Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 9.djvu/526

This page needs to be proofread.

432 NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 S. IX. Nov. 26, 1921. reason of their thorns, to be a hindrance to the sheep, which were commonly kept in church- yards and would be likely to pull the grass about. Then the " briaring " of graves might survive for some time simply as a mark of attention to the graves. The ' N.E.D.' explains '* briered" as " en- tangled in briers ; bound or covered with briers," and quotes ' Bloomfield's Poems,' c. 1823, " New-briar'd graves." J. T. F. Many years ago, but never recently, I have seen the grass mounds of graves in country churchyards laced, so to speak, with briars laid on them and pegged down lengthways and transversely, to protect them, presumably, from the animals that were allowed to graze in the churchyards. B. B. VERBALIZED SURNAMES (12 S. ix. 370). The following four verbs seem to be strictly in line with the list given by MR. McGovERN : to galvanize, to bowdlerize, to pasteurize and to lynch. (The original Lynch is said to have been a farmer in North Carolina.) There is also a large analogous class of nouns of which the following specimens occur to me : mackintosh, spencer, cardigan, blucher and Wellington ; hansom and brougham ; sand- wich ; maxim, galling and colt ; to which may be added various derivatives, as, dahlia and fuchsia, Spoonerism, and perhaps Cobdenism and the like. Peeler is given in ' Nuttall,' and banting aspires to be King's English. I do not know whether MR. McGovERN would wish to include such adjectives as Shakesperian, Johnsonian, Gilbertian, Dantesque and Napoleonic, of which there is a good number. Napoleon, of course, is not a surname, nor is Dante. F. L. WOOD. To MR. McGovERN's list can be added the out-Herod, peculiar by its possession of a capital in the body of the word, and Birrelling, a participle of a verb evidently meaning to speak frivolously and amusingly upon topics that are worthy of serious consideration, such as Education or the Irish Question. It is curious that, whilst Oxford's legendary metaphasiarch has given us an abstract noun, there is no verb to spoonerize. MARGARET WHITEBROOK. Without spending much time on ver- balized surnames the following additions may be made to the REV. J. B. McGovERN's list : fletcherize, pasteurize, grangerize, bowd- lerize, galvanize, Grave's disease, Rontgen rays, Hertzian waves, Darwinism, Spoonerism, Marconigram, Bunsen burner, Hansom cab, Turneresque, Baxtertype. There is also a much -advertised pill which bears the name of its maker. ARCHIBALD SPARKE. To pasteurize, to grangerize (from James Granger, 1716-76), to bowdlerize (from T. Bowdler, 1754-1825), will fall into MR. McGovERN's first group. Davy lamp, Bessemer steel, Frost's ophthalmoscope, Listerine, Nestler tubes, Groove's tubes, micro-farad, Rontgen rays, Dewar's tubes (i.e., vacuum tubes) will enlarge his second group. I trust it is not in contemplation to encourage this form of word-coining, for, said the late Mr. J. J. Berenger, Principal of the Camborne School of Mines, Cornwall : It is a graceful thing to name a gas-burner after Bunsen, or a condenser after Leibig, but when the practice has developed so far that one is directed to Firikenerise, a residue, or to use the Reichert-Meissl-Wollny process, it is time to stop. J. PAUL DE CASTRO. Bowdlerize, Hansardize, pasteurize, bos- wellize, paynize, and no doubt many more are to be found in the ' Concise Oxford Dictionary.' Harveyized steel is used for making armour plates. Familiar nouns include brougham, clarence, hansom, chester- field, Wellingtons, billycock (William Coke), gladstone (bag), dahlia, fuchsia, magnolia, bougainvillcea, nordenfelt, galling, hotchkiss, whitehead, shrapnel, daguerreotype, Fahrenheit, peeler, dundreary, bottle of Bass. Adjectival forms are boswellian, rabelaisian, newtonian, mercatorial, wesleyan, &c. Also there is buncombe ! A comparison of a list of surnames (such as a telephone directory) with a dictionary would probably furnish hundreds more examples. G. M. M. The verb to grimthorpe first came Into use about 1890 (see The Antiquary, xxi., p. 35, and The Builder and The Athenceum for 1890 and 1891). A standard American dictionary gives " Grimthorpe, v.t.. to spoil or disfigure an ancient building by lavish and tasteless expenditure." H. G. HARRISON. Some months ago I prepared the enclosed list of 80 words derived from personal names. In view of MR. McGovERN's query you may be willing to insert the list. No doubt it can be added to. Fullerize I don't know. A fuller is one