Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 2.djvu/132

 124

NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th s. IL AUG. 13, v

Fleet, Wordsworth, 'Eccl. Biog.,' ii. 160; his journey to the Pope, iii. 441.

Pp. 417-8. Stonnouse. See ' Life of Lady Huntingdon, 1840, i. 80, 136 ; Carus's ' Life of Simeon,' 1848, p. 22 ; Tyerman's ' Oxford Methodists,' 1873 ; Roberta's ' H. More,' 1835, iii. 197, &c. ; iv. 190. His ' Sick Man's Friend,' Bath, 1794, ed. by Vigor, Oxford, 1818.

P. 419. Richard Stopes. See'Chron. Monast. de Melsa,' iii. p. xxxv n.

P. 436 b, line 5. Correct press. W. C. B.

AUSTRALIAN POPULAR NOMENCLATURE.

IT has been a moot question here in Vic- toria, amongst those of us who took an active part in framing and instituting the system of universal, free, and compulsory education, now for nearly thirty years in full operation, how many generations of pupils would be required in order to displace in the popular speech, and to replace by good English, a barbarous dialect first imported by illiterate settlers and involuntary exiles from their native land. The topographical name " Botany Bay " suffi- ciently discriminates the dialect in question, and for that very reason we have been doing our utmost to exterminate it root and branch. But hitherto our labours in this direction have pretty nearly been ex- pended in pure waste. An interested spec- tator on the spot might say of the younger Australians what Sheridan said of Harry Dundas : " He. could forgive him everything except his invincible hostility to the English language.". Five generations of pupils have passed through the schools, drinking daily at .the pure wells of English undefiled ; yet the instant they quit their books and run off to the playground they as a rule fall naturally into their traditional Babylonish dialect.

Acquit these sprightly juveniles of all complicity in labelling their own native plants and animals with the hideous designations referred to in a previous note from the p^e- sent pen, it remains difficult to account for their obstinate adherence to repulsive names for almost every object in nature around them, and almost every action of their daily lives. In their school-books they spell and pro- nounce and read (for example) of brooks, streams, rivulets, flowing through the green fields and flowery meadows, in the manner so charmingly sung by the poets from Shak- . speare to Tennyson. But hear them chatter amongst themselves and you would judge that they had never so much as heard spoken the name of one of these pleasant rural objects.. They only know of a " creek " dry, or muddy, or Big, or Little, as the case may

be and a "paddock" never saw a field or meadow in their lives ! Of heath, heather, moor, or moorland, they know no more than they do of Sanskrit. No matter that they have spelt and read these finely descrip- tive names a thousand times ; all they ever saw or knew was " the scrub." Similarly, of underwoods and undergrowth they never heard ; but only of " brush." Does one of them announce to a schoolfellow that he is going for a holiday to his uncle's in the country 1 No, he does not ; he merely remarks that he is going "up the bush" a phrase picturesque enough in its original Dutch form, but preposterously ludicrous in English. Or a boy may tell his comrade that he is going to his uncle's station " in the backblocks." Of the backwoods, woodlands, or even of the wilderness, he has never heard. Never once in his life has the same youth seen a pond, nor a pool, nor even a puddle ; he is familiar alone with " waterholes." He has never seen a flock of sheep, or a drove of horses ; but " mobs " of both sneep and cattle he sees every day of his life. His favourite pony is merely a "scrubber"; his daily food is " tucker "; ne is very familiar with tramps " humping their swags " shamming to look for work from station to station ; his father is " the Boss "; and so on through a long catalogue of traditionary barbarisms of illite- rate, or, it may be, of penal, origin. The question here is not merely one of a slang phrase or two used half-sportively ; it con- cerns the very serious matter of framing the populai* speech of a young nation deeply English in feeling, character, and sentiment, and whose citizens ought, therefore, to be purely English in their language, both spoken and written. DAVID BLAIR.

Armadale, Melbourne.

AMERICAN AND SPANISH WAR: "Hos- SONIZE." Has Lieut. Hobson by his gallant deed added a word to the nautical portion of the English language ? It looks like i f -. According to a statement in the Daily Tele- graph, a passenger steamer, one of the grimiest and most tumbledown of the many dilapi- dated craft of the kind that plough the silent highway, nearly collided with a barge at London Bridge. The skipper used strong language to the bargee ; but to his taunts the latter bellowed, "Better take your old tub out to sea and Hobsonize her."

HENRY GERALD HOPE.

Clapham, S.W.

"WHO SUPS WITH THE DEVIL," &C. This

proverb, recently used by a Cabinet Minister