206
NOTES AND QUERIES. [9* s. VIL MARCH ie, 1901.
mitted that, when they are meant to signify
a person, the logical and better method of
writing them is that of their synonymes,
" anybody " and " everybody."
J. S. McTEAR.
" DISTINCT." In Macmillarts Magazine for March there is an interesting article by Sir Courtenay Boyle on the 'Coinage of Words,' in which many severe things are said about some neologisms to which the writer has an antipathy. One of these unfortunate words is the adjective "distinct," used in the sense of clear, unmistakable. Sir C. Boyle says :
" Useless and wrong is the employment of dis- tinct in the sense of clear or decided ; nothing could be more slovenly than to write a distinct success for decidedly successful."
"Useless," "wrong," "slovenly" why in the world are such opprobrious epithets hurled at this extremely inoffensive use of a respectable adjective? May I be allowed to offer my humble protest against this unjust judgment? I feel the more called upon to do so as I live in Oxford ; and I may truly say that among members of the University, whether graduates or undergraduates, this use of " distinct " is probably of hourly occur- rence, and always produces a distinctly pleasant effect on the mind of the hearer. I always hear it with joy. And why, I should like to ask, does it occur in Sir C. Boyle's list of hateful neologisms ? This usage is not a thing of yesterday. It has the authority of careful writers. Neither Lord Macaulay nor E. A. Freeman was " slovenly " with his pen. If Sir C. Boyle will consult ' H.E.D.' (as he ought to have done), he will see (s.v. ' Distinct,' 3 c.) that the usage has the sanction of these eminent authors. It is a distinct enrichment of our language
A. L. MAYHEW.
Oxford.
COMB ~ COCKADE. In August, 1660, William Harrison, about seventy years of age, steward to Viscountess Campden, walked from Camp- den to Charringworth, in Gloucestershire, a distance of about two miles, to receive some rents. He disappeared, but on the highway were found a hat, a hatband, arid comb'which had belonged to him. "The hat and comb being hacked and cut, and the band bloody, his friends supposed him to be murdered. ' (From the 'Account' published by Sir Thomas Overbury in 1676.) The comb must have been, not any comb for the hair, but that which we now call a cockade, worn on the hats of menservants whose masters hold office under the Crown. " Comb," according to the 'N.E.D.,' was used of the crest of a
helmet, and " cockade " is so called from its
resemblance to a cock's comb, but no instance
is given of " comb " in this sense.
AN INTERESTING LEGAL ACTION. The fol- lowing statement, which appeared in the Manchester Guardian of 23 February, de- serves, I think, a place in 'N. & Q.':
"The antiquity of our constitution and the com- plexity of our land laws could not be better illus- trated than by a case which was decided on Thursday, after a hearing of many days, in the Chancery Division of the High Court. The action was brought by the Lord of the Manor and Soke of Rothley, in Leicestershire, to recover a fine of a shilling in the pound on the purchase money paid for twenty-two acres of land, called the ' Wongs,' at Grimston, a village near Rothley. The question whether the Lord of the Manor had a right to im- pose this fine involved an elaborate inquiry into the nature of the mediaeval land tenure, especially of ' tenure in ancient demesne,' and into the history and customs of the Manor of Rothley and its ap- purtenances from the Norman Conquest down- wards. Mr. Justice Cozens - Hardy began his judgment by citing Domesday Book to show that King William L, and Edward the Confessor before him, held the Manor of Rothley, and finally decided against the plaintiff on the strength of 'a com- position and agreement made between the Master of the Templars'- who long held Rothley, and built the round church there 'and the reeve of Grimston for himself and for the men of the same vill,' in the year 1245. The case will be highly interesting to students of mediaeval history."
A. F. K.
TOWNS WHICH HAVE CHANGED THEIR SlTES.
The town of Tarnalanque, mentioned by the early Spanish historians of New Granada, changed its site three times, and has finally been lost. General Joaquin Acosta, in his ' Compendio Historico del Descubriemento de la Nuevo Reyno de Granada,' p. 174, note, says he has found the true account of the matter in a work called ' Floresta de Santa Marta,' by D. Nicolas de la Rosa (1680). This is so odd it seems worth making a note of. He says (I translate) :
"The changes were made by the audacity of a former parish priest, who, when as frequently hap- pened he got into hot water with his flock and became unpleasing to them, used boldly to carry off the parish images into the forests, and also the bells : he took a portable altar with him on which to celebrate, would hang the bells up in the nearest tree, and order that they should be rung in the same manner as for the vigil of a feast. In this way all the neighbourhood were obliged to pack up and remove, and build a new Tamalanque near the priest and the treasures of the church, which were more valuable than their own houses."
IBAGUE.
WORDSWORTHIANA. (See ante, p. 42.) The notion of a Wordsworth anthology is older than Mr. Pater's essay. It is latent even in
