Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 1.djvu/392

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NOTES AND QUEEIES.

[9 th S. I. MAY 14, '98.

The frequency with which the prefixes " brush," " bush," " scrub," and " swamp " recur is alike annoying and repellent to any reader of cultivated taste. And these barbarous and boorish prefixes are put before the names of natural objects which received their desig- nations from early illiterate settlers, who naturally borrowed those designations from the common names for similar objects in use in the country they came from. In a scientific naturalist the names still popularly given to our common natural objects must excite emotions ranging from acute pain to mirth- provoking humour. One is frequently re- minded of the old joke about Cuvier and the French Academy's definition of the crab. Needless to remark that in many instances the Australian plant, bird, flower, fish, or animal differs even generically from the somewhat similar natural object in the northern hemisphere whose borrowed popular; name it bears. This discreditable state of things can only be remedied by the friendly co-operation of scientific naturalists in both hemispheres. An appropriate popular name for every object in our Australian flora and fauna may certainly be found. Preference , .must be given to the aboriginal names, wher- ever these are discoverable. How pic- turesquely descriptive these are let such really Tbeautiful names as "kangaroo," "paddy- melon" (the smaller kangaroo), "waratah" (the glorious queen-flower of the wilderness), aiid " wonga-wonga " (the stately wild pigeon) attest. Discard at once from trie vocabulary all the hideous prefixes of "brush," "bush," M scrub," and "swamp " names bespeaking an ignorance of natural objects deeper even than that of the aboriginal savage.

DAVID BLAIR. Armadale, Melbourne.

MASSAGE. This system of medical treat- ment is probably much more ancient than is generally thought. Osbeck, in his ' Voyage to China,' in 1751, observes :

" Rubbing is usual among the Chinese, to put the blood in motion, instead of bleeding. The people who do this business rub and beat the body all over with their clenched fists, and work the arms and other limbs so fast that their crackling [!] may be heard at a considerable distance. Some young fellows follow this trade ; they carry a chain with several instruments on their shoulders."

The treatment is so cheaply performed that " even the lowest ranks of people are enabled to make use " of it. W. ROBERTS.

Carlton Villa, Klea Avenue, Clapham.

"HOGMANAY." (See 1 st S. ix. 495; x. 54; xi. 273 ; 5 th S. ii. 329, 517 ; iii. 58, 136 ; 7 th S. i. 85, 135, 235.) I remember many years ago

seeing in your valuable paper a query as to the meaning of the word "Hogmanay," which at Christmas time is sung or cried in the south of Scotland (in Galloway, I think) by children and others. The editor at that time, to the best of my recollection, was unable to explain the word, but I think there can be little doubt that the word is a corruption of the two Latin words " Hoc mane," probably the burden of a Christmas hymn, " Hoc mane Christus natus est " or words to that effect. If the above explanation, though correct, has been known and given before, I hope you will excuse my troubling you with this letter ; but if not, it will have been worth while to make the matter clear. E. J. CHOKER.

BERKSHIRE PARISH REGISTERS. It will probably interest antiquaries to hear that I have finished sufficient matter to form vol. i. of Phillimore's "County Marriage Series," and am still working hard at registers sent to me for transcription. Having such a large experience, I am allowed to have the precious volumes at my own house. Consequently I can do the marriages of a country parish up to 1812 in two or three days. Vol. i. will be published this summer (only a hundred and fifty numbered copies), and will contain from twelve to seventeen parishes of Southern Berks. E. E. THOYTS.

Sulhamstead Park, Berks.

" CAMPUS." The 'Historical English Dic- tionary ' is like unto the net which was cast into the sea and gathered of every kind. That any vocable whatever escapes its meshes is a surprise. But it moves special wonder to look in vain for the word campus in a work where 1,308 elephantine pages are devoted to the letter c, and those filling a volume whose imprint is dated 1893, a date three or four years after the word had appeared in the American 'Century' and Webster. Will it be answered that campus, meaning college grounds, is an Americanism 1 The Oxfordians have never been inhospitable to that class of expressions, and scores of their American co-workers have long known their college grounds by no other name than campus. The lack of campus in the Oxford thesaurus is the more unexpected because we there find a similar word with a similar meaning. Thus :

"t Campo. Obs. School-slang Play-field, play- ground. 1612, Brinsley, 'Lud. Lit.,' 299, 'Without running out to the Campo (as they tearme it) at gchoole times.' Ibid., 'There is no day butjthey will all looke for so much time to the Campo.' " After all, campus is most conspicuous by its absence in all American dictionaries up to 1890, or at earliest the year before. It was