Boston.
_Painter--Derrick_ (Vol. vii., pp. 178. 391.).--I cannot agree with
J. S. C. that _painter_ is a corruption of _punter_, from the Saxon _punt_,
a boat. {508} According to the construction and analogy of our language, a
_punter_ or _boater_ would be the person who worked or managed the boat. I
consider that _painter_--like _halter_ and _tether_, derived from Gothic
words signifying to _hold_ and to _tie_--is a corruption of _bynder_, from
the Saxon _bynd_, to bind. If the Anglo-Norman word _panter_, a snare for
catching and holding birds, be a corruption of _bynder_, we are brought to
the word at once. Or, indeed, we may go no farther back than _panter_.
J. C. G. says that _derrick_ is an ancient British word: perhaps he will be
kind enough to let us know its signification. I always understood that a
_derrick_ took its name from _Derrick_, the notorious executioner at
Tyburn, in the early part of the seventeenth century, whose name was long a
general term for hangman. In merchant ships, the _derrick_, for hoisting up
goods, is always placed at the hatchway, close by the _gallows_. The
_derrick_, however, is not a nautical appliance alone; it has been long
used to raise stones at buildings; but the crane, and that excellent
invention the handy-paddy, has now almost put it out of employment. What
will philologists, two or three centuries hence, make out of the word
_handy-paddy_, which is universally used by workmen to designate the
powerful winch, traversing on temporary rails, employed to raise heavy
weights at large buildings. For the benefit of posterity, I may say that it
is very _handy_ for the masons, and almost invariably worked by Irishmen.
As a collateral evidence to my opinion, that _painter_ is derived from the
Saxon _bynder_, through the Anglo-Norman _panter_, and that _derrick_ is
from _Derrick_ the hangman, I may add that these words are unknown in the
nautical technology of any other language.