WORDS FROM THE NAMES OF PLACES.
We have already seen something of the stories which the names of
places, old and new, can tell us. But the names of places themselves
often give us new words, and from these, too, we can learn many
interesting facts.
Many manufactured things, and especially woven cloths, silks, etc.,
are called by the name of the place from which they come, or from
which they first came. _Cashmere_, a favourite smooth woollen
material, is called after Cashmir, in India. _Damask_, the material of
which table linen is generally made, takes its name from Damascus; as
does _holland_, the light brownish cotton stuff used so much for
children's frocks and overalls, from Holland, and the rough woollen
material known as _frieze_ from Friesland. _Cambric_, the fine white
material often used for handkerchiefs, takes its name from Cambrai in
France, the place where it was first made. The word _cambric_,
however, came into English from _Kamerijk_, the Dutch name for
Cambrai. So the other fine material known as _lawn_ got its name from
Laon, another French town. Another fine material of this kind,
_muslin_, takes its name from Mussolo, a town in Mesopotamia, from
which this kind of material first came.
Another commoner kind of stuff is _fustian_, made of cotton, but
thick, with a short nap, and generally dyed a dark colour. The word
_fustian_ has also come to be used figuratively to describe a showy
manner of speaking or writing, or anything which tries to appear
better than it is. The word comes from Fustat, a suburb of Cairo.
A more substantial material, _tweed_, which is largely made in
Scotland, really takes its name from people pronouncing _twill_ badly;
but the form _tweed_ spread more quickly because people associated the
material with the country beyond the river Tweed.
Another kind of stuff which we generally associate with Scotland is
_tartan_, because this woollen stuff, with its crossed stripes of
different colours, is chiefly used for Scottish plaids and kilts,
especially of the Highland regiments. But the word _tartan_ does not
seem to be a Scottish word, and probably comes from _Tartar_, which
was formerly used to describe almost any Eastern people. Perhaps the
fact that Eastern peoples love bright colours caused this name to be
given to these bright materials, though there is nothing at all
Eastern in the designs of the Scottish tartans. Another material with
an Eastern name is _sarcenet_, or _sarsenet_, a soft, silky stuff now
chiefly used for linings.
Often in tales of olden times we read of people hiding behind the
"arras." This was a wall covering of tapestry, often hung sufficiently
far from the wall to leave room for a person to pass. The word _arras_
comes from Arras, a town in France, which was famous for its beautiful
tapestries.
We know the word _tabby_ chiefly as the name of a kind of striped cat,
but this use of the word came from the Old French word _tabis_, and
described a material with marks which the markings on a "tabby" cat
resemble. The French word came from the Arab word _utabi_, which
perhaps came from the name of a suburb of the famous city of Baghdad.
_Worsted_, the name of a certain kind of knitting-wool, comes from the
name of the town of Worstead, in Norfolk. The close-fitting woollen
garments worn by sailors and often by children are known as
_jerseys_--a word which is taken from the name of one of the Channel
Islands, Jersey. Sometimes, but not so commonly, they are called
_guernseys_, from the name of the chief of the other Channel Islands,
Guernsey. Another piece of wearing apparel, the Turkish cap known as a
_fez_, gets its name, perhaps, from Fez, a town in Morocco.
Besides woven stuffs, many other things are called by the names of the
places from which they come. _China_, the general name for very fine
earthenware, is the same name as that of the great Eastern country
which is famous for its beautiful pottery. Another kind of ornamented
earthenware is the Italian _majolica_, and this probably gets its name
from the island of Majorca; while _delf_ is the name of the glazed
earthenware made at Delft (which in earlier times was called "Delf"),
in Holland.
The beautiful leather much used for the bindings of books, _morocco_,
takes its name from Morocco, where it was first made by tanning
goatskins. It is now made in several countries of Europe, but it keeps
its old name. Another old kind of leather, but whose name is no longer
used, was _cordwain_, a Spanish leather for the making of shoes, which
took its name from Cordova in Spain. _Cordwainer_ was the old name for
"shoemaker," and is still kept in the names of shoemakers' guilds and
societies.
