Tr has been observed'that there is no place where dictionaries are more stadicd than in Shanghai, and one is often strack by the interest men take in hunting out words an suggesting possible derivations. Theze are few more amusing, more suggestive, and more instructive amusement' for odd scraps of time. Most of us remember what a pleasant epoch in our reading life it was when we first opened Archbishop Trench's delightful little book on words, and found in it a feast akin to that which an older generation had found in Home Tooke's Diversions of Parley." The words we attempt to derive, in the random notes that follow, have often occasioned argument, and the derivations and suggestions offered are called from various sources. The claims of many are of course subject toare-hearing. Strange curiosities of language may be found in proverbs and common expressions.
The phrase "no great shakes" preserves a word not, we believe, in ordinary English use. It is explained by a word in uso in California, there "shake" means a large-sized shingle for roofing buildings, and, taking it in that sense, the slang ex-session becomes perfectly clour and indicates that a poor bargain, or a person or thing of little account or value, is in the same relation toa good one that a shingle is to a shake, This is perhaps the best explanation, though in the Slang Dictionary, if we romember rightly, "shake" is defined as " one of the staves of a hogshead taken apart." There is another expression, meaning well dressed, which we have all heard. A person is said to be "in fall fig." A very quaint solution of this phrase was given some years ago. A derivation hunter suggested that. it contained an allusion to the primitive dress of our first parents, and their concealment of themselves because they were naked—fig standing for "figleaf," and "fall-fig" meaning such a dress as enables you to exhibit yourself without shame. The word quarrel" has been connected with the Latin querela, and with the word guard—with one 7—the head of a cross bow bolt. The word Jeader," for a political newspaper article, isin everybody's mouth. Its derivation is clear. Leaders are so-called from the practice of leading, or patting leads between the lines, to Keep them at a distance, and is not to be understood as indicating any special characteristic of the article itself, "Alcohol" is derived from an
fying an impalpable powder or other Arabic word, Alzahal, or Alkool, signi subtle substance, its present application being attributable probably to the alchemists. "Nickname," we confess, has always troubled us. Johnson gives only nom de unique, French. It is doubt~ fal whether the sedan chair derives its name from the famous place or from severe. "Porter" gets its name from the porters or laborers who first consumed it, The word "blackguard" has been
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.