Read Ebook: Notes and Queries Number 32 June 8 1850 by Various

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FRA. MEWBURN.

Darlington.

WALTER LEWIS.

Edward Street, Portman Square.

F.K.

"Men are but children of a larger growth."

R.G.

"I went to Lewis and bought 4 yards of broad black cloth at 16s. the yard, and two yards and 1/2 of scarlet serge for a waistcoat, 11s. 1d., and 1/4 of an ounce of scarlet silke, 1s."

and this appears to have been his regular dress. Will any of your correspondents inform me whether this scarlet serge waistcoat was commonly worn by the clergy in those times, namely, in 1671?

R.W.B.

Can any of your readers give a more satisfactory explanation of this local term?

T.W.

Burnley, May 4. 1850.

CINIS.

"Oh, I would ye would resort to prisons! A commendable thing in a Christian realm: I would wish there were curates of prisons, that we might say, the 'curate of Newgate, the curate of the Fleet,' and I would have them waged for their labour. It is a holiday work to visit the prisoners, for they be kept from sermons."--Vol. i. p. 180.

S.S.S.

OXONIENSIS NONDUM-GRADUATUS.

REPLIES.

DERIVATION OF "NEWS" AND "NOISE."

Indeed, CH. is rather hard upon me, I must confess. In using the simple form of assertion as more convenient,--although I intended thereby merely to express that such was my opinion, and not dreaming of myself as an authority,--I have undoubtedly erred. In the single instance in which I used it, instead of saying "it is," I should have said "I think it is." Throughout the rest of my argument I think the terms made use of are perfectly allowable as expressions of opinion. Your correspondent has been good enough to give "the whole" of my "argument" in recapitulating my "assertions." Singular dogmatism that in laying down the law should condescend to give reasons for it! On the other hand, when I turn to the letter of my friendly censor, I find assertion without argument, which, to my simple apprehension, is of much nearer kin to dogmatism than is the sin with which I am charged.

I cannot help thinking that your correspondent, from his dislike "to be puzzled on so plain a subject," has a misapprehension as to the uses of etymology. I, too, am no etymologist; I am a simple inquirer, anxious for information; frequently, without doubt, "most ignorant" of what I am "most assured;" yet I feel that to treat the subject scientifically it is not enough to guess at the origin of a word, not enough even to know it; that it is important to know not only whence it came, but how it came, what were its relations, by what road it travelled; and treated thus, etymology is of importance, as a branch of a larger science, to the history of the progress of the human race.

I repeat my opinion that "news is a noun singular, and as such must have been adopted bodily into the language;" and if it were a "noun of plural form and plural meaning," I still think that the singular form must have preceded it. The two instances CH. gives, "goods" and "riches," are more in point than he appears to suppose, although in support of my argument, and not his. The first is from the Gothic, and is substantially a word implying "possessions," older than the oldest European living languages. "Riches" is most unquestionably in its original acceptation in our language a noun singular, being identically the French "richesse," in which manner it is spelt in our early writers. From the form coinciding with that of our plural, it has acquired also a plural signification. But both words "have been adopted bodily into the language," and thus strengthen my argument that the process of manufacture is with us unknown.

Your correspondent is not quite correct in describing me as putting forward as instances of the early communication between the English and the German languages the derivation of "news" from "Neues," and the similarity between two poems. The first I adduced as an instance of the importance of the inquiry: with regard to the second, I admitted all that your correspondent now says; but with the remark, that the mode of treatment and the measure approaching so near to each other in England and Germany within one half century , there was reasonable ground for suspicion of direct or indirect communication. On this subject I asked for information.

In conclusion, I think I observe something of a sarcastic tone in reference to my "novelty." I shall advocate nothing that I do not believe to be true, "whether it be old or new;" but I have found that our authorities are sometimes careless, sometimes unfaithful, and are so given to run in a groove, that when I am in quest of truth I generally discard them altogether, and explore, however laboriously, by myself.

SAMUEL HICKSON.

St. John's Wood, May 27. 1850.

I do not know the reason for the rule your correspondent Mr. S. HICKSON lays down, that such a noun as "news" could not be formed according to English analogy. Why not as well as "goods, the shallows, blacks, for mourning, greens?" There is no singular to any of these as nouns.

"Saepe in conjugiis fit noxia, cum nimia est dos."

"In mediam noxiam perfertur."

"Diligerent alia, et noxas bellumque moverent."

It is a great pity that we have no book of reference for English analogy of language.

C.B.

Why should Mr. Hickson attempt to derive "news" indirectly from a German adjective, when it is so directly attributable to an English one; and that too without departing from a practice almost indigenous in the language?

But a flight still more eccentric would be the identification of "noise" with "news!" "There is no process," Mr. Hickson says, "by which noise could be manufactured without making a plural noun of it!"

A.E.B.

Leeds, May 5th.

Further evidence of the existence and common use of the word "newes" in its present signification but ancient orthography anterior to the introduction of newspapers.

"After that thies Newes afforesaide ware dyvulgate in the Citie here."

Dated from Rome, September, 1513.

A.E.B.

THE DODO QUERIES.

I may add, that Dr. Hamel shows Osorio's statement to be taken from Castanheda, who is the earliest authority for the account of De Gama's voyage.

H.E. STRICKLAND.

BOHN'S EDITION OF MILTON.

In reply, I beg to say that the insertion of the word "complete," in some of my catalogues, has taken place without my privity, and is now expunged. The fourth volume has long been in preparation, but the time of its appearance depends on the health and leisure of a prelate, whose name I have no right to announce. Those gentlemen who have taken the trouble to make direct inquiries on the subject, have always, I believe, received an explicit answer.

HENRY GEORGE BOHN.

May 30. 1850.

UMBRELLAS.

Book i. lines 209-218.

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