Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 8.djvu/141

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10 s. vm. AUG. 10, 1907.] NOTES AND QUERIES.


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not read to understand ' Aniicus Redivivus ' and the many topographical comments on the incident it immortalizes. MB. BRESLAR even misquotes me. ALECK ABRAHAMS. 39, Hillmarton Road, N.

"WOUND": ITS PRONUNCIATION (10 S. vii. 328, 390 ; viii. 74). I am asked, at the .last reference, to account " for the w-sound not being preserved " in East Anglian. There is nothing to account for. The dialects regularly treat the same original sounds differently. At the very same reference we are rightly told that some Northern dialects do preserve the old w-sound. East- Anglian is a Midland dialect, and, as to this sound, follows a way of its own ; excepting, however, the word wound, which in standard English retains the old w-sound owing to the preceding w, but in East- Anglian is developed like all the rest.

But I write this to point out that there is absolutely no need to discuss these things ; for the work has been done already. No one ought even to dream of discussing such sounds until he has first of all referred -to Dr. Wright's ' English Dialect Grammar,' in which all the sounds of all the dialects are tabulated and explained. It is a cruel thing to neglect so wonderful an achieve- ment without even deigning to glance at it. It would save many pages of irrelevant talk. WALTER W. SKEAT.

DOLLARS: " BITS " : "PICAYUNE" (10 S. viii. 63). Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe in ' Uncle Tom's Cabin ' twice uses picayune. Tn chap. xvi. the easygoing slaveholder Augustine St. Clare " smoked a cigar, and read The Picayune " ; and in chap, xxiii. his fiery nephew Henrique says to the mulatto boy he has just horsewhipped, " There 's a picayune for you to buy candy with."

A. F. R.

BURNS'S "MENSURATION SCHOOL" (10 S. viii. 70). Although in addition to the parish school of Kirkoswald there was another, endowed by the Kilkerran family, it was not the latter which was known as the Mensuration School, but the former. The parish schoolmaster Hugh Rodger seems to have established a name for that particular branch of education, enjoying as he did great local fame as a teacher of the art and of geometry. He was, owing to this, much employed as a practical land- surveyor, and boys were especially sent to -him for the completion of their knowledge in. arithmetic and mensuration. Among tthese was Burns's friend Maybole Willie,


who with Burns appears to have had an early opportunity to study the laws of dimensions when they paid their footing at the Kennedys' ale-house, by treating their schoolmaster, according to custom, to a potation of ale ! (See Allan Cunningham's ' Life of Burns,' prefixed to Burns's ' Works,' Tegg, 1840, p. 6.)

J. HOLDEN MACMlCHAEL.

" EDWARD " IN SLAVONIC (10 S. viii. 68). According to Filipovich's Croatian and German dictionary (Agram, 1870), Eduard is, indeed, rendered by Slavoljub ; but in Popovich's Serbian and German dictionary (1879) the same name as Edward is adopted, and the German equivalent Eduard occurs in Mourek's Eng. -Bohemian dictionary (of 1879) as well as in Alexandrow's Eng.- Russian dictionary (of 1878).

As Slavoljub means " fond of glory," and Edward = Anglo-Saxon Eadweard, de- noted originally a " guardian, or protector of property," it appears rather fanciful to identify these two proper names.

H. KREBS.

COL. CROMWELL, ROYALIST, 1646 (10 S. viii. 30). This was probably Henry Crom- well, who was a colonel in the army of Charles I. He was the son of Sir Oliver Cromwell, K.B., who was the elder brother of Robert Cromwell (the Protector's father), and was consequently the Lord Protector's first cousin. His younger brothers, Thomas, John, and William, were all in Charles's army, but were probably not colonels at this time. It could hardly be Henry's son, as he would probably be too young, being the next generation to the Protector. The eldest of this family, too, renounced the name Cromwell, and reassumed that of his great-great-grandfather, Sir Richard Williams, the nephew of Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII.'s Vicar-General.

J. FOSTER PALMER.

CORNISH VERGERS: CARNE FAMILY (10 S. viii. 5). The attention of ASTARTE may be drawn to the portrait of Carne which appears in the Rev. P. H. Ditchfield's admirable work 'The Parish Clerk,' pub- lished this year by Messrs. Methuen. In the chapter (xxii.) on 'Longevity and Heredity,' in which the Carne family figure, many wonderful records are given ; but as far as living persons go, the present repre- sentative of that family beats them all, and is therefore justly referred to by Mr. Ditch- field as " the oldest parish clerk living.

WILLIAM McMuRRAY.