78
NOTES AND QUERIES. [11 s. vm. JULY 26, 1913.
ENGLISH CHANTEYS (US. vii. 370, 455).
The chanties ' Heave Away, my Johnny,'
and ' Spanish Ladies ' are published, with
music and notes, in ' Folk - Songs from
Somerset,' by Cecil J. Sharp, Fifth Series,
and, without notes, in Novello's ' School
vSongs.' SYLVIOLA.
" NUT " : MODERN SLANG (US. vii. 228). As no other correspondent has replied to this query I venture to submit a few notes which may be helpful. " Nut " in its pre- sent sense comes to us. I am satisfied, from the stage. Of course, for years the phrase that So-and-so is a " hard nut " has been popular ; and I am informed that in cabmen's slang a few years ago it was usual to de- scribe a keen, sharp-witted person as a " nut," which was later improved into a " filbert." But the real origin of the Word in its present vogue is, I think, to be found in Mr. Arthur Williams's study of the ex-convict Crookie Scrubbs in ' Sergeant Brue,' produced in 1904. It was one of his catchwords to say, " I' m one of the nuts, one of the nibs," and tbis put the phrase into wide circulation. Afterwards Mark Sheridan, the music-hall artist, used it in one of his songs. An amusing illustration of the growth of the phrase occurred in the General Election of January, 1910, when a number of peers and peers' sons went down to the consti- tuencies to rebut the attacks of the Liberals on the House of Lords. Lord Winterton addressed a meeting in St. George's East, where he is a considerable owner of house property. The proceedings were lively, owing to a large opposition element, and there were some very smart interruptions by " Voices." After some especially strong statement by the orator, there carne "a- Voice": "You certainly are a nut," followed by roars of laughter. This ap- peared in a Daily News report, and Was the first occasion when I saw the word in print. Then came the epidemic of young men with " doggy " socks, of pink and green p.nd heliotrope, and they were promptly labelled the "nuts." The word by this time meant not so much keenness as dressi- ness, up-to-dateness the lineal successors of the " mashers " of an earlier day. In this sense it has several times appeared in Punch during the last few months, and also in The Sporting Times, which has con- tributed so much to the coinage and circu- lation of modern slang. Apparently it is beginning to lose its smart, fashionable tone, for I see Punch begins to refer to it r,s " suburban nut." A new refinement
recently has been to spell it " k-nut," the
initial letter being pronounced. In fact,
some joker the other day remarked that
" King Cnut was one of the k-nuts." These
are the little vagaries which attend the
growth of slang. R. S. PENGELLY.
Clapham Park.
CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY (11 S. viii, 9). There is a complete and thoroughly well-informed history of the construction of this great trans-continental line, with biographical sketches of the principal per- sonages associated with it, in the second volume of ' The Encyclopaedia of Canada,' edited by J. Castell Hopkins, and issued by the Linscott Publishing Co., Toronto. It extends from p. 155 to p. 219. See also ' The Life of a Great Canadian,' by C. F. Hamilton. This describes the career of Sir Sandford Fleming, a pioneer promoter of the railway, and the chief engineer in its construction. J. F. HOGAN.
Royal Colonial Institute,
Northumberland Avenuo.
0n
A New Enf/Hsh Dictionary on Historical Prin-
ciples. Edited by Sir James A. H. Murray.
Sever al-Shaster. (Vol. VIII.) By Henry
Bradley. (Oxford, Clarendon Press.)
THIS section, shortest of those that have recently
appeared, is also one of the best. The material
with which it deals offers, in somewhat larger
proportion than usual, the advantages of colour
and varied association, and with these is united,
as the contribution of the compilers, what may
be said to be even an unusual excellence alike
in analysis and arrangement, and in the wording
of the sense- definitions. The words fall sharply
into two divisions : those from " several " to
" sgraffito " being nearly all of Latin or Romanic
origin ; those in " sh," which form the much
larger second division, being mainly Teutonic.
The word " several " w r ith its derivatives is admirably illustrated, and especially so where its complicated legal significance is concerned. " Severe," with its numerous and still increasing idioms, furnishes an entertaining article. The first quotation is " 1548, Elyot, ' Diet.,' Asper, .... rude, seuere, rigorous. Ibid., Artsterus, .... cruelle, austere, seuere." The extensions of use are in this word uncommonly odd ; thus in the United States you may talk of a " severe tea," and in nautical parlance " severe " means effectual, as in " a severe turn in belaying a rope." An interesting architectural term for which the first quotation is 1399, and which seems to have lain in abeyance between the beginning of the six- teenth and the middle of the nineteenth century, is " severy," from the Lat. ciborium, used first by Gervase of Canterbury in the sense of a bay of a vaulted roof, and also later in the sense of a section of scaffolding. Gwflt, writing on King's College Chapel, Cambridge, 1850, apparently first revived it.
