414
NOTES AND QUERIES.
[12 8 III. SEPT., 1917.
" a traunson " ; 1482, "a materas with a
traunsom, a peire shetes, a peire blankettes,
and a coverlight " ; 1522, " a ffetherbed,
ij trawnsoms, a matras, ij pelowes, iiij payer
of schetes" ; 1570, " Ye Transome of a bed,
trabula."
Now the same piece of furniture is in French called Iraversin, and the word, pro- nounced by an English mouth, is quite likely to give traunsom as well as transer or traunser. I fully believe that this has been the case.
The interesting point is that light seems (o be thrown on the much disputed origin of transom, in the architectural sense, by the quotations above, the more because Littre gives for traversin an old example with exactly the same sense : " Tous les baus (solives) traversins ont a terre jete " (Ch. d'Ant., vi. 860, XIII. siecle).
Skeat, in his ' Etymological Dictionary,' l.as very clearly shown how the old ex- planations for " transom," transenna and transsumere, are absurd. Transommer is equally wrong, because a corruption of " transom." But is transtrum, as proposed by Skeat, better, I wonder ? The ' N.E.D.' does not fail to observe that no connecting form between transtrum and "transom" has been found, and declares that the history of the word is altogether obscure.
In proposing the assimilation of " tran- ser " and " transom " with the French trav&rsin I should notice that the different senses nautical, architectural, and usual are curiously the same for both words. Moreover, a great many terms of mediaeval architecture are, as is well known, of Norman origin. Introduced as they were by illiterate workmen, and not by clerks, they must have had the very same alterations as the English Tommies so drastically practise with our words in France nowadays.
" PIERRE TURPIN.
" DRIFTER." The species of vessel de- nominated " drifter " has been much in evidence in the reports of naval fighting around the British Isles, and even in the Mediterranean, where on May 15 last a strong Austrian squadron raided the Allied line, and succeeded in sinking fourteen British drifters, all under 100 tons, before it was driven off by an Allied flotilla of cruisers and destroyers. The definition of the word in the nautical sense as a boat that catches fish by means of a drift-net (' N.E.D.' ) is incomplete and obsolete, though even now in shipping circles it is not easy to come at the proper meaning of the term. A "drifter,"
technically speaking, is a boat like the
trawler which is ordinarily engaged ki the
capture of herring and shoal fish, and the
tonnage of which ranges from 5 to about
150, while a trawler's may exceed 300 tons ;
both vessels are occasionally fitted with
steam power. As a trawler fishes by the
aid of a trawl-net, dragged or trawled along
the bottom of a fishing bank, or, as in.
America, by means of a trawl-line to which
floats and hooks are attached ; so a drifter
takes its catch by means of a drift-net,
drifting on the surface of the water with the
veering of the wind, when it is not too
strong. This explanation I recently re-
ceived orally from a pilot in the Bristol
Channel, who pointed out to me a boat of
the kind lying at anchor in the Avon, small
indeed, but remarkably spick and span.
K. Several drifters and trawlers are now
armed for active service against the enemy,
and have in most cases succeeded in giving
an excellent account of themselves.
N. W. Hnx.
WOMEN AND UMBRELLAS : CURIOUS FORM OF IMPROPRIETY. In the province of Cal- tanissetta, Sicily, it is not considered the thing for a woman to use an umbrella. I learn this from the following passage in ' Sicilian Ways and Days,' but get no hint of the reason why :
" When the crowd in the front of the church broke up in the pelting rain, I noticed that only the men carried umbrellas, the women having nothing but their black cloth mantellina or cape to protect them from the rain ; and when I remarked upon this to Caluzza, the head-maid, she stared wonderingly at me, and said : ' Doesn't Vossia know that it would be improper for women to use umbrellas ? ' and she left me wondering and meditating over this unexpected and curious principle of Sicilian propriety." P. 46.
Why the authoress should in her turn leave people wondering is hard "to say.
ST. SWITHIN.
ELIZABETH (RUNDLE) CHARLES. One is sorry to note that the tablet placed upon the walls of Combe Edge, Hampstead, in memory of this gifted and prolific writer has recently disappeared. It is difficult enough sometimes to get such records of notable persons put up at all : there can be few instances of their removal. Combe Edge was built by Mrs. Charles, and she died there on March 28, 1896. ' The Chro- nicles of the Schonberg-Cotta Family ' her best-known work was published in 1862.
CECIL CLARKE.
Junior Athenaeum Club.
