The Major System

The author describes the Major System, which works by associating letter (sounds) with a certain number, and is useful for remembering sequences of numbers. The author mentions that the number/letter associations are arbitrary (although he does give reasons for the associations he lists), but the choice of letters is not: they are all consonants. Specifically, the letters that are associated with a specific number all share a certain articulatory (phonetic) features.

This makes sense, because you would probably get confused if you associated B and F with a certain number, and then P and V with a different number. (The list of associations in this hack have B and P associated with 9, and F and V associated with 8.) Why is that? Well, P and B share the "bilabial" feature, i.e., both are produced primarily by using both the both ("bi") lip("labial"). Likewise, F and V share the "labiodental" feature, which means they are both produced by using a combination of the lips ("labio") and teeth ("dental"). By associating sounds that are articulatorily similar, it helps guard against mapping the wrong letter (and hence the wrong number) when trying to "sound out" whatever you're trying to memorize.

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Savants and TMS

TMS, which stands for Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation, is explained as a procedure that can be used along with EEG and fMRI. What TMS essentially does is short-circuit parts of the brain, so that those parts are no longer functioning for set duration (usually on the scale of minutes). At the end of the hack, there was a reference to an article that mentions the connection between TMS and savants, showing that shutting off parts of the brain can make the subject experience savantism. Autistic savants are autistic, yet are peculiar in that they exhibit extreme talent in memory, artistic ability, etc.

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Nooks and Crannies

This hack extends the previous one by partitioning each room into different areas which you can then assign information to. For instance, if each room is the title of a comedy of Shakespeare, you can assign the left-wall to the protagonist, the floor to the number of acts or scenes, and so on. The book gives 11 distinct areas within a room that you can use for assigning information to, but for some rooms (like bathrooms) there are automatically other distinguishable objects that can be associated with information.

So this type of memorization seems good for data that forms some kind of hierarchy. Starting up student teaching in a few days, I think this can be a very useful concept for lesson and unit planning.

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PET Radioactivity

Today's hack again was merely descriptive. PET stands for Positron Emission Tomography and is used to gauge brain usage by inserting a radioactive element in the subject's blood stream:

The level of radioactivity is not dangerous, but this technique should not be used on the same purpose on a regular basis.

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fMRI Claustrophobia

The fourth hack explains what fMRI is and what it's used for. fMRI stands for functional magnetic resonance imaging and is a technique to map brain activity. It gives a very clear 3-D image of brain activity by 'push[ing] the hydrogen atoms in your brain into a state in which they all "line up" and spin and the same frequency.' That just doesn't sound good for your brain, even tho' this technology has been around for a couple decades. Basically, anything that greatly changes the way your body function at the elemental level makes me very wary.

On the flip-side, it seems that the technology is progressing even further and being integrated with other technologies to make of for some of its failings. The Wikipedia article has a good overview.

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In The First Place

Today's hack described what's called "memory journeys", and is another mnemonic system useful for memorizing information. Basically, you imagine walking through different places (e.g., start at your bedroom, then go to the bathroom, then the kitchen, etc.) and associate each location with the information you want to remember. The author gives an example of how he used it to memorize the 10 tragedies of Shakespeare.

Besides that, I learned that coriander and cilantro refer to the same plant, Coriandrum sativum. Coriander is usually the term for the seeds (used as a spice) while cilantro is the term for the leaves. Good to know :-)

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Evolutionarily Vital

The second performance hack continues where the first left off, and explains another system for memorizing tasks to do (the number-shape system). The subtitle for the hack is "Associate numbers with shapes and use the hunting and gathering faculties of your primitive ancestors to remember 21st-century data." In the "How it Works" section, the author states:

Our ancestors used their senses to learn more about the world, find food, escape predators, and perform many other essential tasks. These tasks were vital to our survival in an evolutionary sense, so the faculties involved in processing sensory information were well developed, and today our brains still process this kind of information thoroughly and efficiently.

Our ancestors used their senses to learn more about the world, find food, escape predators, and perform many other essential tasks. These tasks were vital to our survival, so the faculties involved in processing sensory information were well developed, and today our brains still process this kind of information thoroughly and efficiently.

