Chapter 8

(said Father Eustace), art thou but this instant delivered from death, and dost thou so soon morse thoughts of slaughter?'' This word is nothing but a misprint of _nurse_; but in _Notes and Queries_ two independent correspondents accounted for the word _morse_ etymologically. One explained it as ``to prime,'' as when one primes a musket, from O. Fr. _amorce_, powder for the touchhole (Cotgrave), and the other by ``to bite'' (Lat. _mordere_), hence ``to indulge in biting, stinging or gnawing thoughts of slaughter.'' The latter writes: ``That the word as a misprint should have been printed and read by millions for fifty years without being challenged and altered exceeds the bounds of probability.'' Yet when the original MS. of Sir Walter Scott was consulted, it was found that the word was there plainly written _nurse_.

The Saxon letter for _th_ (<?p>) has long been a sore puzzle to the uninitiated, and it came to be represented by the letter y. Most of those who think they are writing in a specially archaic manner when they spell ``ye'' for ``the'' are ignorant of this, and pronounce the article as if it were the pronoun. Dr. Skeat quotes a curious instance of the misreading of the thorn (<?p>) as _p_, by which a strange ghost word is evolved. Whitaker, in his edition of Piers Plowman, reads that Christ ``_polede_ for man,'' which should be _tholede_, from _tholien_, to suffer, as there is no such verb as _polien_.

Dr. J. A. H. Murray, the learned editor of the Philological Society's _New English Dictionary_, quotes two amusing instances of ghost words in a communication to _Notes and Queries_ (7th S., vii. 305). He says: ``Possessors of Jamieson's Scottish Dictionary will do well to strike out the fictitious entry _cietezour_, cited from Bellenden's _Chronicle_ in the plural _cietezouris_, which is merely a misreading of cietezanis (_i.e_. with Scottish z = <?z> = y), _cieteyanis_ or citeyanis, Bellenden's regular word for _citizens_. One regrets to see this absurd mistake copied from Jamieson (unfortunately without acknowledgment) by the compilers of Cassell's _Encyclop dic Dictionary_.''

``Some editions of Drayton's _Barons Wars_, Bk. VI., st. xxxvii., read--

`` `And ciffy Cynthus with a thousand birds,'

which nonsense is solemnly reproduced in Campbell's _Specimens of the British Poets_, iii. 16. It may save some readers a needless reference to the dictionary to remember that it is a misprint for cliffy, a favourite word of Drayton's.''

2. In contrast to supposed words that never did exist, are real words that exist through a mistake, such as _apron_ and _adder_, where the _n_, which really belongs to the word itself, has been supposed, mistakenly, to belong to the article; thus apron should be napron (Fr. _naperon_), and adder should be nadder (A.-S. _n ddre_). An amusing confusion has arisen in respect to the Ridings of Yorkshire, of which there are three. The word should be _triding_, but the _t_ has got lost in the adjective, as West Triding became West Riding. The origin of the word has thus been quite lost sight of, and at the first organisation of the Province of Upper Canada, in 1798, the county of Lincoln was divided into _four_ ridings and the county of York into _two_. York was afterwards supplied with _four_.

Sir Henry Bennet, in the reign of Charles II., took his title of Earl of Arlington owing to a blunder. The proper name of the village in Middlesex is Harlington.

A curious misunderstanding in the Marriage Service has given us two words instead of one. We now vow to remain united till death us _do part_, but the original declaration, as given in the first Prayer Book of Edward VI., was: ``I, N., take thee N., to my wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us depart [or separate].''

It is not worth while here to register the many words which have taken their present spelling through a mistaken view of their etymology. They are too numerous, and the consideration of them would open up a question quite distinct from the one now under consideration.

3. Absurd etymology was once the rule, because guessing without any knowledge of the historical forms of words was general; and still, in spite of the modern school of philology, which has shown us the right way, much wild guessing continues to be prevalent. It is not, however, often that we can point to such a brilliant instance of blundering etymology as that to be found in Barlow's English Dictionary (1772). The word _porcelain_ is there said to be ``derived from _pour cent annes_, French for a hundred years, it having been imagined that the materials were matured underground for that term of years.''

Richardson, the novelist, suggests an etymology almost equal to this. He writes, ``What does correspondence mean? It is a word of Latin origin: a compound word; and the two elements here brought together are _respondeo_, I answer, and _cor_, the heart: _i.e_., I answer feelingly, I reply not so much to the head as to the heart.''

