Note 12 — Chapter I · THEORIES OF LANGUAGE.

Where there is so much to choose from it is difficult to select; but perhaps the richest morsels of the book are the reference of the Latin suffix -or in words like sonorous, as well as the final syllable of Hebrew words like tabor, to the “Celtic” mhor, “great,” and the derivation of the Egyptian Rameses from the “Celtic” raromeireas, “gasconading.” The author, however, cannot claim to be facile princeps of the year in the matter of bad etymologizing. A certain Mr. Boult has printed two papers, read before the Literary and Philosophical Society of Liverpool, in which, among other novel statements, he informs us that city is derived from the “Celtic” sigh-tigh or “peace-house;” count from co-meas, “united assessment,” alderman from all-dor-meann, “chief of the great door,” and custom from cur-do-meas, “rent of assessment.” It is needless to observe that “Celtic” with both writers means the decayed forms of an Irish dictionary.