Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 2.djvu/393

 9 th S. II. Nov. 12, '98.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

385

1750 has been referred to under 'Pickwickian Manners/ ante, p. 314. Holcroft, in his ' Koad to Ruin,' performed in 1792, makes young Goldfinch speak of his father as having kept a gig, but he may have been intended to refer to his father's latest years. At all events, the seventh edition of Johnson's 'Dictionary,' published in 1785, makes no mention of a gig either as a two-wheeled carriage or a ship's boat, though it informs its readers that a gig is a thing whirled round and has been a fiddle. As it is not a long step from Germanizing to gig we may expect to have the date of the best-known gig shortly ascertained for us by high authority. But there is a use of the word about the time in question which I find noticed in an article on ' Gigs ' in the Longbow of 5 October, and which appears to be comparatively un- known :

" There are some letters from an agreeable letter- writer, much in the social circle that revolved round George, Prince of Wales, letters unpublished and unprinted, but lucid in every sense, legible from the clearness of the handwriting and the habit of distinguishing every substantive with a capital letter, readable from the sparkle of their wit and their intrinsic interest, in which the word gig fre- quently occurs. Writing in 1784 of Lady S, a well- known member of society, he calls her ' As great a Gig as you can wish.' Again he writes to a very charm- ing lady of that time. ' I know you dearly love a Gig.' Again, ' Prince Hardnames, the Russian Am- bassador, a lineal descendant of Gengis Khan, is as

great a Gig as you ever saw.' One is at first

tempted to think of it as an abbreviation of the recognized giglit or giglot, ' That giglit Fortune,' as the Queen apostrophises in ' Cymbeline,' ' Some young giglit on the green, with dimpled cheek,' as Allan Kamsay sings. But this would be an in- adequate description of the Russian ambassador, and we have to look elsewhere. Good modern dic- tionaries are helpful in showing us the touch of nature that makes all gigs kin, not the love of gaudy novelty as in the case of all mankind, but rapid or whirling motion. This touch is common to the fiddle, the whipping top, the flapping of wings, the light carriage with its flashing wheels, the light narrow galley with its rapid oars, and, we may suppose, to the volatile beings whom the letter-writer had in view. Indeed, -one recorded meaning is that of sport or fun, a bit of gig being something to be en- joyed, and it is only a step from the thing enjoyed to the person enjoying it. It is possible that the term, however much in vogue in the letter-writer's set, may have had a life as short as merry, and may have never passed into the dulness of literature."

KlLLIGRBW.

THE ORIGIN OF "TAW." We have had a discussion lately about " alley - taws," i. e., alabaster taws (ante, p. 315), but we have not been told whence the word taw is derived.

The only suggestion I can find is in Richardson, who says it is perhaps from Du.

touw, " made or prepared." But the Du. touw is not pronounced taw, and it is properly a substantive signifying " a rope." Richardson probably meant to refer to the Du. touwen, cog- nate with the English vert to taw. But if this be the right connexion, we should derive it from the English verb taw directly. Is, then, a taw, i. e., a kind of marble, derived from the verb to taw ? I fail to see any connexion.

It is a question of history. Taw does not seem to have meant at first the marble itself, but a game. We find it as early as in the Taller, No. 112, dated 27 December, 1709 :

'Augustus, indeed, had no playfellows of his own begetting, but is said to have passed many of his hours with little Moorish boys at a game of marbles not unlike our modern taw"

The italics are in the original.

Richardson quotes from Churchill, 'The Candidate,' "To whip a top, to knuckle down at taw." See 'English Poets,' ed. Chalmers, xiv. 358, col. 1. Churchill died in 1764. Johnson gives a quotation from Swift, but I cannot find it.

However, there is another sense of the word, which I believe to be the original one. This is, "a line or mark from which the players begin a game of marbles"; colloquial in the United States ; see Webster.

As no reasonable guess at the origin of the word has been yet given, I proceed to offer one. If it is wrong, I hope it will be dis- proved.

I compare it with tee, which properly means the same thing, viz., a mark to start from ; or, secondly, a mark to arrive at.

When we played at prisoner's base, our first proceeding was to mark a T on the ground. One stroke divided the parties, and the cross stroke gave the starting lines. So in any other game, if you want to mark an exact spot to start from, a T on the ground will show the spot where the two strokes meet. It seems to me that taw is the same as tee, but with the Greek pronunciation. All schoolboys know enough Greek for that.

WALTER W. SKEAT.

CONSULTING THE STARS AT A BIRTH.- Even yet it is customary in many parts of the globe to consult the stars on the birth of a child. The following extract from a com- munication published in the Field, 17 Sep- tember, shows that the heavenly bodies may also be appealed to when an animal is born whose existence is regarded as so unnatural as to be almost miraculous. The letter quoted is from Capt. Gunn, of the Civil Veterinary Department :

" A most unusual event occurred in the Kapur- thala State, India ; indeed, it seems to be the only