The Etymologicon: A Circular Stroll Through the Hidden Connections of the English Language (38 page)

Quiz

a) Latin for
who is?

The Cream of the Sources

A book like this would need a bibliography at least twice its own size; so in the interests of paper preservation, there isn’t one.

I can, though, assure you that everything in here has been checked, mainly against the following works:

The Oxford English Dictionary

The Oxford Dictionary of Place Names

The Oxford Dictionary of English Surnames
(Reany & Wilson)

The Dictionary of Idioms
by Linda and Roger Flavell

The Dictionary of National Biography

Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable

And online:

The Online Etymology Dictionary

Phrases.org

And (with vast circumspection):

Dear old Wikipedia (or
Fastchild
)

Unfortunately, there are many points on which these sources disagree. Usually, rather than take you carefully through all of the arguments and counter-arguments, I have simply picked the one that I believe is most likely and recounted that.

All other things being equal, I have trusted them in the order in which they are listed above. However, if a good citation is produced then I am quite prepared to side with the underdog.

Occasionally, I’ve given citations that you won’t find in any work of reference because I’ve found them all by myself. So for confused scholars who suspect me of making things up as I go along:

‘Draw a blank’:
The History of Great Britain
, Arthur Wilson (1643)

‘Blank cheque’:
An Inquiry into the Various Systems of Political Economy
, Charles Ganilh (1812)

‘Talk cold turkey’:
One of Three
, Clifford Raymond (1919)

‘Crap’ and ‘Number one’:
Poems in Two Volumes
, J. Churchill Esq. (1801)

‘Dr Placebo’:
Bath Memoirs
, Robert Pierce (1697), quoted in
Attempts to Revive Antient Medical Doctrines
, Alexander Sutherland (1763) and elsewhere

‘Pass the buck’:
The Conquest of Kansas
, William Phillips (1856)