Dr. Ash's English Dictionary, published in 1775, is an exceedingly useful work, as containing many words and forms of words nowhere else registered, but it contains some curious mistakes. The chief and best-known one is the explanation of the word _curmudgeon_--``from the French c ur, unknown, and _mechant_, a correspondent.'' The only explanation of this absurdly confused etymology is that an ignorant man was employed to copy from Johnson's Dictionary, where the authority was given as ``an unknown correspondent,'' and he, supposing these words to be a translation of the French, set them down as such. The two words _esoteric_ and _exoteric_ were not so frequently used in the last century as they are now; so perhaps there may be some excuse for the following entry: ``Esoteric (adj. an incorrect spelling) exoteric.'' Dr. Ash could not have been well read in Arthurian literature, or he would not have turned the noble knight Sir Gawaine into a woman, ``the sister of King Arthur.'' There is a story of a blunder in Littleton's Latin Dictionary, which further research has proved to be no mistake at all. It is said that when the Doctor was compiling his work, and announced the word _concurro_ to his amanuensis, the scribe, imagining from the sound that the six first letters would give the translation of the verb, said ``Concur, sir, I suppose?'' to which the Doctor peevishly replied, ``Concur--condog!'' and in the edition of 1678 ``condog'' is printed as one interpretation of _concurro_. Now, an answer to this story is that, however odd a word ``condog'' may appear, it will be found in Henry Cockeram's _English Dictionarie_, first published in 1623. The entry is as follows: ``to agree, concurre, cohere, condog, condiscend.''

Mistakes are frequently made in respect of foreign words which retain their original form, especially those which retain their Latin plurals, the feminine singular being often confused with the neuter plural. For instance, there is the word _animalcule_ (plural _animalcules_), also written _animalculum _(plural _animalcula_). Now, the plural _animalcula_ is often supposed to be the feminine singular, and a new plural is at once made--_animalcul _. This blunder is one constantly being made, while it is only occasionally we see a supposed plural _strat _ in geology from a supposed singular strata, and the supposed singular _formulum_ from a supposed plural _formula_ will probably turn up some day.

In connection with popular etymology, it seems proper to make a passing mention of the sailors' perversion of the Bellerophon into the Billy Ruffian, the Hirondelle into the Iron Devil, and La Bonne Corvette into the Bonny Cravat. Some of the supposed changes in public-house signs, such as Bull and Mouth from ``Boulogne mouth,'' and Goat and Compasses from ``God encompasseth us,'' are more than doubtful; but the Bacchanals has certainly changed into the Bag o' nails, and the George Canning into the George and Cannon. The words in the language that have been formed from a false analogy are so numerous and have so often been noted that we must not allow them to detain us here longer.

Imaginary persons have been brought into being owing to blundering misreading. For instance, there are many saints in the Roman calendar whose individuality it would not be easy to prove. All know how St. Veronica came into being, and equally well known is the origin of St. Ursula and her eleven thousand virgins. In this case, through the misreading of her name, the unfortunate virgin martyr Undecimilla has dropped out of the calendar.

Less known is the origin of Saint Xynoris, the martyr of Antioch, who is noticed in the _Martyrologie Romaine_ of Baronius. Her name was obtained by a misreading of Chrysostom, who, referring to two martyrs, uses the word <gr xunwr<i!>s> (couple or pair).

In the City of London there is a church dedicated to St. Vedast, which is situated in Foster Lane, and is often described as St. Vedast, _alias_ Foster. This has puzzled many, and James Paterson, in his _Pietas Londinensis_ (1714), hazarded the opinion that the church was dedicated to ``two conjunct saints.'' He writes: ``At the first it was called St. Foster's in memory of some founder or ancient benefactor, but afterwards it was dedicated to St. Vedast, Bishop of Arras.'' Newcourt makes a similar mistake in his _Reper torium_, but Thomas Fuller knew the truth, and in his _Church History_ refers to ``St. Vedastus, _anglice_ St. Fosters.'' This is the fact, and the name St. Fauster or Foster is nothing more than a corruption of St. Vedast, all the steps of which we now know. My friend Mr. Danby P. Fry worked this out some years ago, but his difficulty rested with the second syllable of the name Foster; but the links in the chain of evidence have been completed by reference to Mr. H. C. Maxwell Lyte's valuable Report on the Manuscripts of the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's. The first stage in the corruption took place in France, and the name must have been introduced into this country as Vast. This loss of the middle consonant is in accordance with the constant practice in early French of dropping out the consonant preceding an accented vowel, as _reine_ from _regina_. The change of _Augustine_ to _Austin_ is an analogous instance. _Vast_ would here be pronounced _Vaust_, in the same way as the word _vase_ is still sometimes pronounced _vause_. The interchange of _v_ and _f_, as in the cases of _Vane_ and _Fane_ and _fox_ and _vixen_, is too common to need more than a passing notice. We have now arrived at the form St. Faust, and the evidence of the old deeds of St. Paul's explains the rest, showing us that the second syllable has grown out of the possessive case. In one of 8 Edward III. we read of the ``King's highway, called Seint Fastes lane.'' Of course this was pronounced St. _Faust<e'>s_, and we at once have the two syllables. The next form is in a deed of May 1360, where it stands as ``Seyn Fastreslane.'' We have here, not a final _r_ as in the latest form, but merely an intrusive trill. This follows the rule by which thesaurus became _treasure, Hebudas, Hebrides_, and _culpatus, culprit_. After the great Fire of London, the church was re-named St. Vedast (_alias_ Foster)--a form of the name which it had never borne before, except in Latin deeds as Vedastus.[1] More might be said of the corruptions of names in the cases of other saints, but these corruptions are more the cause of blunders in others than blunders in themselves. It is not often that a new saint is evolved with such an English name as Foster.

