.djvu/171

 NOTES AND QUERIES. 137 place. A correspondent to the ' Devon- shire Association Proceedings ' in May, 1899, says : This word was used by an old man at Church- stanton, who became shy when questioned about it, but he admits that the word is in common use in Churchstanton and the neighbourhood. I first heard it from his son, who was in my employ, about six or seven years since. He had fixed a stone in my garden, and I made him alter it, after which he said that " it did not look so tanterboming," meaning that it was not so much awry. The word is also seen to have been in common use among the middle and lower class in the Tiverton district. It is applied to anything which happens to be faulty, or in any way not as it should be. Now, in my native county, Somerset, " Tantry Boamer " was used in the Wincanton neigh- bourhood in the following connexion : A would say to B, "I know how long I shall live." B would ask A, " How long is that ? " To which A would reply, " As long as Tantry Boamer, who lived till he died." Elworthy, in his ' Dialect of West Somerset,' under the heading " Taiitarabobus," says : " Name for the devil usually preceded by ' old ' (very common)." W. G. WILLIS WATSON. Pinhoe. See Wright's ' English Dialect Dictionary,' where the meanings given are (1) the devil, (2) a bogy, (3) a noisy, playful child. It appears to be of west-country origin. V. B. C.-B. [See also ' N. & Q.,' 3 S. vi. 5, 59, 331 ; 8 S. xii. 268, 332; 10 S. ii. 480.] BUTT WOMAN (12 S. ,x. 72). Butt is one of the several names we have for a hassock, and the 'E.D.D.,' which defines butt-woman opener," has a quotation that states she is sometimes spoken of as the butty-woman, ' and that one of her duties is to beat the dust out of the butts. ' N. & Q.' bears testimony to the same effect (7 S. x. 146). I doubt the correctness of the etymology which is suggested. ST. SWITHIN. In the west country a straw hassock UM'<1 to be called a "butt." In the Church- wardens' Accounts for St. Columb Minor, Cornwall (1701), is the entry, "Paid for butts for ye church, 3s." Probably these buttlike hassocks were for the parson or the clerk. Later in the eighteenth century tlu- word disappears and we find the word " tutt." Presumably a " butt woman " was one who cleaned the church, and not a sexton. W. J. S. Newquay, Cornwall. The woman who attended to the hassocks (formerly called " butts " in the West of England), cleaned the church, and assisted the verger or pew-opener. See 'N.E.D.' under Butt, sb. w. J. T. F. Winterton, Lines. See Wright's 'English Dialect Dic- tionary ' : Butt = A kneeling cushion or hassock used in churches. Butt- woman =-= a sextoness, female verger, or pew-opener. V. B. C.-B. BOOK BORROWERS (12 S. viii, 208, 253. 278, 296, 314, 334, 350, 377, 394, 417, 456, 477). The following lines are from Messrs. Christie's catalogue of July 25, 1921 : COOK (CAPT. JAMES, circumnavigator) ARITH- METICAL TRIGONOMETRY ARITHMETICAL DIALLING : ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT, very carefully written on 97 pp. (13 by 8 inches). within ruled borders, in red and black ink. with elaborate and beautifully drawn dia- grams ; folio, in old broicn paper icrappers 1763 The first page of this interesting MS. contains the writer's name and date 1763 within an ornamental panel, above and below which are the following verses : " If you by chance do find this Book Which in the same you now do Look. I pray return it unto me Whose name is underneath you see. " This Book my name shall ever have When I am dead and in my grave And greedy worms my body eate Still hear you read my name compleate. November 10th, 1763." ANDREW OLIVER. Royal Societies Club, St. James's Street, S.W. "MARK RUTHERFORD " (12 S. viii. 231, 278). It might be useful to MR. A. K. CHIGNELL to know that the collection of books of W. Hale White were included in Sotheby's sale on Jan. 14, 1914, and a perusal of the catalogue would no doubt be illuminating concerning the literary inclina- tions of "Mark Rutherford" ; e.g., he had many of the works of Spinoza, including the 1674 edition of the ' Tractatus Theologico- Politicus. ' In this sale there was also included, in Lot 255, W. H. W.'s translation of Spinoza's ' Ethic,' proof of a third edition with MS. corrections bv the author. A word should
 * i- "a sextoness, female verger or pew-