Daily Kennebec journal., 1910-11-09
"norin" was so-calied because hi;
coin tfr@n Florence q

toiil 'bWH ~ iorcHce.4 "
This latter word suggests I,okin.
up some other terms derived frd,n
italian cities and we find that "pi.toI.
Icomes from Pistola, "Ieghorn" ht :.
named from the city Of Leghorn. ana
we have "manta umakers" from Mar
tua.
Finger" we are told, is de,i,.s
from fang that with which aav
thing is seized; and in turn "fer,.y
is a modification Of the word finrer
as people at first used their fnee~e !.
lcounting.
| How do we get our meanin, =.
| failure into the italian word "fasco,
which means simply bottle or aash,
The process j. curious. Venice :.
noted for its glass workers, who a..
centuries have made all sorts of dali
cate things ont of this substance. :.
used to be their custom when ,h.,.
spoiled a fine piece of work to rna,.o
bottle out Of it: hence the torn,
'hasco.' signifyng that what orc IL
doing is useless.
The word fee" the sum of .,nans,,
paid for services and the like. brine,
out the peculiar fact that many OF our
money terms came from cattle Fcoh
the Anglo Saxon word from which roa
comes, means either cattle or uone,,.
pecuniary' comes from the Iaiin
peuncia, derived from "pecus." cat.
tie; and capital we get from N.
counting of cattle by the te,d
"caput." The German word for cat,la
| IS ''Vieh " M jc
word fec" Here we haze in ON,
common speech bit Of history show.
| ing the nature of our primitive money
Let us give the leaves a flop for fea,
| this should look like study. We lind
over in the HIS. The word 'husha.dy
strikes our eye. He is the "l,,sso
bond the one who !1,l, the hnusa.
mold together. Let us look for ,ba
names of the other lncrIbers Of tho
| family. There is history and j etrv
| in each one
Wife is she who "",tves" f.r tho
house ''sor" is the '.cic,r,r.
| daughter is tn" "r,iIker" ana
"spinster' is an unmarried w,.,,n
such as the husbands c. wife's s.. or
who. spins" We can see the p,i i
tive English family all at work.
we glance along and come to the
word humble" and there is n.
phrase humble pie" We've alrya,s
wondered how such saving srnco.
and now that We find it we fipd , hit
OF picturesque o.d t..lcs. For tho
word is proporly VIA pie" Tho
"umble" of Il dee" r.I""s9ond +, tba
venison pasties wora made for tn. ;ord
and lady and guests. ills made If The
scraps and 'um,lics' rcre baked for
the inferior folk tho,c who sa. he.
low the salt or at the foot OF the
table.
Wondering where We .et our word
pie. we turn to it and discover that
It is nothing but the word pastie.
which. being commonly written pie.
like We for the, finally came to be
called pie"
over on another page we strike
word whose origin is about as curious
as any in the language, pocket hand
kerchief. The French "couvre chef
meant head covering. and from it
comes our word "kerchef." BY pre-
fixing hand we get handkerchief"
as the head covering was carried in
the hand. Then pocket was added
to signify it was carried in the pocket,
and now the term meaning head COW
ering to be held in the hand and car
ried in the pocket" is not used for
covering the head at all.
Pocket" by the way, is little
poke or bag. ct being common
diminutive. and the word poke" still
lingering in common use in the
proverb. ito buy pig in poke" and
the term poke bonnet ?"
@ has always struck children
learning their alphabet as funny
letter 1t is derived, some say, from
the French queue" tail. it's form
being that of the letter o with tail.
"Quandary" is\a word with an odd
history. 1t is from the French,
"Qu'en diralje?" meaning What shall
say of it?" and hence has come to
signify puzzle or perplexity.
A great many other diverting and
interesting things can be found in the
big book. to which we usually go only
in cases of doubt. to find the meaning
of a strange word or the spelling of
familiar one. For lovers of rare and
out-of- the-way bits of information no
volume compares with it.
Words are like coral, the dead Eous-
es of once living, fresh ideas. In
them are preserved the history, ro-
nance and adventures of the human
mind. They are full of old customs
imaginative conceits and tricksy mo-
a