Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 7.djvu/280

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [9* s. vn. APRIL 6, 1901.

PEACOCK, who has helped us to learn the speech of Manley and Corringharn, notes hutch up only in his 'Glossary,' and under that refers the consultant to hitch up, which is surely standard English. That he glosses " to pull or push upwards," and he gives this delightful example of its use : " He didn't wear gallowses, soa he alus hed to be hitchin' up his breeches." Gallovjses will be accept- able to those who are just now interesting themselves in this synonym for " suspenders."

ST. SWITHIN.

'A phrase in constant use " here and every- where " probably these fifty years past. In old schooldays of " three-square form " classes, when over certain lessons two classes joined, the word was in making room for all : " Now then, hutch up ! "=get close together. Restless people and children are always hutching about, but the hutching in clothing was considered to be suggestive of fleas and so forth. "THOS. KATCLIFFE.

Worksop.

Hutch, v., is a dialect form of hunch. Hunch- backed = hump-backed. The dialect has it hutch-backed. See 'H.E.D.' under 'Hunch.' Halliwell gives hutch, to shrug.

ARTHUR MAYALL.

This is equivalent to our local term hotch- tng-about. See under ' Hotch ' in Miss Baker's 'Glossary of Northamptonshire Words and Phrases.' JOHN T. PAGE.

West Haddon, Northamptonshire.

TINKHAME FAMILY (9 th S. vii. 68). There is or was in 1877 a hamlet or group of houses (some miles to the north-west of the post-town of Mattapoisett, Mass., U.S.) known as Tinkharn Town, which was said, if I remember aright, to have been peopled by settlers of that name from the old Puritan colony at Rochester, not far distant.

E. LEGA-WEEKES.

HUME'S PORTRAIT (9 th S. vii. 188). -Walter Ravage Landor bought, in Bath, a portrait of David Hume which he believed to be by Ramsay, and he gave it to Thomas Carlyle. But Lander's pictures were not always by the artists to whom he attributed them.

STEPHEN WHEELER.

In the Scottish National Gallery, Edin- burgh is a fine portrait of Hume in oils, half- length, which may be the one inquired after. He is represented as wearing a scarlet coat a point lace cravat, and lace ruffles covering his hands. There is a small vignette of this engraved by S. Freeman, prefixed to vol i of the cabinet edition, 1834, of Hume and Smol- lett s 'History of England.' In Chambers's

' Dictionary of Eminent Scotsmen ' is a long memoir of him, but unaccompanied by any engraving. JOHN PICKFORD, M.A.

Newbourne Rectory, Woodbridge.

JOHN PARR, MAYOR, 1773 (9 th S. vii. 149). John Parr, merchant of Liverpool, who twice served the office of bailiff of Liverpool, was mayor of that town in 1773.

JOHN RADCLIFFE.

"WABBLING" (9 th S. vii. 168). Whether PROF. SKEAT'S explanation in his ' Etym. Diet.' of ivabble as "a frequentative of wap, whap, to flutter," be accepted or not, it is hardly possible to deny the cognation of the word with the provincial German wabbeln, to wabble. Wabble therefore appears to be not only the correct spelling, but the older ; for it was used more than two hundred years ago by Moxon in his ' Mechanick Exercises.' (See quotation by Johnson, who calls wabble "a low barbarous word," seemingly in ignor- ance of the spelling wobble.) Halliwell gives ivabble as a Northern form, and wobble as that of various dialects ; but wobble may have come from the pronunciation, as formerly squabble from squabble. F. ADAMS.

Halliwell, Webster, and 'The Imperial Dictionary ' use the " wab " formation. The fullest explanation is to be found in the last. A quotation is given from Mayhew : "(By stilt- walking) the knees, which at first are weak and wabbly, get strong." The derivation is from provincial German wabbeln, to shake. A well-known Lancashire dialect expression runs " as wambly and slampy as a bucket o' warp-sizin'" in other words, quaking more than a jelly. ARTHUR MAYALL.

The dictionaries in my possession, while recognizing " wabble " and " wabbling," do not include "wobble" and "wobbling." The 'Encyclopedic Dictionary' describes " wabble " as " a weakened form of wapple, a frequent, of wap = to flutter, to beat the wings"; and suggests comparison "with Low German wabbeln, quabbeln = to wabble ; pro- vincial English quabbe=a, bog, a quagmire." Its illustrative quotation is from the Times of 21 October, 1876 : "The wabbling of the shot, owing to the imperfect fit, has been the great drawback." Jamieson regarded the word with its variant " waible" as Scottish, and in his dictionary suggests that it is possibly "a variety of wevil^ to wriggle." " Wabbling," and not " wobbling," is the current form in Scotland to-day. THOMAS BAYNE.

" PINHOEN," A GHOST-WORD (9 th S. vii. 205). MR. J. PLATT will pardon those who