Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 8.djvu/301

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10 s. VIIL SEPT. 28, 1907.] NOTES AND QUERIES.


247


firm found a new home at 192, Fleet Street, .at the east corner of Chancery Lane

A few months before this, Mr. Saunders

retired from the firm, and Mr. Edmund

Hodgson, the grandfather of the present

itive partners, undertook the entire control.

JOHN C. FRANCIS. (To be continued.)

" GOUMIERS," MOROCCO TERM. Refer- ring to the disturbances in Morocco, The Evemng Standard of 28 August had the following :

"In the fight on Sunday the 'Goumiers,' or

Uoums as they are popularly called, whose chief

duty in Algeria is to protect caravans crossing the

ihara. charged the enemy several times. They

ight almost naked, says the Telegraph, and are

therefore very free in their movements. They did

not, however, succeed in getting to close quarters,

as in Morocco it is enough for one side to advance

tor the others to retreat."

This seems to be a new way of spelling the well-known tribal name Kroumiers, also written Kroumirs, Krumirs, Khrurnirs, Khumirs, Khomairs. &c. The Kroumiers are Tunisians, and it was to punish them for their raids upon the Algerian frontier that the French occupied Tunis in 1881. JAS. PLATT, Jun.

GREAT WYRLEY: ITS PRONUNCIATION. This name of ill omen is on every lip, but I fancy few Londoners pronounce it correctly, t is often, if not generally, sounded as if the first syllable had something to do with " wire," or so as to rime with Brierley. If I say that this is wrong, it is with some diffi- dence, as I have never been near the place myself ; but I have made exhaustive in- quiries among my Staffordshire friends, and I am assured that locally the name rimes to Burley. If this is not right, perhaps some one will correct me.

JAS. PLATT. Jun.

ORRIS-ROOT. It is well known that orris is merely an English version of the Italian irios or ireos, which was used in the sense of orris-root. The difficulty is to explain the Italian form. It is certainly a genitive case ; for though Liddell and Scott give no other form of the genitive of tpis (iris) than i'piSos, it is the fact that Prellwitz, in his

  • Greek Etymological Dictionary,' gives

also the forms t/nos and i'/aews ; which ac- counts for the Italian irios and ireos, both being correct. Lyte, in his translation of Dodoens, bk. ii. c. 35, makes it clear that ireos was the name given in shops to orris-root. It is plainly short for i/oeos pifa',


so that ireos is simply "root of iris," as distinguished from the iris itself. There is really no difficulty at all, when we regard the matter in this light.

WALTER W. SKEAT.

"RADIOGRAM": " RADIOGRAPHIC." During the maiden voyage of the new Cunarder the Lusitania across the Atlantic a few new and graceful additions to our vocabulary appeared in the papers. "Wire- less telegrams " passed into " Marconi- grams," which in turn have in the last few days developed into " radiograms." On 10 September The Liverpool Post and Mercury, p. 7, said :

' Though the Lusitania has now passed beyond the limits of direct communication with land, she will be in wireless communication with several

eastward-bound vessels during her journey On

Wednesday night or Thursday morning the Lusi- tania will herself get into radiographic touch with the American coast. The vessel has passed beyond the transmitting radius of her wireless telegraph apparatus."

On 11 September, p. 7, the same paper said :

" The next vessel coming eastwards which may be expected to transmit Lusitania Marconigrams will be the Saxonia."

This paragraph is headed ' Radiograms from the Atlantic.' WM. JAGGARD.

[The earliest instance of " Marconigram " in the 'N.E.D.' is 30 Jan., 1902. "Radiogram" and "radiographic" also appear in the 'N.E.D.,' but only in relation to photography by means of the Rontgen rays, j

ROBERT SHELTON MACKENZIE. The chronicle of his doings in D.N.B.,' xxxv. 161, and in Boase's ' Mod. Engl. Biog.,' ii. 632, has many gaps and uncertainties. An original letter of his, in my possession, supplies part of what is lacking. On 1 June, 1833, he wrote from The Derbyshire Courier office at Chesterfield that he had conducted that paper for two years. The proprietor of it was John Roberts. W. C. B.

TOTTENHAM CHURCHYARD, MIDDLESEX. The churchyard attached to the parish church of Tottenham is in a very ill-kept and desolate condition ; it would be even fair to say that it is in parts disgraceful. The tombs and monuments include many that show that they represent families of position and wealth such as once were im- portant parishioners ; but the part contain- ing these is open to every idle person ; many are broken in pieces, the work not so much of time as of vandalism ; and those not pro-