Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 1.djvu/425

 9 th S. I. MAY 21, '98.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

417

"ANOTHER STORY "(9 th S. i. 349). See the article on Sterne in the 'Dictionary of National Biography,' liv. 218 a :

" ' That 's another story ' fell originally in the sense that Mr. Rudyard Kipling has made it his awn from the lips of Mr. Shandy in book ii. chap. xvii. of his son Tristram's ' Life and Opinions. 3 "

W. C. B.

This phrase was in use before Sterne was born. In the last scene of Farquhar's 'Becruiting Officer' Brazen says to Lucy, the waiting-woman who has been palming herself off upon him as her mistress :

" Yes, yes, I do pardon you ; but if I had you in

the Rose Tavern, Covent Garden I wou d tell

you another story, my Dear."

W. H. DAVID.

The use of this catch-phrase by Sterne is noticed by Mr. Dobson in the ' Dictionary of National Biography.' It may be found also in one of Marryat's novels, but I have not the reference. EDWARD H. MARSHALL, M.A.

Hastings.

[Is it to be found in Lucian ? We fancy so.]

TODMORDEN (9 th S. i. 21, 78, 114, 217, 272). I have now no doubt that the explanation of this word which I gave at the second reference is correct. It means " toad swamp," and nothing else. In verification of this opinion I may add that Toad -hole is not an uncommon place-name in Yorkshire. It is distressing to read some of the suggestions which have been made. S. O. ADDY.

PROF. SKEAT may deprecate for the five hundredth time the fact (not assumption) that one letter can in process of time turn into another, but nevertheless he will find it hard to disprove. Fifty years ago, to one person who saw a name written, one hundred heard it pronounced, or mispronounced. Moreover, corruption under traditional pas- sage and slovenly expression seems to follow some sort of order.^ Why do the b's in Danish words and names in England get corrupted into ^>'s, unless some one's hearing was in the first place defective? Duppas Hill, Surrey, for instance, appears in old documents as Dubba's Hill. J. H. MITCHINER, F.K.A.S.

If " there can be little doubt " of the deri- vation of this name being tor (hill), mere (lake), and dene (valley), as MR. MITCHINER tells us (though, parenthetically, one feels inclined to say, What, then, about the sur- names Tod and Todhunter ?), " there can be little doubt " also, we may suppose, of the derivation of Westmorland being West-mere- land ; for if mere has become mor in Yorkshire, it can equally have done so in Lakeland.

Yet I have seen it strongly asserted that this is not the true derivation. " The land of the Western meres," say some, implies a land of the Eastern meres also ; and where are they 1 I do not myself see that there is necessarily any such implication for, even without it, " the land of the meres in the west " might surely become a suitable distinction for the Lake district. Yet there were of old meres also in the east ; for example, Whittlesea and its neighbours. But will MR. MITCHINER explain how the ancient mere remains mere in Foulmere (Cambs), Grasmere, Winder- mere, &c., yet has become mor in Westmor- land and Yorkshire (Todmorden) ? What has been the origin and what the process of the " corruption " in the last two cases ; and why have not the same causes affected the same syllable in Foulmere, Grasmere, and Winder- mere? W. H-N B-Y.

THE GLACIAL EPOCH AND THE EARTH'S ROTATION (8 th S. xii. 429, 494 ; 9 th S. i. 291, 335;. My attention has quite recently been called to a correspondence in ' N. & Q.' on the above subject between MR. C. E. HAINES and MR. W. T. LYNN. A curious and interesting query has been presented to me very frequently during the past thirty years, viz., that when some person puts himself forward to contra- dict the facts and proofs of the second rota- tion of the earth which I brought into notice, he seems to lose all power of accurately quoting what I do say, or describing what I state, and evolves from his imagination ridi- culous falsities, which he gravely puts forward and fathers on me.

In 'N. & Q.,' ante, p. 335, MR. LYNN writes : " The General denies that there is any such thing as stellar proper motion." This statement of MR. LYNN'S is either true or false. Let the reader judge after reading the following sentence. In my book 'Un- trodden Ground, 'p. 117, par. 4, 1 have written as follows :

" It is quite possible, and even probable, that the stars have some independent movement among them- selves ; but the greatest caution is requisite before we attribute to any stars such a motion, merely because theirright ascension and declination changes in a manner not in accordance with the present accepted theories."

Is MR. LYNN'S assertion as to what I state true and accurate, or is it a perversion ?

Again, in the same number MR. LYNN has written that I assert that the so-called proper motion of the stars is " produced by Avhat he calls the second rotation of the earth's axis." I never referred to the second rotation of the earth's axis. I have shown that a second rotation of the earth occurs, but I