Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 3.djvu/412

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NOTES AND QUERIES. p- s. m. MAY 27, '99.

name is derived from the Cerrings, a widely spread Saxon family. But although the Fines which I have cited show that Mr. Wheatley has perhaps gone too far in saying that when the Cross was erected Charing was not even a village, it may be doubted if it was a largely inhabited place, and the fact that the article Is prefixed to the name in one of the Fines seems to point to another possible derivation. In Anglo-Saxon cerran means to turn or bend, and cerring may, perhaps, be equivalent to turning, indicating the point at which the Vicus de Stranda terminated and merged into the Vicus de Westmonasterio, or road leading to Westminster. However this may be a hamlet existed on the spot many years before the death of Queen Eleanor, and if the compiler of a useful little book called ' The Story of London,' which has recently appeared, should see this note, it may strengthen him in his contention that the name of the locality has no connexion whatever with chere reine, from which " it is sometimes said to be derived " (p. 255).

W. F. PRIDEAUX. [See < N. & Q.,' 7 th S. viii. 307, 417, 455.]

CETYWAYO. This name seems to present unusual difficulties to Englishmen, both as regards its spelling and pronunciation. The former should be Cety wayo, the latter Ketch- wayo or Ketshwayo, approximately, the first consonant representing a sound technically known as the dental click. The y is a con- sonant ; ty is therefore practically identical with the ch in " church." Now let us see how the name is treated in the best three works of reference for personal names the supplements to Webster and Worcester, and Smith's 'Cyclopedia of Names.' Webster is the only one that gives the correct ortho- graphy, the other two contain nothing but blunders (Cetewayo, Cettiwayo). Both Web- ster and Worcester score as to the pronuncia- tion. They give the right one and no other. Smith, on the other hand, gives a right pro- nunciation and a wrong one, without dis- criminating between them. This is the more remarkable as in the preface Mr. Chatelain (a thoroughly competent scholar) is said to have read the proofs for the correction of the pronunciation of African names. I can only suppose that this particular name did not come before him. JAMES PLATT, Jim.

"SMOAK" TO "TWIG," TO "FIND OUT." Perhaps this unusual sense of the word, to which MR. RALPH THOMAS makes interesting reference (ante, p. 103), is preserved in the slang expression, " Put that in your pipe and smoke it," Old fogies, to clench some remark,

may have asked their younger listeners, " D( you smoke that 1 " using the verb in it' already almost forgotten meaning of "td twig," and the rising generation, cutty ir mouth, and interpreting " smoke " in its fashion as applied to its own constant! occupation of inhaling tobacco fumes, would lug the pipe into the sentence, thinking thereby to glose, but really distorting the interlocutor's query. People constantly strive to attach a sense, if not the sense, to unfamiliar words they meet with, or to explain to them- selves the unfamiliar use of familiar words in their own manner, e.g., every child knows what is meant by a " forlorn hope," and pro- bably derives the expression from the " for- lorn " or "wretched" hope there is of the men getting back safe, until, as a schoolboy, he learns the true etymology from his diction- ary. But this is elementary. If smoke = to fume and smack = to taste are from a com- mon root, as I believe some etymologists hold, the sense of smoak (or smoke) = to "find out" is not difficult to deduce. H. E. M.

MR. THOMAS might have learnt from John- son's ' Dictionary ' that Shakspeare uses the ' word smoke in the sense of " find out."

E. YARDLEY.

"THESE KINDOF MEN," FLORIO'S' MONTAIGNE,' i. 9. When grammarians come across expres- sions in the Greek or Latin classics which do not square with the rules, they call themj not bad grammar, but good idiom ; and I do not see why English idiomatic constructions should not be treated with equal respect. The following are a few more classical ex- amples of the construction indicated above :

"Those kind of objections." Sir P. Sidney, 'De- fence of Poesie.'

" These kind of knaves."' King Lear,' II. ii.

" All kind of natures."' Tiraon of Athens,' I. i.

" There are a sort of men."' Merchant of Venice,' < I. i.

"These pair of second causes." Sir Thomas Browne, ' Religio Medici.'

"These kind of thoughts." Dry den, 'Essay of Dramatic Poesy.'

C. J. I.

" TWILLY TOES." At a school which I at- i tended as a boy we were taught to turn our toes outward. The head master himself was careful that his precepts should be fol lowed by example. His shoes had square toes, and he turned them out to an extent which would seem awkward in these days. I was reminded of this by an article in the ; Contemporary Revieiv for May (p. 703), written by Sir Edmund Verney. Sir Edmund says :

"Children are taught that the dignified and aristocratic way of walking is to hold themselves