familiar to
naturalists. In 1847 it was applied to the giant ape, which had recently
been described by explorers.

The origin of the word _silk_ is a curious problem. It is usually
explained as from Greco-Lat. _sericum_, a name derived from an Eastern
people called the _Seres_, presumably the Chinese. It appears in
Anglo-Saxon as _seolc_. Now, at that early period, words of Latin origin
came to us by the overland route and left traces of their passage. But
all the Romance languages use for silk a name derived from Lat. _saeta_,
bristle, and this name has penetrated even into German (_Seide_) and
Dutch (_zijde_). The derivatives of _sericum_ stand for another
material, _serge_. Nor can it be assumed that the _r_ of the Latin word
would have become in English always _l_ and never _r_. There are races
which cannot sound the letter _r_, but we are not one of them. As the
word _silk_ is found also in Old Norse, Swedish, Danish, and Old
Slavonian, the natural inference is that it must have reached us along
the north of Europe, and, if derived from _sericum_, it must, in the
course of its travels, have passed through a dialect which had no _r_.

FOOTNOTES:

[16] This includes Flemish, spoken in a large part of Belgium and in the
North East of France.

[17] _Haversack_, oat-sack, comes through French from German.

[18] This applies also to some of the clan names, e.g., _Macpherson_,
son of the parson, _Macnab_, son of the abbot.

[19] My own conviction is that it is identical with Dan. _dirik_,
_dirk_, a pick-lock. See _Dietrich_ (p. 42). An implement used for
opening an enemy may well have been named in this way. _Cf._ Du.
_opsteeker_ (up sticker), "a pick-lock, a great knife, or a dagger"
(Sewel, 1727).

[20] "It was a wholly _garbled_ version of what never took place" (Mr
Birrell, in the House, 26th Oct. 1911). The bull appears to be a
laudable concession to Irish national feeling.

[21] Formerly _ferdekin_, a derivative of Du. _vierde_, fourth; cf.
_farthing_, a little fourth.

[22] _Kafir_ (Arab.) means infidel.

[23] Eng. _chawbuck_ is used in connection with the punishment we call
the _bastinado_. This is a corruption of Span. _bastonada_, "a stroke
with a club or staff" (Stevens, 1706). On the other hand, we extend the
meaning of _drub_, the Arabic word for _bastinado_, to a beating of any
kind.

CHAPTER III

WORDS OF POPULAR MANUFACTURE

In a sense, all nomenclature, apart from purely scient