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Open EEG

This day's hack described what an electroencephalograph (EEG) was, how it was used, why it was used, and the pros and cons of using it. It also mentioned a project called OpenEEG that tries to provide instructions, hardware, and software for hobbyists to fool around with EEGs. The project has separate hardware and software mailing lists, and (unfortunately) the wiki link gives me an error page. (The correct address to the wiki is http://wiki.asiaquake.org/openeeg/published/HomePage). Besides that, there are a quite a few links on the main home page, which will get someone started if they are truly interested.

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Remember Things to Bring

The first hack in Mind Performance Hacks: Tips & Tools for Overclocking Your Brain is for using a mnemonic to remember what to bring when you go out, and mentions a few mnemonic methods to help. In the See Also section, the author mentions that he carries a man-purse to help him with all the stuff he likes to bring when he leaves the house. While I haven't made it far enough to get a man-purse, I regularly carry a backpack around, and when I don't have that, I usually make sure I have cargo shorts so that I can stuff things in my pocket. But reflecting a bit more and what I usually like to carry (i.e., a couple books), the backpack is often too large and the pockets often too small. So I think I'm going to break down and buy me a man-purse. Or just start using the tote bag I got from YAPC::NA 2007 that I've neglected to use.

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Self Reporting

I'm going to try to go through a hack a day in Mind Hacks: Tips & Tools for Using Your Brain. The first hack just gives some background on cognitive psychology and science, and this sentence stuck out to me:

Another problem with trying to guess how the mind works is that you can't trust people when they offer their opinion on why they did something or how they did it.

I think this sentence was poorly worded because it's not necessarily true that you can't trust people when they offer their opinion about something they did. The way that the author wrote the sentence seemed (to me, at least) to assert you can never trust what someone says about why or how they did something. In light of everyday experience and logic, you can trust people to offer why or how they did something, it's just not a rule. The simple reason being ego (making yourself look like what you are not). But just because you can't always trust everyone doesn't mean that you can't trust someone in certain situations. Two simple examples:

• I can trust my mom telling me that she gave me a car because I am her son and she loves me.
• I can trust my friend who is out of the country when he writes e-mails to me because he misses me.

Other than that, the first hack wasn't that interesting, but just briefly implicitly mentioned that the mind and brain are not distinct, and that's what should be kept in mind when reading the book.

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The Romance of Words (Part 4)

Okay, so the final installment of what interested me in The Romance of Words. This post covers what I found in pp. 98-160:

• bridal (p. 98):
  

  Bridal for bride-ale, from the liquid consumed at marriage festivities, is due to analogy with betrothal, espousal, etc. A 16th-century Puritan records with satisfaction the disappearance of--

  "Church-ales, helpe-ales, and soule-ales, called also dirge-ales, and heathenish rioting at bride-ales."
  (Harrison, Description of England, 1577.)

• denizen, foreign, citizen, and carfax (p. 99):
  

  In the records of medieval London we frequently come across the distinction made between people who lived "in the city," Anglo-Fr. deinz (dans) la cité, and "outside the city," Anglo-Fr. fors (hors) la cité. The former were called deinzein, whence our denizen, and the latter forein.[1] The Anglo-French form of modern Fr. citoyen was citein, which became citizen by analogy with Fr. denizen. The following passage from a medieval London by-law shows how rigid was the division between "denizen" and "foreign" traders--

  "Item, qe nulle pulletere deinzeyn n'estoise a Carfeux del Ledenhalle deins mesoun ne dehors, ove conilles, volatilie, n'autre pulletrie pur vendre...issint qe les forreins pulleters, ove lour pulletrie, estoisent par eux mesmes, et vendent lour pulletrie sur le cornere de Ledenhalle, sanz ceo qe ascuns pulletere deinzein viegne ou medle en vent ou en achate ove eux, ne entre eux."[2] (Liber Albus.)

