mmonly applied to stems may be
for the most part dispensed with; but several are interesting, and must be
examined before dismissal. {148}

26. Indeed, in the first place, the word we have to use so often, 'stalk,'
has not been got to the roots of, yet. It comes from the Greek [Greek:
stelechos,] (stelechos,) the 'holding part' of a tree, that which is like a
handle to all its branches; 'stock' is another form in which it has come
down to us: with some notion of its being the mother of branches: thus,
when Athena's olive was burnt by the Persians, two days after, a shoot a
cubit long had sprung from the 'stelechos,' of it.

27. Secondly. Few words are more interesting to the modern scholarly and
professorial mind than 'stipend.' (I have twice a year at present to
consider whether I am worth mine, sent with compliments from the Curators
of the University chest). Now, this word comes from 'stips,' small pay,
which itself comes from 'stipo,' to press together, with the idea of small
coin heaped up in little towers or piles. But with the idea of lateral
pressing together, instead of downward, we get 'stipes,' a solid log; in
Greek, with the same sense, [Greek: stupos,] (stupos,) whence, gradually,
with help from another word meaning to beat, (and a side-glance at beating
of hemp,) we get our 'stupid,' the German stumph, the Scottish sumph, and
the plain English 'stump.'

Refining on the more delicate sound of stipes, the Latins got 'stipula,'
the thin stem of straw: which rustles and ripples daintily in verse,
associated with spica and spiculum, used of the sharp pointed ear of corn,
and its fine processes of fairy shafts. {149}

28. There are yet two more names of stalk to be studied, though, except for
particular plants, not needing to be used,--namely, the Latin cau-dex, and
cau-lis, both connected with the Greek [Greek: kaulos], properly meaning a
solid stalk like a handle, passing into the sense of the hilt of a sword,
or quill of a pen. Then, in Latin, caudex passes into the sense of log, and
so, of cut plank or tablet of wood; thus finally becoming the classical
'codex' of writings engraved on such wooden tablets, and therefore
generally used for authoritative manuscripts.

Lastly, 'caulis,' retained accurately in our cauliflower, contracted in
'colewort,' and refined in 'kail,' softens itself into the French 'chou,'
meaning properly the whole family of thick-stalked eatable salads with
spreading heads; but these