Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 10.djvu/21

 9* 8. X. JULY 5, 1902.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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me only mention one more instance. The old Germans, as well as the Gauls, counted by nights: "Galli se omnes ab Dite patre prognatos prsedicant idque ab druidibus pro- ditum dicunt. Ob earn causain spatia omnis temporis non numero dierum, sed noctium finiunt, dies natales et mensium et annorum initia sic observant, ut noctem dies sub- sequatur"(Csesar, 'B. G.,' lib. yi., xviii.). This accounts for sennight, fortnight, night and day, and, furthermore, for the fact that all the principal Christian feasts have their vigils. Not only is Christmas a heathenish holy day, but our celebrating Christmas Eve is owing to the ancient Germanic and Gallic creed. G. KRUEGER.

Berlin

BISHOP WHITE KENNETT'S FATHER (9 th S. ix. 365, 455). The authority for the name of Bishop Kennett's mother is probably a life of that prelate published in 1730, only two years after his death. We read there :

" His Mother was Mary, the eldest Daughter of Mr. Thomas White, a wealthy Magistrate, in that then flourishing Town of Dover, who had been a Master Shipwright, or Builder of Ships, and after the Restauration was employ'd by the Government, in that Way."

I do not find any mention of the death of the bishop's father or mother.

W. D. SWEETING. Holy Trinity Vicarage, Rotherhithe.

The attention of your correspondents may be called to the pedigree of the Kennetts printed in the late Dr. Howard's Miscellanea Gen. et Her., New Series, ii. 287 (1877).

W. C. B.

" ONLY TOO THANKFUL " (9 th S. ix. 288, 370, 457). The use of the word only in this collo- cation seems to me to be a natural extension of its use in such phrases as "This I grant, only remember this," where the signification of only partially coincides with that of specially or of uniquement. So if I say my only joy I mean my special joy. By a well- known law of ever-changing language the word comes to be used as an absolute synonym of uniquely or absolutely. So in Virgil, " Unum oro," "One prayer I make especially." Too is used exactly like nimis in Plautus for " very much." H. A. STRONG.

University College, Liverpool.

The use of too as a simple intensive without any idea of excess is very common in Southern India amongst English-speaking natives, and it is very difficult to make schoolboys under- stand, or rather remember, that too and very are not synonymous. If a boy says that some one has "too much money" he does not in

the least mean that the man has more money than is good for him, but merely that he is very rich. When explaining the "English usage recently I was confronted by the phrase "only too true." Too in that case evidently means not " more than it ought to be," but " more than we should like it to be." May not the too in " only too happy " and the like be interpreted as meaning more than you expect"? Such phrases are generally used in reply to a remark which conveys a doubt either expressly or implicitly, e.g., " Would you like to undertake the work 1 " "I shall be only too happy." If my suggestion is correct, the too here expresses the fact that I am happier to undertake the work than you expected me to be, or perhaps than you think the offer warrants me in being, and the only excludes the supposition that I am unwilling to undertake it I have no other feeling than happiness. If this explanation is not correct, it may be that too is a simple intensive ; and the South India practice shows that there is a tendency for too to become that. If the expression became common in the eighties, it may be that it is merely a piece of carelessness due to the exaggerated expressions prevalent among the so-called aesthetes of that time. O. T. T.

"THE" AS PART 99 TITLE (9 th S. ix. 428). S. W. asks under this head a v question which has perplexed others. In speaking there is no difficulty, but in accurate writing or description it is another matter. The two examples which he gives, however, are not, I think, on all fours. Whether, in dealing with titles, one should write of the The Times I cannot say, but in a public company registered as such the question will doubtless be determined by the wording of its certificate of registration or other corre- sponding document. This, I am aware, is no answer to S. W.'s question generally, but it may, notwithstanding, assist him, especially in such an instance as that which he cites viz., The Union Bank. D. O.

" The Union Bank of London " is, according to its deed of settlement of 1839, the correct form. On 18 September, 1882, the word "Limited" was added. J. P. S.

Automobile Club, Paris.

" Box HARRY" (9 th S. ix. 449). This is well known in the Northern Counties in the sense of doing things "on the cheap." I used it only ten days ago. A friend of considerable means, who, coming to my town, could well have afforded hotel expenses, having tried, and to my knowledge failed, to procure offers