  1. An unoriginal g occurs in many English words derived from French, e.g., foreign, sovereign, older sovran, sprightly for spritely, i.e., sprite-like, delight, from Old Fr. delit, which belongs to Lat. delectare.
  2. "Also, that no 'denizen' poulterer shall stand at the 'Carfax' of Leadenhall in a house or without, with rabbits, fowls, or other poultry to sell...and that the 'foreign' poulterers, with their poultry, shall stand by themselves, and sell their poultry at the corner of Leadenhall, without any 'denizen' poulterer coming or meddling in sale or purchase with them, or among them."
     The word carfax, once the usual name for a "cross-way," survives at Oxford and Exeter. It is plural, from Fr. carrefour, Vulgar Lat. *quadrifurcum (for furca), four-fork.
• luncheon (p. 100-101):
  

  In the word luncheon both form and meaning have been influenced by the obsolete nuncheon, a meal at noon, Mid. Eng. none-chenche, for *none-schenche, noon draught, from Anglo-Sax. scencan,[2] to pour. Drinking seems to have been regarded as more important than eating, for in some counties we find this nuncheon replaced by bever, the Anglo-French infinitive from Lat. bibere, to drink. Lunch, a piece or a hunk, especially of bread, also used in the sense of a "snack" (cf. Scot. "piece"), was extended to luncheon by analogy with nuncheon, which it has now replaced--

  "So munch on, crunch on, take your nuncheon,
  Breakfast, supper, dinner, luncheon."
  (Browning Pied Piper of Hamelin.)

• scissors (p. 103):
  

  Scissors were formerly cizars (cf. Fr. ciseaux), connected with Lat. caedere, to cut. The modern spelling is due to association with Lat. scissor, a cutter, tailor, from scindere, to cut.

  This gem, along with many others in pp. 101-109, appear to be eggcorns. (Also with next two entries.)
• run the gauntlet (p. 105):
  

  The military phrase to run the gauntlet, has no connexion with gauntlet, glove. The older form is gantlope--

  "Some said he ought to be tied neck and heels; others that he deserved to run the gantlope." (Tom Jones, vii. 1.)

  It is a punishment of Swedish origin from the period of the Thirty Years' War. The Swedish from is gat-lopp, in which gat is cognate with Eng. gate, in its northern sense of "street," and loppe with Eng., leap and Ger. laufen, to run.

• curry favour (p. 105-106):
  

  To curry favour is a corruption of Mid. Eng. "to curry favel." The expression is translated form French. Palsgrave has curryfavell, a flatterer, "estrille faveau," estriller (étriller) meaning "to curry (a horse)." Faveau, earlier Fauvel, is the name of a horse in the famous Roman de Fauvel, a satirical Old French poem of the early 14th century. He symbolizes worldly vanity carefully tended by all classes of society. The name is a diminutive of Fr. fauvre, tawny, cognate with Eng, fallow (deer).

• dishevelled (p. 109):
  

  We speak pleonastically of "dishevelled hair," while Old Fr. deschevelé, lit. dis-haired, now replaced by échevelé, can only be applied to a person, e.g., une femme toute deschevelée, "discheveled, with all her hair disorderly falling about her eares" (Cotgrave).

• cheer (p. 109):
  

  The word cheer meant in Mid. English "face." Its French original chère, lit. "make a good face," a meaning preserved in "to be of good cheer." In both languages the meaning has been transferred to the more substantial blessings which the pleasant countenance seems to promise, and also to the felicity resulting from good treatment. The true meaning of the word is so lost that we can speak of a "cheerful face," i.e., a face full of face.

• glamour (p. 116):
  

  The poetic glamour is the same as grammar, which had in the Middle Ages the sens of mysterious learning. From the same source we have the French corruption grimoire, "a booke of conjuring" (Cotgrave). Glamour and gramarye were both revived by Scott--

  "A moment then the volume spread, And one short spell therein he read; It had much of glamour might." (Lay of the Last Minstrel, iii. 9)
  

  "And how he sought her castle high, That morn, by help of gramarye." (Ibid., v. 27)

• quire (p. 116):
  

  Quire is the same word as quair, in the "King's Quair," i.e., book. Its Mid. English form is quayer, Old Fr. quaer, caer (cahier), Vulgar Lat. *quaternum, for quaternio, "a quier with foure sheetes" (Cooper).

• solder (p. 122-123):
  

  Solder, formerly spelt sowder or sodder, and still so pronounced by the plumber, represents Fr. soudure, from the verb souder....Fr. souder is from Lat. solidare, to consolidate.

• gloss (p. 123):
  

  The verb gloss, or gloze, means simply to explain or translate, form Greco-Lat. glossa, tongue; but, under the influence of the unrelated gloss, superficial lustre, it has acquired the sense of specious interpretation.

