Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 1.djvu/405

 9 th S. LMAYl4,'98.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

397

except by a company of men learned and skilled in this branch of knowledge.

The results of its occupation by isolated inquirers may easily be guessed at. The works of the late Mr. Lower afford many examples illustrative of what is here alleged and furnish many salutary warnings. Corre- spondents of ' N. & Q.' have gained nothing hitherto, so far as I can see, by supporting their views (supposing they have done so) by the use of a Warburtonian style of writing which I should indeed be sorry to imitate. Books and articles on names of places are usually misleading when they are founded chiefly, as they sometimes or often are, on the narrow basis of language and its changes.

In view of the considerations above stated, I may add in conclusion that Mr. Searle is quite as likely as any one else to be right in his derivation of Cheltenham. S. ARNOTT.

The Green, Baling.

CANON TAYLOR objects to my finding in Celtanham a personal name Celta. This I did because in Piper the name Kelto occurs among the 35,000 names of the pilgrims to the three monasteries St. Gallen, Pfeiffers, and Reichenau. The pairs of names in -a (England) and -o (Germany) may be found in great numbers in my * Onomasticon '; for the latter occurred so frequently in Piper and in Forstemann, corresponding to the former, that I was compelled to go through those works a second time and to insert the German names in -o where possible. I will quote a few of these pairs :

English.

Aia

Alia

Ala .... Anna. Asa .... Atta.... Baba. Nunna. Offa .... Ona ...

German. .Aio. .Allo. .Alo. .Anno. ..Aso. ..Atto. ..Babo. . . Nunno. ....Offo. Ono.

English. German.


 * Anta An to.


 * Bacca Bacco.


 * Munda Mundo.


 * Nata Nato.


 * 011a Olio.


 * 0ppa Oppo.


 * Patta Patto.


 * Pinna Pinno.


 * Pippa Pippo.


 * Ruma Rumo.


 * Sida Sido.

Paga Pago.

The names in -o are always personal and so are also the English names of the first set, and hence it seems in the highest degree pro- bable that the English names in the second set, those marked with an asterisk, derived from English place-names, are likewise per- sonal. Finding therefore Kelto, a personal name, in Piper, it seemed also in the highest degree probable that Celta was a personal name. That from the place-name Celtanham the streamlet the Chelt has got its name appears to be very probable from the follow- ing statements of CANON TAYLOR himself in his last book 'Names and their Histories.'

The name Cam is a ghost-name evolved from the word Cambridge, a corruption of Grante- bricg, in order to account for the name of Cambridge (p. 82) ; the name Eden is merely an inference from the name Edenbridge, which the Canon gives as really Eadhelm's bridge (p. 115) ; the name Brent may have been given to the stream at Brentford to explain that name (p. 74) : the name Arun may be a mere antiquarian ngment to account for the name of Arundel (p. 52) ; the name Rom has been bestowed of late years on the brook at Romford, the river-name having been evolved out of the town-name, as in other cases (p. 238) ; Penk, a river in Stafford- shire, is a ghost-name invented by " antiqua- rians " (sic) to explain the name of the town of Penkridge (p. 219) ; Char (p. 90) and Isis (p. 154) are similar cases.

If there be any cases of streams being named from the towns on their banks, then I venture to think that the Chelt may claim to have received its name, at we know not what time, whether long ago or recently, from the town.

The other names adduced by CANON TAYLOR have nothing to do with the present matter, as they do not contain genitive cases of their first parts. W. GEO. SEARLE.

" PUNG " (9 th S. i. 224). In Cooper's * Lionel Lincoln ' the hero when recovering from his wound takes sleigh rides in a "tom-pung." I have not the book at hand, and cannot recollect if Cooper says much about the vehicle or the word. The novel was written between 1820 and 1827, and "pung" is cer- tainly a contraction of what was then the usual word. I fear I am very bold in sug- gesting that " tom-pung " is connected with "toboggan," an Indian word for sledge. Both words may be only bad imitations of the Indian word, or, as the different Indian tribes had different languages, or rather dialects, " tom-pung " may resemble the word for sledge in one dialect, and " toboggan " the same word in another. M. N. G.

J. G. C. will find the pedigree of this word in an article on ' Some Words derived from Languages of North American Indians,' by the late J. Hammond Trumbull, LL.D., printed with the Transactions of the Ame- rican Philological Association for 1872. It comes from an Algonkin word much the same as the present Canadian " toboggin," shortened by time and wear to "pung," both words meaning a sledge. As to the word "barge," now used in New England to de- scribe a vehicle, see my note, ' N. & Q.,' 8 th S. v. 246. If your correspondent was a very