_The Word "Pick."_--Presuming that the proposal at Vol. v., p. 173.,
involves the discussion and illustration of the words inserted, allow
me, as a Lancashire man, to express my belief that the word _pick_ has
invariably the sense of "to throw," and not "to push." It is in fact
another form of the verb "to pitch;" the two terminations being almost
convertible, especially in words formed from the Saxon, as "fetch" from
"feccean," "stitch" from "stician," "thatch" from "theccan," the earlier
form of the latter word being retained in the well-known lines of "Bessy
Bell and Mary Gray." _Pick_, in the sense of "throw," will be found in
Shakspeare's _Henry VIII._, Act V. Sc. 3.:
"I'll _pick_ you o'er the pales."
And in _Coriolanus_, Act I. Sc. 1.:
"As high as I could _pick_ my lance."
And see the notes of the various commentators on these passages. If the
subject be worth further illustration, I may mention that in the
district of the cotton manufacture, the instrument by which the shuttle
is _thrown_ across the loom is called a _picker_; and each thread of the
woven fabric, being the result of one throw of the shuttle, is, by using
the word in a secondary sense, called a _pick_. I have heard a story of
a worthy patron of the Arts, more noted for his wealth than his taste,
who, attributing certain freedom of touch in a picture, for which he had
given a commission, to a want of due pains in elaboration, expressed his
dissatisfaction by saying, "there were not the right number of _picks_
to the inch;" the threads of calico, when received from the weaver,
being usually counted under the microscope as a test of the goodness of
the work.