• gammon (p. 125):
  

  Gammon, from Mid. Eng. gamen, now reduced to game, survives as a slang word and also in the compound backgammon. In a gammon of bacon we have the Picard form of Fr. jambon, a ham, an augmentative of jambe, leg. Cotgrave has jambon, "a gammon."

• calender (p. 126):
  

  John Gilpin's "good friend the calender," i.e., the cloth-presser, has nothing to do with the calender which indicates the calends of the month, nor with the calender, or Persian monk, of the Arabian Nights, whom Mr Pecksniff described as a "one-eyed almanack"--

  "A one-eyed calender, I think, sir," faltered Tom. "'They are pretty nearly the same thing, I believe,' said Mr Pecksniff, smiling compassionately; 'or they used to be in my time.'" (Martin Chuzzlewit, Ch. 6.)

  Unbeknownst to me 'til now, calender is a valid alternate spelling for calendar (according to the OED).
• master (p. 127):
  

  A craft, or association of masters, was once called a mistery (for mastery or maistrie), usually misspelt mystery by association with a word of quite different origin and meaning. This accidental resemblance is often played on--

  "Painting, sir, I have heard say, is a mystery; but what mystery there should be in hanging, if I should be hanged, I cannot imagine." (Measure for Measure, iv. 2.)

  For the pronunciation, cf. mister, for master, and mistress.[1] the French for "mistery" is métier, earlier mestier, " a trade, occupation, misterie, handicraft" (Cotgrave), from Old Fr. maistier, Lat. magisterium. In its other senses Fr. métier represents Lat. ministerium, service.

  1. Now abbreviated miss in a special sense.
• utterance (p. 129-130):
  

  The Shakespeare utterance--

  "Rather than so, come, fate, into the list, And champion me to the utterance." (Macbeth, iii. 1.)--

  is the Fr. outrance, in combat à outrance, i.e., to the extreme, which belongs to Lat. ultra. It is quite unconnected with the verb to utter, from out.

• Sorrow and sorry (p. 133):
  

  Sorrow and sorry are quite unrelated. Sorrow is from Anglo-Sax. sorgh, sorh, cognate to Ger. sorge, anxiety. Sorry, Mid. Eng. sori, is a derivative of sore, cognate with Ger. sehr, very, lit. "painfully"; cf. English "sore afraid," or the modern "awfully nice," which is in South Germany arg nett, "vexatiously nice."

• caulk (p. 157):
  

  We now caulk a ship by forcing oakum into the seams. Hence the verb to caulk is explained as coming from Mid. Eng. cauken, to tread, Old Fr. cauquer, caucher, Lat. calcare, from calx, heel. This makes the process somewhat acrobatic, although this is not, philologically, a very serious objection. But we caulk the ship or seams, not the oakum. Primitive caulking consisted in plastering a wicker coracle with clay. The earliest caulker on record is Noah, who pitched[1] his ark within and without with pitch. In the Vulgate (Genesis, vi. 14), the pitch is called bitumen and the verb is linere, "to daub, besmear, etc." Next in chronological order comes the mother of Moses, who "took for him an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it with slime and with pitch" (Exodus, ii. 3), bitumine ac pice in the Vulgate. Bitumen, or mineral pitch, was regularly applied to this purpose, even by Elizabethan seamen. Failing this, anything sticky and unctuous was used, e.g., clay or lime. Lime now means usually calcium oxide, but its original sense is anything viscous; cf. Ger. leim, glue, and our bird-lime. The oldest example of the verb to caulk is about 1500. In Mid. English we find to lime used instead, e.g., in reference to the ark--

  "Set and limed agen the flood" (c. 1250),--

  and--

  "Lyme it with cleye and pitche within and without." (Caxton, 1483.)

  Our caulk is in medieval Latin calcare, and this represents a rare Latin verb calicare, to plaster with lime, from calx, lime. Almost every language which has a nautical vocabulary uses for our caulk a verb related to Fr. calfater. This is of Spanish or Portuguese origin. The Portuguese word is calafetar, from cal, lime, and afeitar, to put in order, trim, etc.

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The Romance of Words (Part 3)

Okay, another installment of what interested me in The Romance of Words. This post covers what I found in pp. 61-97:

• infantry (p. 64):
  

  Infantry comes, through French, from Italian. It means a collection of "infants" or juniors, so called to contrast with the proved veterans who composed the cavalry.

