| Show Some Queer Derivations of Words The game cricket is not the chirping chatterer that makes music for the family fireside but takes its name from the AngloSaxon crice a staff crutch which we call a bat The catamaran is not an animal but a boat made of two hulls fastened fast-ened together This word is Hindostanee and means floating trees The word haberdasher haber-dasher has a rushing roaring sound like that of angry waves breaking upon a pebbly peb-bly shore but it bears no rough meaning The haberdasher of today sells what we call goods for gentlemens wear In the Icelandic hapurtask is things of trifling value and hapeaak is a haversack to carry oats or provisions Taska is a chest or a pouch hafe oats In German bafersack is an oat bag So the haberdasher haberdash-er was originally one who carried oats in a bag But the German babe is goods and tauchen is to exchange berdash is a necktie neck-tie and a berdasher a necktie maker So we can take our choice between the oat bag man nd the maker of neckwear The expression is i borrowed from the Italian but spoiled in the transfer Sleeps like a top71 A top does not sleep but the dormouse does and he sleeps as though he meant it Egli dorme come un topo in Italian is in English He sleeps like a dormouse dor-mouse but because topo is like our top and because when a top is spinning at its best it does not wobble but maintains the perpendicular and makes no noise the Italian phraso was taken by certain wiseacres wise-acres to have reference to a topHarpers Young People |
