y the natives, and may have
dropped the final T through the influence of French dressmakers. Chintz
is another example, being the Hindustani word "cheent," which means a
spotted cotton cloth. In trade fabrics are always described in the
plural, and the Z in Chintz is no doubt a perversion, through
misunderstanding, of the terminal S. Lac is another Indian word which
has retained its own meaning, but it has gone beyond it and given rise
to a verb "to lacquer."

With these perhaps should be mentioned Pyjamas and Shampoo, both of
which have undergone strange perversions. Pyjama is an Indian name for
loose drawers or trousers tied with a cord round the waist, such as
Mussulmans of both sexes wear. In India the Pyjama was long ago adopted,
with a loose coat to match, as a more decent and comfortable costume
than the British nightshirt, and when Anglo-Indians retired they brought
the fashion home with them, English tailors called the whole costume a
"Pyjama suit," but the second word was soon dropped and the first
improved into the plural number.

"Shampoo" comes from a verb "champna," to press or squeeze, and the
imperative, "champo," as often happens, was the form in which it became
English. Forbes, in his _Oriental Memoirs_, writes of "the effects of
opium, champoing and other luxuries indulged in by Oriental
sensualists." When the medical profession in England began to patronise
the practice, it assumed a more dignified name, "massage," and the old
word was relegated to the hairdressers, who appropriated it to the
washing of the head, an operation with which the word has no proper
relation at all.

There are two words of doubtful derivation, which may be mentioned in
this connection. Cot, in the sense of a light bed, or cradle, is not
much used in England, but is given in Webster's and other dictionaries,
with the same Saxon derivation, as the "cot beside the hill" which the
poet Rogers sighed for. If this is correct, then it is at least curious
that the word should have almost gone out of use in England and revived
in India from a distinct root. There it is the term in every-day use for
any rough bedstead, such as the natives sleep on and call a khat. The
average Englishman cannot aspirate a K, and never pronounces the Indian
A aright unless it is followed by an R, so khat becomes "cot" by a
process of which there are many illustrations.

The other doubtful word mentioned above is Teapoy. It is defined in the
dictio