Mind your language
Mind your language
14 April 2007
I’ve been reading with unexpected pleasure The First English Dictionary (Bodleian, £12.99), an edition of a list of 2,500 ‘hard usual English words’ compiled by Robert Cawdrey and published in 1604.
He intended his book for ‘Ladies, Gentlewomen or any other unskilful persons’. The result is uneven. It would have been kinder of him not to give the meaning of carminate as ‘to card wool’, for even in his day it meant ‘to cause to break wind’ (the etymological reason being that medicine combed out wind as you’d comb wool). Aldous Huxley makes a joke in Crome Yellow of a poet who writes a line ‘And passion carminative as wine’, unaware of the true meaning, but that wasn’t Cawdrey’s fault.
Anyway, if those unskilful persons had not have heard that cider was a ‘drink made of apples’, surely they’d have learnt in church that cherubin is an ‘order of angels’, or heard that a cowslip was a ‘hearbe’.
More articles from: Dot Wordsworth | this section
Post this entry to: del.icio.us | Digg | Newsvine | NowPublic | Reddit
Advertisement
It wasn’t meant to be this way. The Tories used…
David Cameron is a sunny-side-up politician. At his first party…
The year has begun with the British political class obsessing…
Westminster used to think that 2012 would be the year…
Downing Street’s negotiating team returned from Berlin last Friday afternoon…
Popular Blogger Posts
sponsored links
THE PRESENT FINDER
1,700 Unusual Christmas Presents Request Catalogue 01935 815 195 Quote SPEC10 for 10% discount www.presentfinder.co.uk
OLIVE BRANCH FLORISTS
Pimilco based Florist with online ordering Web: www.olivebranch.net Tel: 020 7630 1868 Fax: 020 7233 8844
RUFFS Bespoke Signet rings
62 Shore Road, Warsash, Southampton, SO31 9FT Telephone: 01489 578867 Web site: www.ruffs.co.uk
Apollo Magazine | Corporate | Advertising | Privacy | Terms
Spectator, 22 Old Queen Street, London, SW1H 9HP
All Articles and Content Copyright ©2012 by The Spectator | All Rights Reserved
Be the first to comment on this article!
Back to top