Burnley, Lancashire, Sept. 21. 1850.
_Sirloin._-In Nichols's _Progresses of King James the First_, vol. iii. p.
401., is the following note:--
"There is a laughable tradition, still generally current in Lancashire,
that our knight-making monarch, finding, it is presumed, no undubbed
man worthy of the chivalric order, knighted at the banquet in Hoghton
Tower, in the warmth of his honour-bestowing liberality, a loin of
beef, the part ever since called the _sirloin_. Those who would credit
this story have the authority of Dr. Johnson to support them, among
whose explanations of the word _sir_ in his dictionary, is that it is
'a title given to the loin of beef, which one of our kings knighted in
a fit of good humour.' 'Surloin,' says Dr. Pegge (_Gent. Mag._, vol.
liv. p. 485.), 'is, I conceive, if not knighted by King James as is
reported, compounded of the French _sur_, upon, and the English _loin_,
for the sake of euphony, our particles not easily submitting to
composition. In proof of this, the piece of beef so called grows upon
the _loin_, and behind the small ribs of the animal.' Dr. Pegge is
probably right, and yet the king, if he did not give the sirloin its
name, might, notwithstanding, have indulged in a pun on the already
coined word, the etymology of which was then, as now, as little
regarded as the thing signified is well approved."