Many wines are simply called by the names (sometimes altered a little
through people mispronouncing them) of the places from which they
come. _Champagne_ is the wine of Champagne, _Burgundy_ of Burgundy,
_Sauterne_ of Sauterne, _Chablis_ of Chablis--all French wines. _Port_
takes its name from Oporto, in Portugal; and _sherry_, which used to
be called "sherris," comes from the name of Xeres, a Spanish town.
Many less well-known wines have merely the name of the place where
they are produced printed on the label, and they tend to be called by
these names--such as _Capri bianco Vesuvio_, etc. _Malmsey_, the old
wine in which the Duke of Clarence was supposed to have been drowned
when his murder was ordered by his brother, and which is also called
_malvoisie_, got its name from Monemvasia, a town in the peninsula of
Morea.
Not only wine but other liquids are sometimes called after the places
from which they come. The oil known as _macassar_ comes from
Maugkasara, the name of a district in the island of Celebes. This oil
was at one time very much used as a dressing for the hair, and from
this we get the name _antimacassar_ for the coverings which used to be
(and are sometimes still) thrown over the backs of easy-chairs and
couches to prevent their being soiled by such aids to beauty.
_Antimacassar_ means literally a "protection against macassar oil,"
_anti_ being the Latin word for "against."
The tobacco known as _Latakia_ takes its name from the town called by
the Turks Latakia, the old town of Laodicea. (Laodicea also gives us
another common expression. We describe an indifferent person who has
no enthusiasm for anything as "a Laodicean," from the reproach to the
Church of the Laodiceans, in the Book of Revelation in the Bible, that
they were "neither cold nor hot" in their religion.)
Both the words _bronze_ and _copper_ come from the names of places.
_Bronze_ is from _Brundusium_, the ancient name of the South Italian
town which we now call Brindisi. The Latin name for this metal was
_aes Brundusinum_, or "brass of Brindisi." _Copper_ was in Latin _aes
Cyprium_, or "brass of Cyprus."
Some coins take their names from the names of places. The _florin_, or
two-shilling piece, takes its name from Florence. _Dollar_ is the same
word as the German _thaler_, the name of a silver coin which was
formerly called a _Joachimstaler_, from the silver-mine of
Joachimstal, or "Joachim's Dale," in Bohemia. The _ducat_, a gold coin
which was used in nearly all the countries of Europe in the Middle
Ages, and which was worth about nine shillings, got its name from the
duchy (in Italian, _ducato_) of Apulia, where it was first coined in
the twelfth century.
It was an Italian town, Milan, which gave us our word _milliner_. This
came from the fact that many fancy materials and ornaments used in
millinery were imported from Milan.
Many old dances take their names from places. We hear a great deal
nowadays of the "morris dances" which used to be danced in England in
olden times. But _morris_ comes from _morys_, an old word for
"Moorish." In the Middle Ages this word was used, like "Turk" or
"Tartar," to describe almost any Eastern people, and the name came,
perhaps, from the fact that in these dances people dressed up, and so
looked strange and foreign. The name of a very well-known dance, the
_polka_, really means "Polish woman." _Mazurka_, the name of another
dance, means "woman of Masovia." The old-fashioned slow dance known
as the _polonaise_ took its name from Poland, and was really a Polish
dance. The well-known Italian dance called the _tarantella_ took its
name from the South Italian town Tarento.
The word _canter_, which describes another kind of movement, comes
from Canterbury. _Canter_ is only the short for "Canterbury gallop,"
an expression which was used to describe the slow jogging pace at
which many pilgrims in the Middle Ages rode along the Canterbury road
to pray at the famous shrine of St. Thomas Becket in that city.
Several fruits take their names from places. The _damson_, which used
in the Middle Ages to be called the "damascene," was called in Latin
_prunum damascenum_, or "plum of Damascus." The name _peach_ comes to
us from the Late Latin word _pessica_, which was a bad way of saying
"Persica." _Currants_ used to be known as "raisins of Corauntz," or
Corinth raisins.
_Parchment_ gets its name from Pergamum, a city in Asia Minor.
_Pistol_ came into English from the Old French word _pistole_, and
this came from an Italian word, _pistolese_, which meant "made at
Pistoja." We do not think of _spaniels_ as foreign dogs; but the name
means "Spanish," having come into English from the Old French word
_espagneul_, with that meaning.