• rummage (p. 64):
  

  To rummage meant for the Elizabethan navigators to stow goods in a hold. A rummager was what we calla stevedore. Rummage is Old Fr. arrumage (arrimage), from arrumer, to stow, the middle syllable of which is probably cognate with English room; cf. arranger, to put in "rank."

• stevedore (p. 64):
  

  A Spanish word, Lat. stipator "one that stoppeth chinkes" (Cooper). It came to England in connexion with the wool trade.

• pedigree (p. 65):
  

  Pedigree was in Mid. English pedigrew, petigrew, etc. It represents Of Fr. pie de grue, crane's foot, foot from the shape of a sign used in showing lines of descent in genealogical charts. The older form survives in the family name Pettigrew. Here it is a nickname, like Pettifer (pied de fer), iron-foot; cf. Sheepshanks.

• spade (p. 65):
  

  Many people must have wondered at some time why the clubs and spades on cards are so called. The latter figure, it is true, bearts some resemblance to a spade, but no giant of fiction is depicted with a club with a triple head. The explanation is that we have adopted the French pattern, carreau (see p. 128), diamond, coeur, heart, pique, pike, spear-head, trèfle, trefoil, clover-leaf. but have given to the two latter the names used in the Italian and Spanish pattern, which, instead of the pike and trefoil, has the sword (Ital. spada), and mace (Ital. bastone). Etymologically both spades are identical, the origin being Greco-Lat. spatha, the name of a number of blade-shaped objects; cf. the diminutive spatula.

• fond (p. 67):
  

  The transition form fond, foolish, which survives in "fond hopes," tofond, loving, is easy. French fou is used exactly the same way. Cf. also, to dote on, i.e., to be foolish about.

• puny (p. 67):
  

  Puny is Fr. puîné, from puis né, later born, junior, whence the puisne justices. Milton uses it of a minor--

  "He must appear in print like a puny with his guardian." (Areopagitica)

• petty (p. 67):
  

  Petty, Fr. petit, was similarly used for a small boy.

• miniature (p. 68):
  

  Change of meaning may be brought about by association. A miniature is a small portrait, and we even use the words as an adjective meaning small, on a reduced scale. But the true sense of miniature is something painted in minium, red lead. Florio explains miniatura as "a limning (see p. 54), a painting with vermilion."

• steward (p. 75):
  

  The steward, or sty-ward, looked after his master's pigs. He rose in importance until, by the marriage of Marjorie Bruce to Walter the Stewart of Scotland, he founded the most picturesque of royal houses.

• onion (p. 75):
  

  The onion, Fr. oignon, Lat. unio, union- is so named because successive skins form an harmonious one-ness. It is doublet of union.

• surly (p. 77):
  

  From Fr. sire comes Eng. sir, and from this was formed the adjective sirly, now spelt surly, which in Shakespeare still means haughty, arrogant--

  "See how the surly Warwick mans the wall." (3 Henry VI., v. 1.)

• companion (p. 77):
  

  Companion, with its related words, belongs to Vulgar Lat. *companio, companion-, bread-sharer. The same idea is represented by the pleonastic Eng. messmate, the second part of which, mate, is related to meat. Mess, food, Old Fr. mes (mets), Lat. missum, is in modern English only military or naval, but was once the usual name for a dish of food....

• put to the test (p. 87):
  

  To bring a thing to the test is to put it in the alchemist's or metallurgist's test or trying-pot (cf. test-tube), Old Fr. test (têt). This is related to Old Fr. teste (tête), head, from Lat. testa, tile, pot, etc., used in Roman slang from caput. Shakespeare of has the complete metaphor--

  "Let there be some more test made of my metal, Before so noble and so great a figure Be stamp'd upon it." (Measure for Measure, i. 1.)

• shambles (p. 87):
  

  The old butchers' shops which once adjoined Nottingham Market Place were called the Shambles. The word is similarly used at Carlisle and probably elsewhere; but to most people it is familiar only in the metaphorical sense of place of slaughter, generally regarded as singular. Thus Denys of Burgundy says--

  "The beasts are in the shambles." (Cloister and Hearth, Ch. 33)--

  etymologically misusing the word, which does not mean slaughterhouse, but the bench on which meat is exposed for sale. It is a very early loan from Lat. scamnum, a bench or form, also explained by Cooper as "a step or grice (see p. 96) to get up to bedde."

