Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 2.djvu/245

 9'- s. ii. SEPT. 17,

NOTES AND QUERIES.

237

equivalent to thruch-stane, a word which is amply illustrated by Jainieson, who derives it from A.-S. thruh, thurh, thurruc, sarcophagus, a grave, a coffin. The following quotation from the parish register of Bothkenriar, for which I am indebted to the kindness of Mr. C. S. Romanes, of Edinburgh, shows the use of the word through alone (this does not appear to have been noticed by Jamieson) :

"8 Jxily, 1777. John Simpson, tenant in Croft- head, hath 2 lairs with throughs in the churchyard of Bothkennar, formerly belonging to the dec d John Simpson his father, bounded by the church wall on the north, Burnbrae's lairs (now John Johnston's) on the south, John Bow and John Tower's on the west, and Mr. D 's lairs on the east."

The lair is the grave and the through the gravestone. JAMES DALLAS.

This word, pronounced thrujf-stone, is in use in Northumberland. The stones, which gener- ally go through and project on both sides of a dry stone wall, are used as binders.

R T B.

" PERFORM'D " (9 th S. ii. 148). The meaning is " complete." The word is explained in the 'Promptorium Parvulorum': " Parformyd, perfectus, completus." It would be interest- ing to know in what town or county the will was drafted, because Halliwell, in his ' Dic- tionary of Archaic and Provincial Words,' registers the word as Devonian. As such it is an etymological survival ; for "to com- plete," in the sense of furnishing what is needed to make anything perfect or entire, is exactly the meaning of the obsolete French verb parfournir from which is derived our perform.

F. ADAMS.

This word in the sentence quoted means " complete," and is much used in that sense in many old writers, for which see ' Folk Ety- mology,' by the Rev. A. Smythe Palmer.

EVERARD HOME COLEMAN.

"RIDER" (9 th S. ii. 167). It has been sug- gested that an additional clause, or what not, is so called because it over-rides that to which it forms an addition. I believe this explana- tion was the late Dr. E. C. Brewer's. One explanation given by Stormonth is " anything which strengthens," which, of course, is just what a rider does when used. It is curious to note that " the interior ribs to strengthen and bind the parts of a ship together " are called "riders." Can the word be of geometrical origin 1 Subsidiary problems were, I remem- ber, often called riders. C. P. HALE.

SYNTAX OF A PREFACE (9 th S. ii. 105, 172). " Monied " may be an objectionable spelling, but it is not new. I find it in Florio's ' Mon-

taigne,' i. 40 : " Every monied man is cove- tous, according to mine opinion." Minsheu has "monie" (as an alternative form of " money ") and " moniers." Our modern dictionaries have " monies " as well as " moneys." And why not, if, as I gather, we derive " money " from O.F. moneie ? (See Skeat's ' Concise Etymological Dictionary.')

C. C. B.

The purist who talks of "those sorts of things " introduces fresh matter. The ques- tion concerned things of a sort, not of several sorts, referred to as "that sort of things," or, with ungrammatical anticipation of the coming plural, " those sort of things."

KlLLIGREW.

SMITH'S ' CYCLOPAEDIA OF NAMES ' (9 th S. ii. 102, 178). I wrote " Spalatro " at random, as I thought (and think) it unnecessary to re- open a controversy which W. C. B. will find summed up in the 'Encyclopaedia Britannica.' " Spalatro," at any rate, is a very old spelling. I take this opportunity, however, to add a few more corrigenda to Smith.

1. I said in my previous article that I had not examined any Portuguese names ; I have since done so, and in several cases, as Camoens and Ceram, I find inaccuracy in defining the nasals.

2. Three or four places all called Aix are grouped under one pronunciation ; there is no mention of the distinction observed by all good French speakers between the Isle of Aix (Ai), Aix in Provence (Aiks), and Aix la Chapelle (Aiss).

3. Even such well-known tourist resorts as Davos and St. Goar are wrongly accented by Smith upon the first instead of the last vowel.

4. Danish names are frequently treated as if German : the ch in Molbech and Blicher is not an open guttural. The Dutch Mole- schott is also treated as if German.

5. The Icelandic mythological names Aegir and Aesir are hopelessly wrong. Their first element should be like the pronoun /.

6. If I may be permitted to add to my already lengthy list of Russian names wrongly pronounced, I should like to draw attention to Bestusheff, Saporogian, Sungaria, Rumian- zoff, which Smith has chronicled only in a German spelling ; he then treats it as if it was English, thereby giving the wrong sound to some of the consonants ; in the fourth name he has also misplaced the accent.

7. The pronunciations assigned to the Welsh Bettws-y-Coed and Irish Conaire are simply grotesque.

8. False quantities in Arabic names are