worked hard of late. The stage has
given us _exit_, he goes out, and the Universities _exeat_, let him go
out, while law language contains a number of Latin verb forms, e.g.,
_affidavit_ (late Latin), he has testified, _caveat_, let him beware,
_cognovit_, he has recognised--
"You gave them a _cognovit_ for the amount of your costs after the
trial, I'm told."
(_Pickwick_, Ch. 46.)
due to the initial words of certain documents. Similarly _item_, also,
is the first word in each paragraph of an inventory. With this we may
compare the _purview_ of a statute, from the Old Fr. _pourveu_
(_pourvu_), provided, with which it used to begin. A _tenet_ is what one
"holds." _Fiat_ means "let it be done." When Mr Weller lamented--
"Oh, Sammy, Sammy, vy worn't there a _alleybi_?"
(_Pickwick_, Ch. 34.)
it is safe to say that he was not consciously using the Latin adverb
_alibi_, elsewhere, nor is the printer who puts in a _viz._ always aware
that this is an old abbreviation for _videlicet_, i.e., _videre licet_,
it is permissible to see. A _nostrum_ is "our" unfailing remedy, and
_tandem_, at length, instead of side by side, is a university joke.
[Page Heading: INFLECTED LATIN FORMS]
Sometimes we have inflected forms of Latin words. A _rebus_[8] is a word
or phrase represented "by things." _Requiem_, accusative of _requies_,
rest, is the first word of the introit used in the mass for the dead--
"_Requiem_ aeternam dona eis, Domine,"
while _dirge_ is the Latin imperative _dirige_, from the antiphon in the
same service--
"_Dirige_, Domine meus, in conspectu tuo viam meam."
The spelling _dirige_ was once common--
"Also I byqwethe to eche of the paryshe prystys beying at my
_dyryge_ and masse xiid."
(Will of John Perfay, of Bury St. Edmunds, 1509.)
_Query_ was formerly written _quaere_, seek, and _plaudit_ is for
_plaudite_, clap your hands, the appeal of the Roman actors to the
audience at the conclusion of the play--
"Nunc, spectatores, Iovis summi causa clare _plaudite_."
(PLAUTUS, _Amphitruo_.)
_Debenture_ is for _debentur_, there are owing. _Dominie_ is the Latin
vocative _domine_, formerly used by schoolboys in addressing their
master, while _pandy_, a stroke on the hand with a cane, is from _pande
palmam_,
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