Note 101 — Chapter III · THE LAWS OF SPECIAL SIGNIFICANCE, OR THE CREATION OF ROOTS.

Take, for instance, the word “fal-lals,” borrowed from the burden of a song, and often used to describe female vanities. Does not this word afford a curious analogy to the word “falbala,” the origin of which (to express similar articles) has occupied the attention of distinguished philosophers? It has been explained as follows. It is said that a witty prince of the eighteenth century once entered an elegant shop, and determined to try to the utmost the assurance of the (probably pretty) milliner. He therefore asked for a falbala, inventing the oddest vocable he could think of. With admirable but unconscious insight into the principle of language, the undisturbed female at once brought him the garniture de robe called volant, which ended in light floating points. She instinctively caught the notion involved in flabella, flammula, &c.—Nodier, p. 211. The story is told differently by De Brosses, Form Méch. ch. xvi. § 14. The word has excited much discussion. Leibnitz connects it with fald-plat, and Hoffman with furbelow. Charma, p. 306. The murderer, Pierre Rivière, invented the word ennepharer for the torture to which he used, when a boy, to subject frogs; and the word calibène for the instrument which he constructed to kill birds. Charma, p. 66. Du Mérit notices the purely musical names which children instinctively give to those who inspire them with strongly marked feelings of love. “Rumpelstiltskin,” the name of the imp in the fairy tale, is a good instance of the reverse.