Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 7.djvu/190

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th s. VIL MARCH 9, 1901.

In others of Prynne's lists of secluded members, printed early in 1660, Alexander Pym's name does not appear. For what reason I do not know, Charles Pym's name is absent also. The latest mention of Alex- ander Pym that I have come upon is on 10 February, 1660, when he was nominated by the Kurnp Parliament a Commissioner of Assessment for Westminster. Not impro- bably he died about this time. It is certain that he did not live long after the Restora- tion, his brother Charles being in possession of Brymore when created a baronet in July, 1663. W. D. PINK.

Lowton, Newton-le-Willows.

VERBS FORMED OUT OF PROPER NAMES. (See 9 th S. vi. 248,312.)

THE following is a list of such verbs. If lesser-known technical terms, which are pro- bably numerous, as, for instance, to " albert- type," to " talbottype," be omitted, while better -known formations, such as to "kyanize," "macadamize," are included, there wilJ, I think, be no difficulty about making such a list complete.

To be alexandered. To be hanged. This expression arose, according to the Rev 7. Cliarles Rogers, LL.D. (see Royal Hist. Soc., vol. viii., 1880), from the harsh and merciless manner in which Sir Jerome Alexander, an Irish judge, and founder of the Alexander Library at Trinity College, Dublin, carried out the duties of his office ( 1 N. & Q.,' 9 th S. v. 513).

To bant. The Banting treatment was a dangerous remedy for obesity, in some cases leading to its disciples being crippled for life. It consisted in reducing superfluous fat by living on meat diet, and abstaining from beer, farinaceous food, and vegetables, ac- cording to the method adopted by William Banting, a London undertaker, once a very fat man (born 1796, died 1878). Of this method arid its origin there is a full account in Chambers' s Journal for 1864, p. 268.

To bink Among commercial travellers a " binxer " or " binkser " is a slang term for that type of bagman,

"the gushing personage, with shiny hat and loud voice, who scours the country, establishing a character for being the nuisance of the calling. His want of tact and manners, and the number of his kind now on the road, has generally, it is said, changed the demeanour of tradesmen towards commercial travellers from a kind of courtesy im- plying welcome to something exactly the reverse" Globe, 21 December, 1897.

The word probably had its origin in a one- act farce by Stirling Coyne, entitled ' Binks

the Bagman.' Binks is there depicted as a bragging, blustering upstart, a "bounder," although his deportment during commercial transactions is not alluded to, his vulgar behaviour being there confined to the inn at which he puts up.

To bishop. To murder by drowning, from a man named Bishop, who in 1831 drowned a boy in order to sell his body for dissection.

To bokanki, or "to vanish in a bokanki." Dr. Walter Balcanqual, Dean of Durham in the time of the Civil Wars, fled precipitately from the city after the battle of Newburn, for fear of the Scots.

To bowdlerize. To expurgate, in editing a book, all such words and passages as are deemed offensive or indelicate, Dr. Thomas Bowdler having, in 1818, published an expurgated edition of Shakespeare. " No profane hand," says a contributor to 'N. & Q.' (4 th S. vi. 47), "shall dare, for me, to curtail my Chaucer, to bowdlerize my Shakespeare, or to mutilate my Milton."

To boycott. To refuse to deal with a person, to take any notice of him, or even to sell to him. The term arose in 1881, when Capt. Boycott, an Irish landlord, was thus ostracized by the Irish malcontents. St. Paul exhorts Christians to "boycott" idolaters (2 Cor. vi. 17), and the Jews boycotted the Samaritans (Dr. Brewer, 'Diet, of Phrase and Fable').

To buncomize.To talk twaddle. This is said to be a journalistic phrase. The word " bun- combe " is stated in Barrere and Leland's dictionary to be neither from a town named Buncombe (Bartlett's 'Americanisms') nor from a North Carolina senator of that name (Hotten's 'Dictionary of Slang'), for long before these explanations arose it was usual in New England to express great approba- tion or admiration of anything by calling it "bunkum," and this was derived from the Canadian-French "Le buncum sa" ("II est bon comme ga "), " It is good as it is." There was a negro song fifty or sixty years ago with this refrain, "Bomsell ge mary, lebrunem sa." This is presumed to be negro Canuck- French for "Ma'm'selle je marie, elle est bonne comme a " (ibid.).

To burke. To murder by suffocation. This word originated with the name of an Irish- man who first committed the crime in 1829 in Edinburgh, with the view of selling the body for dissection. He was hanged the same year. To burke a question is therefore to strangle it in its birth and cause it to be shelved ; to get rid of it by some indirect manoeuvre, as to burke a Parliamentary ques- tion ; and the word seems, through its simi- larity to the word " balk," to have partaken