A derivation which it would be even harder to guess is that of the
word _spruce_. We now use this word to describe a kind of leather, a
kind of ginger beer, and a variety of the fir tree, and also in the
same sense as "spick and span." The word used to be _pruce_, and meant
"Prussia."
The name of the famous London fish-market, _Billingsgate_, has long
been used to mean very violent and abusive language supposed to
resemble the scoldings of the fishwomen in the market.
Another word describing a certain kind of speaking, and which also
comes from the name of a place, is _bunkum_. When a person tells a
story which we feel sure is not true, or tells a long tale to excuse
himself from doing something, we often say it is all "bunkum." This
word comes from the name of the American town of Buncombe, in North
Carolina, and came into use through the member for Buncombe in the
House of Representatives insisting on making a speech just when every
one else wanted to proceed with the voting on a bill. He knew that he
had nothing of importance to say, but explained that he must make a
speech "for Buncombe"--that is, so that the people of Buncombe, who
had elected him, might know that he was doing his duty by them. And so
the expression _bunkum_ came into use.
Another word which may go with these, because it also begins with the
letter _b_, is _bedlam_. We describe a scene of great noise and
confusion, as when a number of children insist on talking all
together, as a "perfect bedlam." The word _bedlam_ comes from
Bethlehem. In the Middle Ages there was a hospital in London kept by
monks of the Order of St. Mary of Bethlehem. In time this house came
to be known as "Bedlam," and as after a while the hospital came to be
an asylum for mad people, this name came to be used for any lunatic
asylum. From that it came to have its modern use of any great noise or
confusion.
The sport of shooting pheasants is very English, and few people think
that the pheasant is a foreign bird, introduced into England, just as
in fact the turkey, which seems to belong especially to the English
Christmas, came to us from America. The _pheasant_ gets its name from
the river Phasis, in the Eastern country of Pontus. It may seem
peculiar that a bird coming from America should be called a _turkey_;
but we saw in an earlier chapter how vague the people of the fifteenth
and sixteenth centuries were about America. When Columbus reached the
shore of that continent, people thought he had sailed round by another
way to the "Indies." In nearly all European countries the turkey got
names which show that most people thought it came from India, or at
least from some part of the "Indies." Even in England it was called
for a time "cok off Inde." In Italy it was _gallina d'India_ (or
"Indian hen"). The modern French words for male and female turkeys
come from this mistake. In French the bird was at first known as
_pouille d'Inde_ (or "Indian fowl"). The name came to be shortened
into the one word _dinde_, and then, as people thought this must mean
the female turkey, they made a new word for the male, _dindon_.
But though so many words come from the names of places, and some of
these would not seem to do so at first sight, there are other words
which seem to come from place-names which do not do so at all.
_Brazil_ wood is found in large quantities in Brazil, but the wood is
not called after the country. On the contrary, the country is called
after the wood. This kind of wood was already used in Europe in the
twelfth century, and its name is found in several European languages.
When the Portuguese adventurers found such large quantities in this
part of South America they gave it the name of _Brazil_ from the wood.
The island of _Madeira_ got its name in the same way, this being the
word for "timber," from the Latin word _materia_.
Again, guinea-pigs do not come from Guinea, on the west coast of
Africa, though guinea-fowls do so. Guinea-pigs really come from
Brazil. The name _guinea-pig_ was given to these little animals
because, when the sailors brought them home, people thought they had
come from Africa. But in the seventeenth century a common voyage for
ships was to sail from English or other European ports to the west
coast of Africa, where bands of poor negroes were seized or bought,
and carried over the Atlantic to be sold as slaves in the American
"plantations." The ships naturally did not come home empty, but often
people were not very clear as to whether the articles they brought
back came from Africa or America.
Again, _India ink_ comes, not from India, but from China. _Indian
corn_ comes from America. _Sedan chairs_ had nothing to do with Sedan
in France, but probably take their name from the Latin verb _sedere_,
"to sit."
In these words, as in many others, we can see that it is never safe to
_guess_ the derivation of words. Many of the old philologists used to
do this, and then write down their guesses as facts. This caused a
great deal of extra work for modern scholars, who will not, of course,
accept any "derivation" for a word until they have clear proof that it
is true.