Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 7.djvu/314

 306

NOTES AND QUERIES. [9* S.VIL APRIL 20,1901.

builders and contractors, were a Liverpool firm in the early part of last century," which, as he notes, has already been refuted in these columns by MR. J. F. MANSERGH. I may add that, after seeing the original letter to this effect printed in Truth in January, 1884, I wrote to its author asking for the evidence on which the statement was made. In his reply, now lying before me, dated 18 December, 1885, the writer admitted that no evidence was producible ; he added that he was under the impression of having heard this explanation of jerry-builder from the English master at the school which he attended, but he had subsequently searched for authority without finding any ; and Sir James Picton, our great Liverpool authority, who had been consulted, had never heard of it. He therefore could not maintain the reliability of the story, and frankly withdrew it. In preparing the articles on the Jerry words in the 'New English Dictionary' (section published 1 January last) we made further investigation, with the help of correspondents in Liverpool, and ascer- tained that no trace of any such name as Jerry in connexion with the building trade could be found. While, therefore, it is quite possible that the cloth-finisher's jerry, the compositor's jerry on an apprentice complet- ing his time, a jerry- hat, a jerry-shop (or Tom-and-Jerry shop), and a jerry-building may all contain the masculine name Jerry (short for Jeremy or Jeremiah), we are reduced to the conclusion that "Jerry Brothers " have merely been invented to concoct what, in view of its unsubstantial, pretentious, and deceptive character, we may distinguish as a " jerrymology " (the m being a deceptive insertion in the " jerry-ology " to make it more like the real thing). We all know how such become current. Some one wonders what can be the origin of a word or phrase. Another of ready wit (such have been in all ages) offers a conjecture, which strikes the inquirer as "very likely" or "just how it must have happened."" He repeats it as a brilliant suggestion. His auditor repeats it with a prefixed "It is said." The next man drops the "It is said" as rather spoiling the story, and retails it as a fact. His auditor greedily takes it down, and sends it to ' N. & Q.' as a valuable con- tribution to etymology ; but it is only a jerrymology, after all.

A glance at the 'Dictionary' will show that the earliest connexion of jerry with the building trade is its adverbial use in jerry- built, a dialectal expression explained in the ' Lonsdale Glossary,' 1869, as " slightly or un-

substantially built." This was also used by Mr. Ruskin in 1875 in 'Fors Clavigera.' As an adjective, qualifying "builder," "building," jem/ appears in 1881-2, when the 'Lancashire Glossary ' explained it as " bad, defective, and deceptive." In those days it was still written as a separate word ; but jerry builder and jerry building naturally suggested jerry- build, which is exemplified in 1890. Earlier dates than some of these may, of course, be found ; but on the whole Ruskin's execration of "jerry-built cottages" in 1875 seems to point to the literary " coming out " of the word.

I need hardly point out that " jerry-built " is not strictly a verb " formed out of a proper name"; the verb is build, to which jerry func- tions merely as an adverb, as in "badly built," "unsubstantially built." We have not found any verb "to jerry," although "jerryism" appeared in 1885.

J. A. H. MURRAY.

" CAPACITY " : " CAPACIOUS." Mr. Burns, M.P., lately used in the Commons "capa- cious " of a man possessed of " capacity," and was laughed at for it by a few " bloods." Napier, however, our consummate stylist of the nineteenth century, writes, " Sir Arthur

Wellesley was endowed by nature with a

lofty genius, and capacious for war." D.

[An instance of "capacious" in this sense is quoted from Gale, under date 1677, in ' H.E.D.' Mrs. Browning employs the word in the same sense.]

"THEODOLITE." Better late than never, and I should like to thank PROF. SKEAT for correcting (8 th S. viii. 130) my inadvertently erroneous spelling (p. 64) of the name of Prof. Hunaus of Hannover. Perhaps I may be allowed to call PROF. SKEAT'S attention to the fact that he has not corrected in the third edition of his ' Etymological Dictionary ' the error in the date of the discovery of oxygen which I pointed out in 8 th S. viii. 204.

Now with regard to the origin of that puzzling word theodolite. (Orrery and similar words would be equally puzzling, were it not that in that and other cases we do know how they arose.) That it came from a proper name is a more likely suggestion than any that has yet been made, and we may hope some day to run Theodulus down. But surely it is not necessary to suppose that he was the actual divider of a circular rim (which was the earliest form of a theodolite), any more than that Lord Orrery was the first constructor of an orrery, which we know that he was not. PROF. SKEAT says there was a saint of the name Theodulus. The ' Dictionary of Christian Biography,' edited