Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 9.djvu/27

 12 S. IX. JULY 2, 1921.1 NOTES AND QUERIES. 17 COCKNEY PRONUNCIATION (12 S. viii. 489). I clo not believe that Dickens's Cockney speech was ever much out of keep- ing with the periods of which he Wrote. I do not remember that the ancients found [ fault with it. The doubt about it is probably j of modern growth. Pronunciation changes even in cultured circles, so why not in those wherein the Cockney circulates. He can laugh at Sam Weller and the rest, and consider him out of keeping with j likelihood, for he caught his own horrible | twang in schools (rate-paid), and fortifies it | by intercourse with the ubiquitous American, who is, 1 feel, marring the English of this ; land and of the Continent. I have read ! that Cockney teachers have tainted the I tongue of Australia, and I fancy the north I of our own land has some inclination to- j wards metropolitan vowels : lidy for " lady " would not greatly astonish me in some j parts of Yorkshire. By the way, female | voices there are often quite feline when I the owners are animated and the intonation painful even to an unmusical ear : but so j are many recent musical compositions j which are complacently heard by con- ! noisseurs. ST. SWITHIX. The Cockney in Dickens spoke the Lon- don dialect of the eighteenth century. John ; Walker in his ' Pronouncing Dictionary ' j (2nd edn., 1797) enumerates four " pecu- liarities of my countrymen, the Cockneys " : 1. Pronouncing s indistinctly after si. 2. Pronouncing w for v, and inversely. 3. Not sounding h after w. 4. Not sounding h when it ought to be sounded, and inversely. The present Cockney pronunciation I have read somewhere is the Essex dialect ! and came into vogue with the extension of | the East End into that county. JOHN B. WAINEWRIGHT. "Moss HOLE" (12 S. viii. 489). At- the word " mob " has in times past signified (1) a pickpocket, and (2) a prostitute, per- haps we need go no further for the place- names. JOHN B. WAINEWRIGHT. HAIR-BRUSHES (12 S. viii. 489). The first qu tation given in the '.N.E.D.' is from A. M.'s 1599 translation of Gabelhouer, ' Book of Physicke,' 259/1 : Pinguefye the hayrebrushe in Hartes marrow or in stale Bitches milcke, when you will dresse your hayre. The thing is hardly known in some Latin countries to-day. JOHN B. WAINEWRIGHT. S WIND ON : " DAMAS " (12 S. viii. 489). In Scotland, Cheshire, Yorkshire, and War- wickshire the damson is called " damas," and the French have the " prune de damas " (Damascus). The manor house referred to by your correspondent was probably surrounded by a fruit -garden and was prolific of damson trees. ARCHIBALD SPARKE. CHOLERTON (12 S. viii. 491). The Monthly Chronicle of North-Country Lore and Legend for February, 1889, has an article on Chollerford, a hamlet in the township of Humshaugh and parish of Simonburn near Hexham. The name is a modification of the ancient British Coill-uiran, " wood and water," corrupted by the Romans into Cilurnum and with the Anglican " ford/' added. Sun and moon worship was pre- valent there in prehistoric times, for the Romans raised altars at Cilurnum to the moon goddess known to the Britons as Comh-bhan-teinne, latinized Coventina, "the lady companion of the God of Fire," the Sun. With reference to Chollerton, Mawer, in his ' Place Names of Northumberland,' says : " The early forms of this name forbid our connecting this place with the Cilurnum of the Notitia Dignitatum." ARCHIBALD SPARKE. CLEMENTINA JOHANNES SoBiESKYDouGLAss (12 S. viii. 411, 497). The extract from The Barrow News at ante, p. 497, states that the lady buried at Finsthwaite was " in all probability " the daughter of Prince Charles Edward Stuart and Clementina Walken- shaw. It would be interesting to know the grounds for -this opinion. How many children had Miss Walkenshaw and what was the fate of each ? ROSA ALBA. HENRY CLAY (12 S. viii. 449). This name appears as a " Manufacturer of Paper Tea Trays to their Majesties and the Royal Family " at 18, King Street, Covent Garden, in the 'Post Office Directory' for 1820. He is at the same address in the Directory of 1840. A. H. S. FAMILY MOTTOES (12 S. vii. 471). From a carded list of mottoes appearing on book plates (Ex libris) I extract the following. Each surname is counted as one. Dum spiro.spero . . . .89 Esse quam videri . . . . 81 Nil desperandum . . . . 77 Nee temere, nee timide . . 46 Semper fidelis . . . . 41 R E. THOMAS.