Page:Notes and Queries - Series 7 - Volume 5.djvu/13

7 S. V. 7, ’88.] leading error. Botanists, however, long continued to use the correct form—some have never ceased to do so—and Prof. Balfour now calls upon them to unite in banishing the blundering “cocoa-nut,” and in putting an end to a mischievous confusion between coco, cocoa, and coca, which are the three entirely distinct vegetable products. For coco he is able to cite not only Dr. Johnson’s own use as opposed to his ‘Dictionary,’ but the use of the Laureate, who in ‘Enoch Arden’ writes:—

Dr. Murray is also quoted as writing, “I shall certainly use coco in the ‘Dictionary,’ and treat cocoa as an incorrect by-form.

—A sparable, i.e., a small nail used by shoemakers, is said to be a corruption of sparrow-bill, The following quotation helps to prove it:—

—By this is now understood a sword adapted and used for thrusting only; and very naturally, and generally at least, the same is understood of the rapier that in Elizabethan days succeeded the sword and dagger. But, on consideration, the transition is too abrupt, and the change of weapon a change to a less efficient one. It is impossible to suppose that Bobadil and Brainworm, the professing soldiers in ‘Every Man in his Humour,’ could have ever set forth their exploits with either a Toledo or poor provant rapier, if these were only slender thrusting weapons, without exciting risible jeers from every bystander. When, too, we investigate the subject further, we find that the sword then called a rapier was a cut-and-thrust sword. Thence, in ‘Every Man out of his Humour,’ IV. vi., we find that Fastidius, when describing his duel, speaks thus: “Now he comes violently on, and withall advancing his rapier to strike, I thought to have tooke his arm……Sir, I mist my purpose……rasht his doublet sleeve……He againe lights me here [showing his hat],……cuts my hatband (and yet it was massie, goldsmith’s worke), cuts my brimmes, which by good fortune [by their gold embroidery, &c.] disappointed the force of the blow: Neverthelesse, it graz’d on my shoulder……wee both fell out and breathed……Hee making a reverse blow, falls upon my emboss’d girdle……strikes off a skirt of a thick-lac’t sattin doublet I had, cuts off two panes embroydered with pearle, &c.” My italics, perhaps, make more plain what is plain without them—especially the sequence of the blow that cut the hatband, then, descending, cut the brimmes, and lastly grazed the shoulder—that here cuts and thrusts are intermingled.

Vincentio Saviolo, then one of the three most esteemed masters of fence in England, in his treatise fully and several times confirms the conclusion arrived at from this passage of Ben Jonson, and G. Silver, another master of fence, in his ‘Paradoxes of Defence,’ 1599, writes similarly.

(See 7 S. i. 363, 443, 482; ii. 42, 236.)—Prof. Skeat in his most useful book ‘Principles of English Etymology’ devotes a chapter (xxv.) to the consideration of the effects of the English accent, and refers to a controversy between Dr. Chance and himself on the subject which appeared some time ago in the pages of ‘N. & Q.’ I beg to offer a remark on the form of the two rules which appear to be the result of this amicable conflict.

Rule 1 (in the shortened form) asserts that, “in words of augmented length, an original long vowel is apt to be shortened by accentual stress”; compare, for example, goose (A.-S. gós) and gosling. Rule 2 asserts that, “in dissyllabic compounds accented on the former syllable, the vowel in the latter syllable, if originally long, is almost invariably shortened by the want of stress,” the example given being Dunstan, A.-S. Dúnstán. So, then, according to these formulas, the same result, namely a shortening of the vowel, is produced by a specific cause, namely “accentual stress,” and likewise by the absence of that specific cause—“by the want of stress.” This does not appear to me to be quite a complete account of the matter.

The fact is the shortening of the vowel, as in the case of gosling, is not due to accentual stress by itself; another condition is required. In dissyllabic words the tone vowel is shortened, as a rule, only when it is stopped by the suffix beginning with a consonant; when the suffix begins with a vowel or the aspirate h, the original quantity of the tone vowel persists. For instance, from dún are derived Dunbar, Dunstan, but Downham; from ác the names Acland, Acton, but Oakham; from hwít the words Whitby, Whitstable, but whiting; from stán the names Stanton, Stanstead, but stony, Stoneham; from éast come Essex, Eston, but eastern; from héah is derived heifer, but Higham; from hǽð comes Heathcote, but heathen. Apparent exceptions, such as heath-er, south-ern, Ston-ham, Stan-hope, may be accounted for as comparatively modern shortenings, as the spellings in many cases show.

In this connexion it is strange that the Cambridge professor should not have noticed the apparent exception to his first rule, the name of his own university—Cambridge. Here we have an instance of the very reverse of that which is asserted in that formula, for in this case an originally short vowel is lengthened or diphthongized, although it bears the accentual stress. It is lengthened, too, although it is stopped by the