The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1891-09-15
CURIOUS DERIVATION OF SOME
FAMILIAR WORDS.

MoNKEY-wRENcH is the name applied
TO tool, sort OF spannef Win NOV.
able jaw. Some etymologists account
for the forepart of the name By re- calling
the fact that monkeys jaw is movable
also. The monkey wrench was invented
some years ago by d poor mechanic
whose name is Charles Monckney. lis
sold his patent for song, and Is now
working for day wages in Brooklyn. dis
invention has made millions of dollars
Tor those who were able to place it upon
the market.
DERRICK is the name of crane used
in shifting and lifting heavy weights. 1t
Is said to be called from one Iheodorlc,
who, while serving at Cadiz as a soldier
under Robert, Earl of Essex, was DOOM
ed to death for some crime, but pardoned
by his commander on condition that he
would hang twenty-three other male
factors. Such are the revolutions OF tate
that subsequently ne was employed In
London to behead Essex, the man who
had saved his life.
A sTENToRIAN voice is that OF one like
the Grecian herald in the Trojan war,
| whom Homer describes as great
hearted, Drazen-voiced Stentor, accus-
toned to shout as loud as fifty other
men,"
A RAGLAN is a loose overcoat with long
| sleeves, such as Lord Raglan wore IN
the Crimean war. WELLNGToNs are
boots named after the Iron Duke.
| BLUCHERs are also boots, named after
the commander of Wellington's Prussian
| allies at Waterloo.
Any magnificent tomb is called a
MAUsoLEUM. Mausolus, the Carian King
whose name it bears, had nothing what
ever to do with the original except to lie
in it when he was dead. The piety Of
his wife, Artemisia, gave his name to
| the tomb and Immortality to her hus-
bands memory, because the monument
she built over his body gave word to
language.
The MAGNOLIA bears the name of
| Pierre Mangol, Professor of Medicine at
Montpelier, France, in the seventeenth
century; and Dahl, Swedish botanist,
has his name embalmed in the DAHLIA.
Indirectly our word DOLLAR depends
upon great mans name. The word is
an abbreviation of Joachimsthaler,
coin first minted about 1918, in the val
ley of st. Joachim. Bohemia. The val
| ley (THAL) bears the name OF the saint.
| BOYCOTT is name recently introduced,
| DuC alfeauy IN use everywhere. "A lew
years ago Captain Charles Cunningham
Boycott, an Irish farmer and land agent,
angered his tenants, and in revenge
they refused to work for him Or to sell
| him food. To BoYCoTT means to with
hold custom from a man in any line of
| business.
A MARTINEZ is what few soldiers like
to be called. Colonel Martinez was an
| officer in the army of Louis XIV. He
was so particular about small details, so
rigid in his discipline, that he was looked
| upon as nuisance. His name has come
down to us as applicable to military
| Miss Nancy Finniken.
BOGUS is the corrupted form of the
name Borghese, that of noted swindled
who passed large amounts of counterfeit
money in the West some years ago.
BONIFACE is the common name for the
landlord of tavern. The original was
one of the rare kinda sleek good-tem.
pered, jolly landload-but he wasn't in
real life. He was character in Farqu-
hairs comedy of "The Beaux' Strata
GEM written in [Harper's Y oung
People.