The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1888-02-29
SOME SMALL IaNoRAN Es.
Expressions in Everyday Use of Which
Few Know the Origin.
From the CornhU Magazine.

From the Cor1lkW Magazine.
Every cottage, thanks to America, pos
sesses its clock, and thanks to Waterbury,
almost every pocket its watch. But why
are the dials divided into twelve divisions of
five minutes each2 Hear Mr.. 3 Grant
Oliphant: 1--WE have sixty divisions on the
dials of our. clocks and watches because the
old Greek astronomer, Hipparchus, who
lived i'll the second century before Christ,
accepted the Babylonlan system of reckon
ing tllne--that system beng sexageSllnal.
The Babylonlans were acquainted with the
decimal system, but Tor common or practical
purposes they cou. ted bv sosSl and saw, the
Sos,oS representing sixty and the saroS
sixty times Six-3,600. From Hipparchus
that mode of reckoning found its way INTO
the works of Ptole.ny about $50 A. D., and
hence was carried down the stream OIL
science and civilization, and found It's way
to the dial plates OF our clocks and
Watches .....
The language and literature of America,
! being S. closely related to that Of England,
present few difficulties TO us except In the
colloquialismS of recent times contueHtal
idlouls and proverbs, based chiefly on loo
customs aud incidents, are often quite lneA-
plicable by U.s. Lut there are many Amer
canisms very puzzling to Englishmen; and,
again, many GalllciSmS which at once re-
veal an affinity to expressions of our own
We use Uncle Sam as a facetious name
for the United States. Mr.. 5. Grant
Oliphant explains its onigin thus: "'Uncle
Sam Wilson, was the Government InSptc
tor of Supplies at Troy in the War of 1872.
Those edIbles of which he approved were
labeled U. s., then new sign for United
States; the workmen supposed that these
letters were the initials of Uncle sam, and
tue mistake became ii JOKE and lasting one.
So Brother Jonathan had a simple origin
Washington thought very highly of the
Judgment of Jonathan Trumbull the elder,
then Governor Of Connecticut, AID con
S antly remarked, We must consult
Brother Jonathan The name soon became
regarded as a national sobriquet Mr..
Soutwick, in 'Quizzism,' gives some curious
information about the term Yankee; of
course we all know that it is the word Eng
lish as pronounced by the American Indians,
but we do not all know that in a curious
book on the Round Towers of Ireland tue
origin of the term Yankee Doodle was aced
to the Persian phrase Yanki-dooniah, or
Inhabitants Of the New World. Layard, in
his book on 'NineYeh AID Its Remains also
mentions Yang .idunla as thePersian name
OF America The song, Yankee Doodle,
MIR. SouthWick tells us, is as old as Crom-
wells time; it was the Protector hims If
who stuck a feather in his hat when gong
to Oxford; the bunch of RIBBONS which held
the feather was a macaroni. We know that
macaroni was a cant term for dandy, that
feathers we're worn in the hats Of Royalists,
and that Oxford was a town of the highest
Importance during the civil war. do not
quite see how round towers, the Persia
language, and Old Noll come 10 be so i IT,
mately connectel, even though, as Mr..
SJuthwick tells the song was at ilrSt known
as Nankee Doodle"
America must not, as some Of her sons
have done, imagine that the dollar mark ($)
stands for U. S., the S. being written upon
the U. For both the dollar and the sign
for it were in use long before .here were any
United States Both Mr.. SJuthwick and
Mr. Oiphant gave the very probable origin
indicated by the design on tae reverse of
the Spanish dollar-the Pillars of Hercules
with a scroll round each pillar, tie scrolls
perhaps rep esenting the serpents whc
Hercules s1rangled whila yet he was
child in his cradle. There is also another
theory that the dollar mark Is a form of the
figure s, because in old times the dollar was
piece Of eight reals. The expression cal
mighty dollar" was first used by Washing
ton Irving in his sketch Of Creole Viii
lage," 1887.
In all countries there is large literature
clustering around the name, history,
character and qualities of his Satanic
Majesty the Prince of Darkness. One of
his synonyms is Old Harry, which, Mr..
Olphalt says may be a corruption of the
Scandinavian Hari, one of the names of
Odin, or another form of Old Harry. Old
Nick is derived from the river god Nick or
Neck, though Butler, the author of ''Hudi-
bras" says it comes from Niccolo MacGi-
aveli And Old Scratch must be taken to
be derived from Scrat, "house or wood
demon of the ancient North" NJ Rozan IS
strong on all diaboiical point; "dia bic a
quatre," he says has come down rom the
old Miracle Plays in which, at first, one
demon was enough, but enterprising manag-
ers soon added a second, and finally some
Irving or Harris of the day crowded his
stage wit four devils. Sainto-Beuve calls
Henry ". zee diable aquatre." The f. ench
kings were choice in their oaths; each had
his own. We remember h w, in "Qu 5ntin
Durward," Louis XII iterates "Pasques
Dieu!n even 20 WEAKNESS H anry ". took
a certain portion of tie person of st. Girls
under his special profession. WAC st. @, is
was appears very doubtful; perhaps st
Francis, founder of the Grey Friar:; per-
haps an imaginary saint Invented as the
patron OF drunkards, As st. Lache " as in
vented for the lazy, and st. Nitouche for
hypocrites. Had Henry ". been an Ital-
ian, he would have invoked the 'corpO di
Baccon rather than the ''ventre ST. Girls ="
TO swear by some port on Of the Deity or of
a saint was the fashionable and aesthetic
thing in the Middle Ages; true, our fore
fathers said pardy, which was ''par dieu,"
but they also said ''tudiau" (Which is tete-
Dieu), 'corbleu" (corps-de-Dleu), "ventre-
bleu" (ventre lie Dieu), ''sam-bleun (sang-de
Dieu), a d ''morble - (norte- de- Dleu). SO
in Eagli,h they said POUNDS" Gods
wouuds), 'Sblool and 'Sdeath Gods blood
and Gods death). Henry ". of France is
said to have introduced the curious oath
'jarnicoton mo polite conversation; he
had been in the habit of saying "Je renie
sor, the Father Cotton, Jesuit, who refused
a Cardinals hat. expostulated with the
royal penitent AID begged him rather to
the words, "Je renie Coton;" hence
arose the expression.