• spick and span (p. 88):
  

  Modern German has funkelnagelneu, spark nail new; but in older German we find also spanneu, splinterneu, chip new, splinter new; which shows the origin of our spick and span (new), i.e., spike and chip new. French has tout battant neuf, beating new, i.e., fresh from the anvil.

• at bay (p. 88):
  

  Many old hunting terms survive as metaphors. To be at bay, Fr. aux abois, is to be facing the baying hounds.

• jeopardy (p. 88):
  

  Jeopardy is Old Fr. jeu parti, a divided game, hence an equal encounter.

• cajole (p. 89):
  

  Fowling has given us cajole, decoy, and trepan. Fr. cajoler, which formerly meant to chatter like a jay in a cage, has in modern French assumed the meaning of enjôler, earlier engeoler, "to incage, or ingaole" (Cotgrave), hence, to entice. Fr. geôle, gaol, represents Vulgar Lat. *caveola.

• decoy (p. 89):
  

  Decoy, earlier also coy, is Du. kooi, cage. The later form is perhaps due to duck-coy. Du. kooi is also of Latin origin. It comes, like Fr. cage, from Vulgar Lat. *cavea, and has a doublet kevie, whence Scot. cavie, a hen-coop.

• apron (p. 92):
  

  Apron was in Mid. English naprun, from Old Fr. naperon, a derivative of nappe, cloth.

• humble-pie (p. 92):
  

  Humble-pie is a popular perversion of umble-pie, i.e., a pie made from the umbles, or inferior parts of the stag. But umble is for earlier numble, Old. Fr. nomble, formed, with dissimilation, from Lat. lumbulus, diminutive of lumbus, loin; cf. niveau (p. 50). Thus humble-pie has etymologically no connexion with humility.

• umpire (p. 92):
  

  Umpire represents Old Fr. non per (pair), not equal, the umpire being a third person called in when arbitrators could not agree. This appears clearly in the following extract from a medieval letter--

  "And if so be that the said arbitrators may not accord before the said feast of Allhalowes, then the said parties be the advise abovesaid are agreed to abide the award and ordinance of of an noumper to be chosen be the said arbitrators." (Plumpton Correspondence, 1431.)

  For the sense we may compare Span. tercero, "the third, a broaker, a mediator" (Percyvall).

• nickname (p. 93):
  

  The opposite has happened in the case of a newt for an ewt, and a nick-name for an eke-name. Eke, also, occurs in the first stanza of John Gilpin. It is cognate with Ger. auch, also, and Lat. augere, to increase.

• alarm and alert(p. 93):
  

  The two words alarm and alert include the Italian definite article. The first is Ital. all'arme, to arms, for a le arme, and the second is all'erta for alla (a la) erta, the last word representing Lat. erecta. With rolled r, alarm becomes alarum, whence the aphetic larum--

  "Then we shall hear their larum, and they ours." (Coriolanus, i. 4)

  Ger. lärm, noise, is the same word. In Luther's time we also find allerm.

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The Romance of Words (Part 2)

I mentioned that I've been reading The Romance of Words I've now finished it, so I figured I would list the many other words that I found that piqued my interest. Here's the ones found in pp. 37-60:

• magenta (p.37):
  

  Some elderly people can still remember ladies wearing a garibaldi. To the same period belongs the colour magenta, from the victory of the French over the Austrians at Magenta in 1859.

• Nicotine (p.37):
  

  Nicotine is named from Jean Nicot, French ambassador at Lisbon, who sent some tobacco-plants to Catherine de Médicis in 1560. He also compiled the first Old French dictionary.

• boycott (p.38):
  

  Burke and boycott commemorate a scoundrel and a victim. The latter word, from the treatment of Captain Boycott and Co. Mayo in 1880, seems to have supplied a want, for Fr. boycotter and Ger. boycottieren have become familiar words.

• jacket (p. 40):
  

  A coat of mail was called in English a jack and in French jaque, "a jack, or coat of maile" (Cotgrave); hence the diminutive jacket.

• zany (p. 41):
  

  Zany, formerly a conjuror's assistant, is Zanni (see p. 114), and Italian diminutive of Giovanni, John.