[1] See an article by the Author in _The Athen um_, January 3rd, 1885, p. 15; and a paper by the Rev. W. Sparrow Simpson in the _Jourral of the British Arch ological Association_ (vol. xliii., p. 56).

The existence of the famous St. Vitus has been doubted, and his dance (_Chorea Sancti Vit _) is supposed to have been originally _chorea invita_. But the strangest of saints was S. Viar, who is thus accounted for by D'Israeli in his _Curiosities of Literature_:--

``Mabillon has preserved a curious literary blunder of some pious Spaniards who applied to the Pope for consecrating a day in honour of Saint Viar. His Holiness in the voluminous catalogue of his saints was ignorant of this one. The only proof brought forward for his existence was this inscription:--

S. VIAR.

An antiquary, however, hindered one more festival in the Catholic calendar by convincing them that these letters were only the remains of an inscription erected for an ancient surveyor of the roads; and he read their saintship thus:--

[PREFECTV]S VIAR[VM].''

Foreign travellers in England have usually made sad havoc of the names of places. Hentzner spelt Gray's Inn and Lincoln's Inn phonetically as Grezin and Linconsin, and so puzzled his editor that he supposed these to be the names of two giants. A similar mistake to this was that of the man who boasted that ``not all the British House of Commons, not the whole bench of Bishops, not even Leviticus himself, should prevent him from marrying his deceased wife's sister.'' One of the jokes in Mark Twain's _Huckleberry Finn_ (ch. xxiii.) turns on the use of this same expression ``Leviticus himself.''

The picturesque writer who draws a well-filled-in picture from insufficient data is peculiarly liable to fall into blunders, and when he does fall it is not surprising that less imaginative writers should chuckle over his fall. A few years ago an American editor is said to have received the telegram ``Oxford Music Hall burned to the ground.'' There was not much information here, and he was ignorant of the fact that this building was in London and in Oxford Street, but he was equal to the occasion. He elaborated a remarkable account of the destruction by fire of the principal music hall of academic Oxford. He told how it was situated in the midst of historic colleges which had miraculously escaped destruction by the flames. These flames, fanned into a fury by a favourable wind, lit up the academic spires and groves as they ran along the rich cornices, lapped the gorgeous pillars, shrivelled up the roof and grasped the mighty walls of the ancient building in their destructive embraces.

In 1882 an announcement was made in a weekly paper that some prehistoric remains had been found near the Church of San Francisco, Florence. The note was reproduced in an evening paper and in an antiquarian monthly with words in both cases implying that the locality of the find was San Francisco, California. It is a common mistake of those who have heard of Grolier bindings to suppose that the eminent book collector was a binder; but this is nothing to that of the workman who told the writer of this that he had found out the secret of making the famous Henri II. or Oiron ware. ``In fact,'' he added, ``I could make it as well as Henry Deux himself.'' The idea of the king of France working in the potteries is exceedingly fine.

Family pride is sometimes the cause of exceedingly foolish blunders. The following amusing passage in Anderson's _Genealogical History of the House of Yvery_ (1742) illustrates a form of pride ridiculed by Lord Chesterfield when he set up on his walls the portraits of Adam de Stanhope and Eve de Stanhope. The having a stutterer in the family will appear to most readers to be a strange cause of pride. The author writes: ``It was usual in ancient times with the greatest families, and is by all genealogists allowed to be a mighty evidence of dignity, to use certain nicknames which the French call sobriquets . . . such as `the Lame' or `the Black.'. . . The house of Yvery, not deficient in any mark or proof of greatness and antiquity, abounds at different periods in instances of this nature. Roger, a younger son of William Youel de Perceval, was surnamed Balbus or the Stutterer.''

