Page:Studies in Lowland Scots - Colville - 1909.djvu/257

Rh Turkes, grappling irons; cf. turcusses above, "hammer and turkes" for the blacksmith.

Annatto is a surprising exotic to reach Glasgow through Holland early in the seventeenth century. It takes the forms annotto, arnotto, and is the South American name for a tree, common also in Jamaica, the seed of which dyes silk a deep yellow, and is used for colouring butter, cheese, chocolate. I saw the preparation from it quite lately on an Ayrshire cheese farm.

Wirsat (worsted) passments, Fr. passementerie, a novel addition to the comforts supplied in a seventeenth-century booth.

Caprus, copperas—"ane trie caprus;" Fr. couperose; Lat. cupri rosa, rose of copper, used to dye black and make ink. The story goes that a Glasgow merchant sent to London an order for copperas, but his bad spelling was read as capers, of which the weight sent seemed completely to outrun the possible demand. Fortunately a shortage of capers followed and he cleared his stock at a thumping profit.

Chapelet is exactly the Fr. form, and diminutive form of chapel; Mod.Fr. has chapeau, a hat.

The old Latin grammars give long lists of vocables, supposed to be useful to the boys in the absence of dictionaries. The meanings given frequently throw light on the current vernacular. The French elements in them are few. The Vocabula have, from our point of view, little or no educational value, as they are not well adapted to aid either construing or speaking. They must have commended themselves to the compilers as instruments of torture.

Andrew Duncan, rector of Dundee Grammar School, regent in St. Leonard's College, St. Andrews, and minister of Crail, introduced the following in the Appendix Etymologiæ to his Latin Grammar (1595):—

Boise, vter, a wine boise (wine skin, bottle, jar); O.Fr. busse, buse, buce, a cask for wine. As Dutch buyse, the word was long known in Scotland as a buss or fishing-boat.

Bonet, riscus, a bowell (bole), or bonet caisse; Fr. bonnet.

Caisse, bowel, a basin, is still vernacular. Caisse is Lat. capsa, whence capsule.