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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