Sometimes a blunder has turned out fortunate in its consequences; and a striking instance of this is recorded in the history of Prussia. Frederic I. charged his ambassador Bartholdi with the mission of procuring from the Emperor of Germany an acknowledgment of the regal dignity which he had just assumed. It is said that instructions written in cypher were sent to him, with particular directions that he should not apply on this subject to Father Wolff, the Emperor's confessor. The person who copied these instructions, however, happened to omit the word _not_ in the copy in cypher. Bartholdi was surprised at the order, but obeyed it and made the matter known to Wolff; who, in the greatest astonishment, declared that although he had always been hostile to the measure, he could not resist this proof of the Elector's confidence, which had made a deep impression upon him. It was thought that the mediation of the confessor had much to do with the accomplishment of the Elector's wishes.

Misquotations form a branch of literary blunders which may be mentioned here.

The text ``He may run that readeth it'' (Hab. ii. 2) is almost invariably quoted as ``He who runs may read''; and the Divine condemnation ``In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread' (Gen. iii. 19) is usually quoted as ``sweat of thy brow.''

The manner in which Dr. Johnson selected the quotations for his Dictionary is well known, and as a general rule these are tolerably accurate; but under the thirteenth heading of the verb to sit will be found a curious perversion of a text of Scripture. There we read, ``Asses are ye that sit in judgement-- _Judges_,'' but of course there is no such passage in the Bible. The correct reading of the tenth verse of the fifth chapter is: ``Speak, ye that ride on white asses, ye that sit in judgment, and walk by the way.''

From misquotations it is an easy step to pass to mispronunciations. These are mostly too common to be amusing, but sometimes the blunderers manage to hit upon something which is rather comic. Thus an ignorant reader coming upon a reference to an angle of forty-five degrees was puzzled, and astonished his hearers by giving it out as _angel_ of forty-five degrees. This blunderer, however, was outdone by the speaker who described a distinguished personage ``as a very indefat<e'm>gable young man,'' adding, ``but even he must succ mb'' (suck 'um) at last.

As has already been said, blunders are often made by those who are what we usually call ``too clever by half.'' Surely it was a blunder to change the time- honoured name of King's Bench to Queen's Bench. A queen is a female king, and she reigns as a king; the absurdity of the change of sex in the description is more clearly seen when we find in a Prayer-book published soon after the Queen's accession Her Majesty described as ``our Queen and _Governess_.''

Editors of classical authors are often laughed at for their emendations, but sometimes unjustly. When we consider the crop of blunders that have gathered about the texts of celebrated books, we shall be grateful for the labours of brilliant scholars who have cleared these away and made obscure passages intelligible.

One of the most remarkable emendations ever made by an editor is that of Theobald in Mrs. Quickly's description of Falstaff's deathbed (_King Henry V_., act ii., sc. 4). The original is unintelligible: ``his nose was as sharp as a pen and a table of greene fields.'' A friend suggested that it should read `` 'a talked,'' and Theobald then suggested `` 'a babbled,'' a reading which has found its way into all texts, and is never likely to be ousted from its place. Collier's MS. corrector turned the sentence into ``as a pen on a table of green frieze.'' Very few who quote this passage from Shakespeare have any notion of how much they owe to Theobald.

Sometimes blunders are intentionally made--malapropisms which are understood by the speaker's intimates, but often astonish strangers--such as the expressions ``the sinecure of every eye,'' ``as white as the drivelling snow.''[2] Of intentional mistakes, the best known are those which have been called cross readings, in which the reader is supposed to read across the page instead of down the column of a newspaper, with such results as the following:--

[2] See _Spectator_, December 24th, 1887, for specimens of family lingo.

``A new Bank was lately opened at Northampton--<?pointer> no money returned.''

``The Speaker's public dinners will commence next week--admittance, 3/- to see the animals fed.''

As blunders are a class of mistakes, so ``bulls'' are a sub-class of blunders. No satisfactory explanation of the word has been given, although it appears to be intimately connected with the word blunder. Equally the thing itself has not been very accurately defined.

The author of _A New Booke of Mistakes_, 1637, which treats of ``Quips, Taunts, Retorts, Flowts, Frumps, Mockes, Gibes, Jestes, etc.,'' says in his address to the Reader, ``There are moreover other simple mistakes in speech which pass under the name of Bulls, but if any man shall demand of mee why they be so called, I must put them off with this woman's reason, they are so because they bee so.'' All the author can affirm is that they have no connection with the inns and playhouses of his time styled the Black Bulls and the Red Bulls. Coleridge's definition is the best: ``A bull consists in a mental juxtaposition of incongruous ideas with the sensation but without the sense of connection.''[3]

[3] Southey's _Omniana_, vol. i., p. 220.

