Part 5 (2/2)

_Porcelain_ comes, through French, from Ital. _porcellana_, ”a kinde of fine earth called _porcelane_, whereof they make fine china dishes, called _porcellan_ dishes” (Florio). This is, however, a transferred meaning, _porcellana_ being the name of a particularly glossy sh.e.l.l called the ”Venus sh.e.l.l.” It is a derivative of Lat. _porcus_, pig.

_Easel_ comes, with many other painters' terms, from Holland. It is Du.

_ezel_, a.s.s, which, like Ger. _Esel_, comes from Lat. _asinus_. For its metaphorical application we may compare Fr. _chevalet_, easel, lit.

”little horse,” and Eng. ”clothes-_horse_.”

[Page Heading: THINGS NAMED FROM PERSONS]

Objects often bear the names of individuals. Such are _albert_ chain, _brougham_, _victoria_, _wellington_ boot. Some elderly people can remember ladies wearing a red blouse called a _garibaldi_.[32] Sometimes an inventor is immortalised, e.g., _mackintosh_ and _shrapnel_, both due to 19th-century inventors. The more recent _maxim_ is named from one who, according to the late Lord Salisbury, has saved many of his fellow-men from dying of old age. Other benefactors are commemorated in _derringer_, first recorded in Bret Harte, and _bowie_, which occurs in d.i.c.kens' _American Notes_. _Sandwich_ and _spencer_ are coupled in an old rime--

”Two n.o.ble earls, whom, if I quote, Some folks might call me sinner; The one invented half a coat, The other half a dinner.”

An Earl Spencer (1782-1845) made a short overcoat fas.h.i.+onable for some time. An Earl of Sandwich (1718-1792) invented a form of light refreshment which enabled him to take a meal without leaving the gaming table. It does not appear that _Billy c.o.c.k_ is to be cla.s.sed with the above, or with _Chesterfield, Chippendale & Co._ The _New English Dictionary_ quotes (from 1721) a description of the Oxford ”blood” in his ”_bully-c.o.c.ked_ hat,” worn aggressively on one side. _Pinchbeck_ was a London watchmaker (_fl. c._ 1700), and _doily_ is from _Doyley_, a linen-draper of the same period. Etienne de _Silhouette_ was French finance minister in 1759, but the application of his name to a black profile portrait is variously explained. _Negus_ was first brewed in Queen Anne's reign by Colonel Francis Negus.

The first _orrery_ was constructed by the Earl of Orrery (_c._ 1700).

_Galvani_ and _Volta_ were Italian scientists of the 18th century.

_Mesmer_ was a German physician of the same period. _Nicotine_ is named from Jean Nicot, French amba.s.sador at Lisbon, who sent some tobacco plants to Catherine de Medicis in 1560. He also compiled the first Old French dictionary. The gallows-shaped contrivance called a _derrick_ perpetuates the name of a famous hangman who officiated in London about 1600. It is a Dutch name, identical with _Dietrich_, _Theodoric_, and _Dirk_ (Hatteraick). Conversely the Fr. _potence_, gallows, meant originally a bracket or support, Lat. _potentia_, power. The origin of _darbies_, handcuffs, is unknown, but the line--

”To bind such babes in father _Derbies_ bands,”

(GASCOIGNE, _The Steel Gla.s.s_, 1576.)

suggests connection with some eminent gaoler or thief-taker.

[Page Heading: TANTALISE--PAMPHLET]

Occasionally a verb is formed from a proper name. On the model of _tantalise_, from the punishment of Tantalus, we have _bowdlerise_, from _Bowdler_, who published an expurgated ”family Shakespeare” in 1818; cf.

_macadamise_. _Burke_ and _boycott_ commemorate a scoundrel and a victim. The latter word, from the treatment of Captain Boycott of Co.

Mayo in 1880, seems to have supplied a want, for Fr. _boycotter_ and Ger. _boycottieren_ have become every-day words. Burke was hanged at Edinburgh in 1829 for murdering people by suffocation in order to dispose of their bodies to medical schools. We now use the verb only of ”stifling” discussion, but in the Ingoldsby Legends it still has the original sense--

”But, when beat on his knees, That confounded De Guise Came behind with the 'fogle' that caused all this breeze, Whipp'd it tight round his neck, and, when backward he'd jerk'd him, The rest of the rascals jump'd on him and _Burk'd_ him.”

(_The Tragedy._)

_Jarvey_, the slang name for a hackney coachman, especially in Ireland, was in the 18th century _Jervis_ or _Jarvis_, but history is silent as to this modern _Jehu_. A _pasquinade_ was originally an anonymous lampoon affixed to a statue of a gladiator which still stands in Rome.

The statue is said to have been nicknamed from a scandal-loving cobbler named Pasquino. Florio has _pasquino_, ”a statue in Rome on whom all libels, railings, detractions, and satirical invectives are fathered.”

_Pamphlet_ is an extended use of Old Fr. _Pamphilet_, the name of a Latin poem by one _Pamphilus_ which was popular in the Middle Ages. The suffix _-et_ was often used in this way, _e.g._, the translation of aesop's fables by Marie de France was called _Ysopet_, and Cato's moral maxims had the t.i.tle _Catonet_, or Parvus Cato. Modern Fr. _pamphlet_, borrowed back from English, has always the sense of polemical writing.

In Eng. _libel_, lit. ”little book,” we see a similar restriction of meaning. A three-quarter portrait of fixed dimensions is called a _kitcat_--

”It is not easy to see why he should have chosen to produce a replica, or rather a _kitcat_.”

(_Journal of Education_, Oct. 1911.)

The name comes from the portraits of members of the _Kitcat_ Club, painted by Kneller. _Kit Kat_, Christopher Kat, was a pastrycook at whose shop the club used to dine.

Implements and domestic objects sometimes bear christian names. We may mention spinning-_jenny_, and the innumerable meanings of _jack_.

_Davit_, earlier _daviot_, is a diminutive of David. Fr. _davier_, formerly _daviet_, is used of several mechanical contrivances, including a pick-lock. A kind of davit is called in German _Jutte_, a diminutive of Judith. The implement by which the burglar earns his daily bread is now called a _jemmy_, but in the 17th century we also find _bess_ and _betty_. The French name is _rossignol_, nightingale. The German burglar calls it _Dietrich_, _Peterchen_, or _Klaus_, and the contracted forms of the first name, _dyrk_ and _dirk_, have pa.s.sed into Swedish and Danish with the same meaning. In Italian a pick-lock is called _grimaldello_, a diminutive of the name Grimaldo.

[Page Heading: GRIMALKIN--JUG]

A kitchen wench was once called a _malkin_--

<script>