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Show Tracing Origin of English Slang Term A professor was irreverently known among his students as "The Beak," because be-cause of the prominence of his nose. While that Is usually the sense ri which the word is used, yet it is frequently fre-quently applied to a magistrate and its use in that sense is explained in several ways. Long ago, thieves' slang had "beak" for constable, in exactly the same sense of a "nosey-parker," the man whose business it was to find out just the. things that he wasn't meant to find out. And from the policeman po-liceman to the magistrate the change would be easy. Amongst other explanations, expla-nations, however, that have been offered of-fered is the fact that "beak" is a very old Saxon word which was the name of the gold collar once worn as an emblem em-blem of authority. Scholars Interested in language have suggested that though we have long forgotten the original word, we have its corruption as standing for a magistrate. Montreal Mon-treal Family Herald. |