Note 1 — Chapter I
Reading edition
See p. 43.
2. Words and Places, p. 158.
3. In the last half of this sentence, all the essential words—necessary, acquainted, character, uses, element, important, are Latin (except character, which is Greek).
4. Or, as an Irishman would say, “I am kilt entirely.”
5. Chair is the Norman-French form of the French chaise. The Germans still call a chair a stuhl; and among the English, stool was the universal name till the twelfth century.
6. In two words, a fig-shower or sycophant.
7. A club for beating clothes, that could be handled only by three men.
8. The word faith is a true French word with an English ending—the ending th. Hence it is a hybrid. The old French word was fei—from the Latin fidem; and the ending th was added to make it look more like truth, wealth, health, and other purely English words.
9. The accusative or objective case is given in all these words.
10. In Hamlet v. 2. 283, Shakespeare makes the King say—
“The King shall drink to Hamlet’s better breath; And in the cup an union shall he throw.”
11. Professor Max Müller gives this as the most remarkable instance of cutting down. The Latin mea domina became in French madame; in English ma’am; and, in the language of servants, ’m.
12. Milton says, in one of his sonnets—
“New Presbyter is but old Priest writ large.”
From the etymological point of view, the truth is just the other way about. Priest is old Presbyter writ small.
13. See p. 242.
14. This plural we still find in the famous Winchester motto, “Manners maketh man.”
15. Goût (goo) from Latin gustus, taste.
16. Quickly.
17. This use of the phrase “the same” is antiquated English.
18. Emulating.