ect lesson on the
way in which the borrowing of words naturally takes place. As a great
naval power, the Dutch have contributed to our nautical vocabulary a
number of words, many of which are easily recognised as near relations;
such are _boom_ (beam), _skipper_ (shipper), _orlop_ (over leap), the
name given to a deck which "over-runs" the ship's hold. _Yacht_,
properly a "hunting" ship, is cognate with Ger. _Jagd_, hunting, but has
no English kin. Hexham has _jaght_, "zee-roovers schip, pinace, or
pirats ship." The modern Dutch spelling is _jacht_. We should expect to
find art terms from the country of Hobbema, Rubens, Vandyke, etc. See
_easel_ (p. 39), _etch_ (p. 133), _lay-figure_ (p. 166), _sketch_ (p.
22). _Landscape_, earlier _landskip_, has the suffix which in English
would be _-ship_. In the 16th century Camden speaks of "a _landskip_, as
they call it." The Low Countries were for two centuries the cock-pit of
Europe, and many military terms were brought back to England by Dugald
Dalgetty and the armies which "swore terribly in Flanders." Such are
_cashier_ (p. 157), _forlorn hope_ (p. 129), _tattoo_ (p. 162). Other
interesting military words are _leaguer_ (lair), recently re-introduced
from South Africa as _laager_, and _furlough_. The latter word, formerly
pronounced to rime with _cough_, is from Du. _verlof_ (for leave); _cf._
archaic Ger. _Verlaub_, now replaced by _Urlaub_. _Knapsack_,[17] a food
sack, comes from colloquial Du. _knap_, food, or what the Notts colliers
call _snap_. We also find it called a _snapsack_. Both _knap_ and _snap_
contain the idea of "crunching"--
"I would she (Report) were as lying a gossip in that as ever
_knapped_ ginger."
(_Merchant of Venice_, iii. 1.)
_Roster_ (roaster) is the Dutch for gridiron, the allusion being to the
parallel lines of the list or plan; for a somewhat similar metaphor cf.
_cancel_ (p. 88). The pleasant fiction that--
"The children of Holland take pleasure in making
What the children of England take pleasure in breaking,"
confirms the derivation of _toy_ from Du. _tuig_, implement, thing,
stuff, etc., a word, like its German cognate _Zeug_, with an infinity of
meanings. We now limit _toy_ to the special sense represented by Du.
_speel-tuig_, play-thing.
[Page Heading: DISAPPEARANCE OF CELTIC]
Our vocabulary dealing with war and fortification is chiefly French, but
most of the French terms c
|