Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 10.djvu/603

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12 S. X. JUNE 24, 1922.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 497 Lancashire, prior to 1850 is described as, follows : The husband and father " thou'd " his wife and children, but the wife always addressed the husband in the second person plural ; children did the same to both parents and all seniors. Persons equal in years and circumstances and on | familiar terms always " thou'd " each other. For j a young man to " thou " an old one was an I unpardonable offence. A young man " thouing " his sweetheart served in some sense the part of the " engaged " ring. WM. SELF-WEEKS. Westwood, Clitheroe.

i CANNOT AWAY WITH " (12 S. x. 470).

Archdeacon Nares, in his ' Glossary,' says that this expression " seems originally to have meant, to go away contented with such a person or thing." He explains it as meaning " to bear with." He gives the following quotations : She could never away with me. (' 2 Henry IV.," III. ii.) Of all nymphs i' the court I cannot away with her. (Ben Jonson, ' Cynthia's Revels,' IV. v.) And do not bring your eating player with you there : I cannot away with him. (' Poetaster,' III. iv.) I cannot away with an informer. (' Cure for a Cuckold,' sig. F.) Halliwell, in his ' Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words,' explains it by " endure." He cites Greene's ' Works,' i, 135, and Webster's * Works,' ii. 112. He also gives the following example from Holinshed, ' Conquest of Ireland,' p. 38 : He could awaie icith all wethers, both hot and cold, and indure anie paines. Reference should also be made to the 4 N.E.D.,' under " away." It appears that

  • ' away " was originally a phrase signifying

" on [his or one's] way." The sixteenth section under the word " away " gives the meaning of "away with" as "get on or along with," and there are several illustrative quotations beginning with Sir John Paston in 1477, and ending with Matthew Arnold in 1869. Instead of Nares's suggestion for the origin of the metaphor, I think it was developed from the idea of two persons going on the way together, for " how can two walk to- gether except they be agreed " (Amos iii. 3). WM. SELF-WEEKS. Westwood, Clitheroe. I venture to suggest that the word " away " involves the idea of movement from a given physical or logical point or position. " He could not away with " could not move in the same direction with could not go with. "The calling of assemblies I cannot away with " cannot go with you in policy, intention or thought. "I cannot away with iniquity " cannot go along with you must stay where I am, or go in the opposite direction. It is not the same as " cannot abide it " ; " abide " involves the idea of rest, the opposite to movement ; nor is it the same as " rid me of it " ; that is more than the term " away " connotes. " Away with him " move him from this place to another. F. P. "HAMPSHIRE HOGS" (12 S. x. 468). As a native of Hampshire I am concerned to rebut the suggestion that the inhabitants of this county are noted for specially bad manners. The following extract from T. W. Shore's ' Hampshire ' (London, Elliot Stock, 1892), p. 42, will, I think, account for the above jocular name given to Hampshire men : Wild boars were common, and from them was probably derived the old breed of hogs which was at a very early period identified with this county, and from which its jocular name of " Hoglandia " was derived. The forest-land of Hampshire, which is so considerable at the present day, was of much greater extent in Romano-British, and even in mediaeval time, and these forests have always afforded pannage for a large number of hogs. Traces of the ancient breed still remain in the swine of the New Forest. WM. SELF-WEEKS. Westwood, Clitheroe. "STONE-COAT" (12 S. x. 451). This is simply a literal rendering of d1vov ^irSiva in Iliad III. 57. To quote Dr. Leaf's com- mentary : It is pretty clear from the context that the " robe of stone " indicates public execution by stoning. . . . The phrase itself is precisely similar to one which is common in later poetry, but only as a euphemism for burial ; e.g., Find. Nem. xi. 16. . . . Ap. Rhod. i. 691. . . . But the two ideas come to the same, because the heap of stones by which the malefactor is slain forms his tomb as well. The last sentence of the version which MB. THORNTON quotes from Reynoldes's book keeps at a respectful distance from the Greek. Lang, Leaf and Myers's render- ing is : But the Trojans are very cowards : else ere this hadst thou donned a robe of stone for all the ill thou hast wrought. Chapman translates aivov ^irStva by "A coat of tombstone." See the ' N.E.D.,' a.v. ' Coat, 10.' EDWARD BENSLY. Universitv College, Aberystwyth.