Bulls are usually associated with the Irish, but most other nations are quite capable of making them, and Swift is said to have intended to write an essay on English bulls and blunders. Sir Thomas Trevor, a Baron of the Exchequer 1625-49, when presiding at the Bury Assizes, had a cause about wintering of cattle before him. He thought the charge immoderate, and said, ``Why, friend, this is most unreasonable; I wonder thou art not ashamed, for I myself have known a beast wintered one whole summer for a noble.'' The man at once, with ready wit, cried, ``That was a _bull_, my lord.'' Whereat the company was highly amused.[4]

[4] Thoms, _Anecdotes and Traditions_, 1839, p 79

One of the best-known bulls is that inscribed on the obelisk near Fort William in the Highlands of Scotland. In this inscription a very clumsy attempt is made to distinguish between natural tracks and made roads:--

``Had you seen these roads before they were made, You would lift up your hands and bless General Wade.''

The bulletins of Pope Clement XIV.'s last illness, which were announced at the Vatican, culminated in a very fair bull. The notices commenced with ``His Holiness is very ill,'' and ended with ``His Infallibility is delirious.''

Negro bulls have frequently been reported, but the health once proposed by a worthy black is perhaps as good an instance as could be cited. He pledged ``De Gobernor ob our State! He come in wid much opposition; he go out wid none at all.''

Still, in spite of the fact that all nations fall into these blunders, and that, as it has been said of some, _Hibernicis ipsis Hibernior_, it is to Ireland that we look for the finest examples of bulls, and we do not usually look in vain.

It is in a Belfast paper that may be read the account of a murder, the result of which is described thus: ``They fired two shots at him; the first shot killed him, but the second was not fatal.'' Connoisseurs in bulls will probably say that this is only a blunder. Perhaps the following will please them better: ``A man was run down by a passenger train and killed; he was injured in a similar way a year ago.''

Here are three good bulls, which fulfil all the conditions we expect in this branch of wit. We know what the writer means, although he does not exactly say it. This passage is from the report of an Irish Benevolent Society: ``Notwithstanding the large amount paid for medicine and medical attendance, very few deaths occurred during the year.'' A country editor's correspondent wrote: ``Will you please to insert this obituary notice? I make bold to ask it, because I know the deceased had a great many friends who would be glad to hear of his death.'' The third is quoted in the _Greville Memoirs_: ``He abjured the errors of the Romish Church, and embraced those of the Protestant.''

It is said that the Irish Statute Book opens characteristically with, ``An Act that the King's officers may travel _by sea_ from one place to another within the _land_ of Ireland''; but one of the main objects of the _Essay on Irish Bulls_, by Maria Edgeworth and her father, Richard Lovell Edgeworth, was to show that the title of their work was incorrect. They find the original of Paddy Blake's echo in Bacon's works: ``I remember well that when I went to the echo at Port Charenton, there was an old Parisian that took it to be the work of spirits, and of good spirits; `for,' said he, `call Satan, and the echo will not deliver back the devil's name, but will say, ``Va-t'en.'' ' '' Mr. Hill Burton found the original of Sir Boyle Roche's bull of the bird which was in two places at once in a letter of a Scotsman--Robertson of Rowan. Steele said that all was the effect of climate, and that, if an Englishman were born in Ireland, he would make as many bulls. Mistakes of an equally absurd character may be found in English Acts of Parliament, such as this: ``The new gaol to be built from the materials of the old one, and the prisoners to remain in the latter till the former is ready''; or the disposition of the prisoner's punishment of transportation for seven years-- ``half to go to the king, and the other half to the informer.'' Peter Harrison, an annotator on the Pentateuch, observed of Moses' two _tables of stone_ that they were made of _shittim wood_. This is not unlike the title said to have been used for a useful little work--``Every man his own Washer- woman.'' Horace Walpole said that the best of all bulls was that of the man who, complaining of his nurse, said, ``I hate that woman, for she changed me at nurse.'' But surely this one quoted by Mr. Hill Burton is far superior to Horace Walpole's; in fact, one of the best ever conceived. Result of a duel--``The one party received a slight wound in the breast; the other fired in the air--and so the matter terminated.''

After this the description of the wrongs of Ireland has a somewhat artificial look: ``Her cup of misery has been overflowing, and is not yet full.''