  One of my friends named John fits the modern meaning perfectly.
• dunce (p. 41):
  

  Dunce is a libel on the disciples of the great medieval schoolman John Duns Scotus, born at Duns in Berwickshire.

  Despite the libel, he was quite brilliant.
• dollar (p. 44):
  

  The dollar is the Low Ger. daler, for Ger. taler, originally called a Joachimstaler, from the silver-mine of Joachimstal, "Joachim's dale," in Bohemia. Cotgrave registers a curious Okd French perversion jocandale, "a daller, a piece of money worth about 3s. sterl."

• peach (p. 44):
  

  Some fruits may also be mentioned, e.g., the damson from Damascus, through Old Fr. damaisine, "a damascene or damsen plum" (Cotgrave), the currant from Corinth and the peach, Fr. pêche, from Vulgar Lat., pessica, for Persica.

• polka (p. 44):
  

  Other "local" dances are the polka, which means Polish woman, mazurka, woman of Mazuria, and the obsolete polonaise, lit. Polish, cracovienne, from Cracow, and varsovienne, from Warsaw.

• tarantula (p. 44-45):
  

  The tarantella, like the tarantula spider, takes its name from Taranto, in Italy. The tune of the dance is said to have been originally employed as a cure for the lethargy caused by the bite of the spider. Florio has tarantola, "a serpent called an eft or an evet. Some take it to be a flye whose sting is perillous and deadly, and nothing but divers sounds of musicke can cure the patient."

• troy (p. 45):
  

  The town of Troyes has given its name to troy weight.

• lateen (p. 45):
  

  An argosy, formerly also ragusye, was named from the Adriatic port of Ragusa, and a lateen sail is a Latin, i.e., Mediterranean, sail...

• guinea-pig (p. 46):
  

  The guinea-fowl and guinea gold came fist from the west coast of Africa, but the guinea-pig is a native of Brazil. the name probably came from the Guinea-mean, or slave-ships, which regularly followed a triangular course. They sailed outward to the west coast of Africa with English goods. These they exchanged for slaves, whom they transported to the West Indies, the horrible "middle passage," and finally they sailed homeward with the new World produce, including, no doubt, guinea-pigs brought home by sailors. the turkey is also called guinea-fowl in the 17th century, probably to be explained in the same way. the German name for the guinea-pig, meerschweinchen, seems to mean little pig form over the sea.

• h-artificial (p. 48):
  

  The "educated" h- of modern English is largely an artificial restoration; cf. the modern hotel-keeper with the older word ostler (see p. 130), or the family name Armitage with the restored hermitage.

• ampersand (p. 49):
  

  The m of the curious word ampersand, variously spelt, is due to the neighbouring p. It is applied to the sign &. I thought it obsolete till I cam across it on successive days in two contemporary writers--

  "One of my mother's chief cares was to teach me my letters, which I learnt from big A to Ampersand in the old hornbook at Lantrig." (Quiller-Couch, Dead Man's Rock, Ch. 2)

  "Tommy knew all about the work, Knew every letter in it from A to Emperzan. (Pett Ridge, In the Wars.)

  Children used to repeat the alphabet thus--"A per se A, B per se B," and so on to "and per se and." The symbol & is an abbreviation of Lat. et, written ___

  (I couldn't find the character in Unicode :-( Basically it's the fancy style of &, like as seen here).
• mob and pun (p. 57):
  

  This method of shortening words was very popular in the 17th century, from which period date cit(izen), mob(ile vulgus), the fickle crowd, and pun(digrion). We often find the fuller mobile used for mob. The origin of pundigrion is uncertain. It may be an illiterate attempt at Ital. puntiglio, which, like Fr. pointe, was used of a verbal quibble or fine distinction.

  I knew about mob, but not about pun.
• whiskey (p. 58):
  

  We have navvy for navigator, brandy for brandywine, from Du. brandewyn, lit. burn wine, and whisky for usquebaugh, Gaelic uisge-beatha, water of life (cf. eau-de-vie), so that the literal meaning of whisky is very innocent. It has a doublet in the river-name Usk. Before the 18th century usquebaugh was the regular form.

• daffodil (p. 60):
  

  Cotgrave has asphodile (asphodèle), "the daffodil, affodill, or asphodill, flower." The playful elaboration daffadowndilly is as old as Spenser.

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