Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 6.djvu/428

 354 NOTES AND QUERIES. p» & vi. NOV. 3,1900, declared that it was written by a better Grecian than himself. Would it be by Father scarce in the provinces. Ardwiok. RICHARD HKHMING. " SUB " : " SUBSIST MONEY " (9th S. vi. 246). —MK. ARTHUR MAYALL is mistaken when he remarks that a workman would never say, "I want to be subbed." In my own daily experience I hear it constantly. If I say to one of tny staff, "I want you to go at once to London," or to Edinburgh, or anywhere else, as the case may be. the reply five tiipes out of six will be, "All right; but I shall want to bo subbed," by which the man means that money is not " too flush " with him, and he will require at least part payment of his expenses before starting. HARRY HEMS. Fair Park, Exeter. I know the expression " I want a sub" to have been for many years past commonly used by an inferior class of men in 'the various trades em ployed by small jobbing and speculating builders, but am quite ignorant of " I want to sub," or " I want to be subbed," in reference to interim payments required by the worker from the employer on account of wages (by the hour or day) already earned, and payable, according to custom, at the end of the week, or at discharge previously. The large and well-known building firms, how- ever, usually, and very rightly, decline to make these " subs " to their employees, who. being generally of a better ana higher-paiu class than those firstly above referred to, would, otherwise, seldom ask for the same. In some manufacturing trades this bad system probably exists to a great extent. The word in question is not, in my opinion, an equivalent of of a payment. ' subsist money," but rather W. I. R. V. "WHIM-BEAM" (9th S. vi. 289).—If an alleged fact be fictitious, and the inquiry proceed on erroneous lines, then the conclu- sion must be incorrect. The purlin or jmr- line is not called a whim-lieam, and has no more to do with whim=9. freak than it has to do with the capstan that is called a whim, a whini-r/in, a whimsey, and. a whin. Mpre- over, the suggestion that there is a correct word whim-beam, which is also spelt win- beam, has nothing to do with this last variant. Taken logically, too, how can that which has a steadying effect bo said to be whimsical? The fact that the German lor purlin is Qwer- balken, and that qtler means perverse, just as whimsical may be said to do, is merely a coincidence. The correct word is wind-ljeam. It is.so given by Halliwell in his dictionary, where he assefts that it is still in une. It occurs as wyijndljeme in the ' Promptoriudi Parvulorum.' As a general rule, and apart from the query, it is a safe principle in dealing with foremen to take it for granted that their technical expressions are incorrect or un- scientific. ARTHUR MAYALL. Should'not this be wind-beam? Wind- braces, which strengthened the framework of the " bay," were part of the roof construction of the earliest form of house. Both the beam and braces were inserted for the sake of strength, and to prevent the wind from damaging the roof. W. B. GKRISH. Bishop's Stortford. "OLD JAMAICA" (9th S. v. 49).—This term usually denotes rum, the spirituous ingre- dient, as is well known, of the sailor's grog. Its application to the sun is, perhaps, not general among seamen, and may have been local— if I have warrant, statutory or other- wise, for so speaking of the ship on board which your correspondent heard it. May not the explanation be found in the calefacient properties common to the spirit and the planet 1 Suppose a riddle propounded by some jocular tar: " Why is the sun like rum 1 The obvious answer is : " Because it warms you." F. ADAMS. 115, Albany Road, S.E. "INUNDATE" (9th S. v. 395, 497; vi. 52,112, 192, 218, 251). — The pronunciation of the greatest number is a vulgar and uneducated pronunciation. Moreover, even an educated man retains some peculiarity of his early surroundings. It has been mentioned in ' N. <fc Q.' that Mr. Gladstone said ttrenth for strength. One of the most careful speakers that I ever heard nevertheless said carttle for castle, and year for ear. This was due to his early life in Kensington. So it is with jett for just, which an educated man who has not been brought up in London condemns at once as a cockneyism. One needs to take the consensus, not of educated men here or there, but ot educated men throughout the country. And we have to remember the distinction between colloquialism and formal speech. The standard of pronunciation re- • corded in a dictionary ought to be that, of the language at its best, not of the street or even of the drawing-room, but of solemn occasions and exalted assemblies. Let «