DICTIONARY CURIOSITIES.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 669, 20 November 1909, Page 9

DICTIONARY CURIOSITIES.

•In its latest instalment (says the "Manchester Guardian ") the- New English - Dictionary jumps from "-prophesy" to "pyxis, and clears some pretty rough ground by the way. " P," like " q," is. hardly characteristically English as an initial letter (the old injunction to mind your "p's" and ''qs is apposite), and-it; follows that the majority of words in' this section are inventions—and in many cases very tough ones—of men of .science and. their kindredof thwarts and manufactures who enrich technical dictionaries. I'or the searcher after curions . and interesting -information, however, there is plenty of material.in store. These pages would form a very good, but very severe test of general knowledge and width of reading. Perhaps/there are people learned enough to have.seen all the words somewhere before.' They certainlymever saw them .all before in a dictionary. We fancy it is the first time that 'Ipuff-puff" ("I suppose you mean tho locomotive,^-as the child said in Du Mauirier's drawing) ■ turned-np. in a •wdrk_of, : this j . dignity. . Who,. too, ever saw v - psithurisnl insprint before? The.word. is : hot a medical term nor. a new; figure,, of.-; speech. : ,, .It is simply a move literary'way of down the. whispering of the wind, and Sir James Murray has unearthed it from the-lOth;chap-te- '(vol.' ii)'of a' (nid-Victorian'three-vDlumo noyol: balled: "Prince, .Clarence,"^whero -xhe reader; is ■ told : : that:." psithurism' of ..multitudinous ; . leaves ■ made ghostly. ■;music. ~;. It.;is a. yiij ;thnt.:;the only other,- instance:.given; is from''another::three-yolume:novel byithe'same author..,. The' iword: might. ; perhaps ,be; popu-lurised-by some'descriptive'writer of,the; " mot juste "' brand"; in": search with• his.sensations.;;-Another .f ar.-songhtj-word (■nsed'.onco )by iStr.; Gladstone -in a : :review) :is " pto.chftcracy/'.whichiis-.defined-'as-" goyornment.by .beggars,- the,rule of' paupers;; a 'governing* •body consisting, of- tlie; poor. , ' ,:<*lt iooks -as if■ it "might :bo a useful addition to the- axmtinrj , of,-the .Government's^platform.'oppoiiehte,''<to take-the place,! say, :pf •■"•gang ;pf ■; thieves," , ' or of-the .'Duko. of'.-Rutland's'." piratical' .crfew.: of ragged ''"..tatterdemalions," : now -rather -»hackneyed. - ; ;It- is;interesting to-watch,.'.as'• the-his-. ■fcricaly.'Jjotes-'to .'each 'word enable 6ne', : the degeneration-'of .words; like the loosening,'for, instance, of "publicist," or the adoption of foreign words like the -Hindu " pukka " beloved of Mr. Kipling, >or .the gradual; appearance in laymen's mouths of scientific terms like "ptomaine;"'. False analogy; w.hich .is: responsible'for: sd r many of .the oddities of language, supplies some : strange instances.-in this volume.'."Ptarmignn," for.instance, which .used to\be'spelled "termipa?;j" and in-the Lowlands of Scotland was called ."termagant" (a confusion like "sparrow-grass") owes its initial '■•" p" to an erroneous sixteenth ; century belief that it .was descended'from the :Greek. The word is really of Gaelic origin::'; Assuredly, no one need ever call a'dictionary, or at any rate a big.'dictionary.'a dull,book;'.; ■: : ' :