St. Paul daily globe., 1896-04-27

Mrs. Amelia Bloomer. a New York
lady, who. in 1S49, attracted much at
tention and obtained soa1e notoriety
by her persistent efforts to introduce
the fashion of wearing thes-what shall
we say?-bifurated inexpressibles by
women. The lady died quite recently,
but. it is to be feared. without having
seen her ideal in the fafr way to real
ization. N
A word little heard or now, but at
one time common enough ineconnection
with matters Of dress, Wasc spencer"
the name given to a sort of outer skirt
less coat, which was chrstened after
the Earl of Spencer of the days when
George III. was king. and the dandies
walked the earth in all their unap-
proachable glories. He first wore the
garment, or, at least, made 1t fash
ionable. ae %
Better known Is the useful and port
able article called the Sandwich"
which Is so called after John Mon
tagu, fourth Earl Of Sandwich, nick
named Jenny Twitcher"--a notorious
gambler in his day, who used to have
food brought to him in this form while
he sat at the gaming table, that he
might not have occasion to interrupt
his play.
The very much more eminent Lord
Brougham lives in the dictionary as
the godfather of the "brougham,' the
well-known form Of carriage.
If the state of a country may be
gauged by the condition Of its roads,
Sir John L. Macadam has well earned
his place in our vocabulary. This gen
tleman, who lived from 1756 to 1884,
first introduced the use Of broken
stones as road material, and made the
surface Of roads convex instead Of
concave-a system which has long
borne the name of it's inventor Both
name and system have passed into
other lands and languages.
In mechanical matters, the name Of
the familiar derrick" a. very COM
mon form Of crane, has not the most
honorable pedigree. Derrick was in
deed nothing more exalted than the
Tyburn hangman Of the early part Of
the seventeenth century, and his name
figures frequently in plays of the
period. For more than a hundred years
he gave his name to gibbets, whose
"elevating" powers were applied in
more useful direction in the modern
derrick"
The dun" who is not particularly
.
is by title successor to a notable con-
stable Of the beginning of the century,
named John Dun, who had q great
reputation as firSt-c1ass collector Of
bad debts. Others might fail to col
lect bad debt, but John would be
sure to get it out Of the debtor If the
business was intrustedJ to6 him. Soon
the word passed into current speech,
where it has remained.
Cant Is derived from Rev. Andrew
Cant, who was minister Of New Pits
ligo, Aberdeenshire. in the time Of the
Covenanters, and was noted for his
whining and pretended feryor. Though
he and a like-minded brother used to
hold that all those were accused who
made use of the prayer book, they used
to pray for all who suffered persecu-
ton for their religious opinions. True,
some have derived the word cant"
from Latin "cantus," but certainly the
particular significance Of the word as
now used has more connection with
hypocrisy than with music In any
form.
Various other well-known words Of
current use have the name Of some one
as their origin. Nicotine came from
Jean Nicot, French ambassador to Por-
tugaI. who in 1860 first introduced to-
bacco into France, and had the honor OF
giving his name to the plant When
in literary affairs "BoWdler1slng is
spoken Of the reference is to Thomas
Bowdler, who in 1918 published "The
Family Shakespeare" 'in which moth
ing is added to the original text, but
those words and expressions are omit
ted which cannot with propriety be read
aloud in a family" This well meaning
gentleman has been subjected to much
unmerited ridicule.
In modern times natural science has
added to the language an immense num-
ber of new terms required to designate
precisely the definite notions arising as
progress in knowledge is made. OAR
win gave his name to the views regard
ing evolution which have become al
mcst a creed in scientific circles; and
where Greek and Latin fail in some de-
gree to commemorate the pioneers in
various branches, names Of men are
freely used and universally accepted as
eminently suitable In certain cases,
since thus possible confusion can be
caused, as might occur by the adoption
of words already used popularity and
loosely In physical science this Is spe-
cially the case, and electricians have
named all the units in which they deal
after eminent men of science. Thus
scientific literature bristles with such
terms as ohm, volt, joule, watt, farad,
coulort, ampere, and the like, which to
the uninitiated are Hebrewoand Greek,
but to the learned in such matters are
as "plain as pikestaff." And so the
mighty, but nightly hybrid, Enghsh
language grows.