516
NOTES AND QUERIES. [9* s. i. JUNE 25, m
a voiced form of pottager, with -ncjer for -ger,
as in messenger. *
The right doctrine is that, to adopt MR. MITCHINER'S words with no very violent alteration, "corruption, under traditional passage and slovenly expression, follows " a strict " order," under inexorable physiological laws. This is why " corruption " is so mis- leading a term to use, and is only adopted by those who are unacquainted with the laws of language. WALTER W. SKEAT.
W. H N B Y'S request is too large an order for me to execute. Many names of places ending with den and don are corrup- tions of dcene, a valley. Ex., Crogdcene (g pronounced y), crog, Norse, crooked (crooked valley), exactly describing its topography. But all dens and dons are not so derived, and require sifting by local evidence. Maybe I am in error in applying the explanation to Todmorden. So with the syllable mere. In numberless cases mere or mor may be referred to mere, a lake. In others it undoubtedly is derived from mcere, or gemcere, so frequently found in Saxon charters, and signifying boundary. The same may be said of tod, a fox, or tod, a corruption of tor, a hill.
J. H. MITCHINER, F.R.A.S.
VERBS ENDING IN "-ISH" (9 th S. i. 86, 136, 315, 355). PROF. SKEAT, in his eagerness to introduce the word "ignoramus" no doubt with the laudable desire that it might serve as a label for your correspondent has over- looked the fact that his Latin instances all tend to disprove his assertion at the second reference that verbs in -ish were derived not from any one part of the French verbs in -ir, as I had suggested, but from all the parts of the verb which contain -iss. His instances also prove that it would be useless to read through any number of works in the lan- guage from which a word is taken in order to discover how the particular English form arose, as that form is generally due to a special use of the word which some circum- stance has made familiar to us.
The passport system, for instance, has made us familiar with the French past parti- ciple vise', which we oddly use as an infinitive, but the learned professor, who is evidently tired of the subject, may possibly prefer the word anathema, its adoption being due to an ecclesiastical desire for a " cuss-word " of classical origin. Be that as it may, it is abundantly evident that, although there is
- The cerebral r may be mistaken for d by a
E uropean. This is why the Hindustani td ri is the origin of toddy.
"nothing so very new" about the question
I have raised, it still awaits a definite answer.
H. KAYMENT. Sidcup, Kent.
" ABRAHAM'S BOSOM" (8 th S. xi. 67. 214, 494). Though there have been six replies to the question of your correspondent from Cheltenham in regard to the meaning of "Abraham's bosom," a phrase supposed by many to be borrowed from the Talmud or from Maccabees, there are other senses than those given in which it has been used by Mosaists and Christians. For instance, in Lightfoot, 'Works,' xii. p. 162 (ed. Lond., 1823), we read, upon St. Luke xyi. 22, as follows, "Juchasin, fol. 75, D. This day he sits in Abraham's bosom : that is, This day is Adah Bar Ahavah circumcised, and entered into the covenant of Abraham." Again, in ' Theophylacti Bulgaria Archiep. Enarratio in Evangelium Lucse,' cap. xvi. (ed. Migne, Paris, 1862), we read :
"Lazarus, qui primus pauper erat et ignobilis populus gentilis, in sinibus Abrahse patris gentium merito versatur. Etenim et Abraham cum gentilis esset, credidit Deo, et ex idolorum cultu ad Dei agnitionem transiit. Proinde qui participes sunt translations ejus et fidei, jure et in sinibus ejus quiescunt, eundem finem et habitationes et suscep- tionem bonorum sortiti."
Also Trench, 'Parables,' ed. 1870, p. 468, writes :
"The dying of Lazurus, with his reception into Abraham's bosom, will find their counterpart in the coming to an end of that economy in which the Gentile was an alien from the covenant, and in his subsequent introduction by the angels, or messen- gers of the covenant, into all the immunities and consolations of the kingdom of God ' which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God ; which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy' (1 Pet. i. 10; Eph. ii. 11-13)."
T. C. GlLMOUR. Ottawa, Canada.
SHEEPSKINS (9 th S. i. 349). " Woolfelts " or " woolpelts " are, I believe, both well under- stood and frequently used words, even to the present day, among dealers in sheepskins, applied to the skins of full-grown sheep which have not been sheared before being slaughtered ; whereas " shorelings " or " shor- lings " are the skins of sheep slaughtered after shearing. I may point out the Laleham butcher (from the way W. P. M. writes) would seem to have sold in the winter months of 1788-9 the "woolfelts" and " murrain skins," the latter referring to skins of sheep which have died from the sheep-rot.
If W. P. M. wishes for further enlighten- ment, he will see, if he turns to article ' Wool- fel' in the 'Encyclopaedia Londinensis,' 1827,
