Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 10.djvu/41

 9>s.x. JULY 12, 1902.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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centre of the circle. For the latter, invisible may be, yet essential, since it is the basis upon which the circumference rests, admits of no difference in distance, priority, or import- ance in respect of the position of any one of these temporal points, since all alike are equally related to itself. In this conception dwells the fitness of the simile.

J. N. DOWLING. 67, Douglas Road, Handsworth, Birmingham.

TIB'S EVE (9 th S. ix. 109, 238, 335). Halliwell in his dictionary gives Tibbie as a Norfolk diminutive of Isabella. The name Isopel is used in the Berners family. In 1876 I saw Tibbie Shields in the flesh in her cottage at the head of St. Mary's Loch, " a wren's nest round and theekit wi' moss," as it is called in No. xxxvi. of the ' Noctes Ambrosianse' (1834). In the 'Monastery' we are introduced to the faithful bower- woman of the Lady of Avenel, Tibb Tacket, who takes shelter with her lady in the tower of Glendearg. Sir Walter Scott was skilled in sketching faithful domestics.

JOHN PICKFORD, M.A.

Newbourne Rectory, Woodbridge.

According to Dr. Brewer ('Reader's Handbook,' &c., and also his ' Dictionary of Phrase and Fable ') this expression is equiva- lent to " never." He writes, " St. Tibs is a corruption of St. Ubes. There is no such saint in the calendar ; and therefore St. Tib's Eve falls on the Greek Kalends" (also s.v. 'Never'). C. S. HARRIS.

" KEEP YOUR HAIR ON " (9 th S. ix. 184, 335). Referring to the quotation from Barrere by MR. CLAYTON, I heard a janitor of a gymnasium complain of unsuccessful remon- strance with intruders in these terms : " I spoke to them about it, but they began to

get a bit shirty, so I had to fetch Mr.

[his superior officer] to talk to them." A schoolfellow said once to me : " You are sivotting for top place " : an equivalent for sweat or grind, no doubt.

FRANCIS P. MARCHANT.

Brixton Hill.

This expression is common or is frequently heard in Gloucestershire. Its origin is supposed to be coeval with wigs or the wig period. Irascible and aged gentlemen, " when mad with passion," have been known not only to curse and swear, but to tear their wigs from their heads, and to trample them under their feet, or to throw them into the fire. Very often when I have manifested symptoms of anger I have been admonished by country fellows, " Kip thee yar on,

maystur ! " This expression is synonymous with keep your temper, or don't get into a rage. Whenever I have heard the expression, I have invariably associated it with the old country squire who got into a thundering rage and threw his wig off his bald head and trampled it under his feet. Some- times a similar expression or mandate is used, " Kip the wig on, ould mon." I have frequently heard old country farmers and farm labourers say, " Daz my wig !" or " Dash my wig if I wool," or "I dooes. In the old days, if a man wished in his passion to be emphatic, he threw off his wig.

H. Y. J. TAYLOR. Gloucester.

It is surprising to hear that this catch- phrase was in use so early as 1853. Since this is the case, is it not probable that it existed even much earlier, that it may indeed be traced to the latter half of the eighteenth century, which saw a serious change of fashion in the disuse of the peruke and the return to the custom of wearing one's natural hair 1 ' 1 strongly suspect that the phrase has some relation in its origin to that of "Wigs on the green," for there must be an unusual difficulty, where there are " wigs on the green " (see 9 th S. iii. 492), in "keeping one's hair on." J.'HoLDEN MACMICHAEL.

I remember in 1885, when I was an articled clerk in Derbyshire, hearing a discussion between a solicitor and a farmer in a room of the comfortable old hostelry which forms part of the Derby Law Courts. The farmer was endeavouring to end a misunderstanding which had arisen by saying, in reference to some prior dispute between them, "That was where you got your hair off," a phrase he repeatea several times, to the great annoyance of the solicitor, who happened at the same time to be rather young, very bald, and extremely irascible.

JOHN HOBSON MATTHEWS.

Town Hall,, Cardiff.

At the latter reference a passage is quoted from Barrere's ' Argot and Slang.' The last word of this quotation ought, I suspect, to have been front, and not "front." H. C.

AIX-LA-CHAPELLE (9 th S. ix. 467j. Cultivated Frenchmen pronounce Aix-la- Chapelle, Aix-les-Bains, and Aix in Provence as Aiks, but your correspondent may well have heard people say ^'ss-la-Chapelle, as some French people, through what is termed paresse de langage, pronounce x very much like ss. The dislike of the lower orders to the sound of x is general, and it is well