Saxons
called _Curt-hose_. The name of _Oxford_ contains in its first syllable an
old Celtic word, the well-known term for water or river, which occurs as
_ux_ in _Uxbridge_, as _ex_ in _Exmouth_, as _ax_ in _Axmouth_, and in
many more disguises down to the _whisk_ of _whiskey_, the Scotch
_Usquebaugh_.(61) In the name of the _Isis_, and of the suburb of _Osney_,
the same Celtic word has been preserved. The Saxons kept the Celtic name
of the river, and they called the place where one of the Roman roads
crossed the river Ox, _Oxford_. The name, however, was soon mistaken, and
interpreted as purely Saxon; and if any one should doubt that Oxford was a
kind of _Bosphorus_, and meant a ford for oxen, the ancient arms of the
city were readily appealed to in order to cut short all doubts on the
subject. The Welsh name _Ryt-yhcen_ for Oxford was a retranslation into
Welsh of an original Celtic name, to which a new form and a new meaning
had been given by the Saxon conquerors.

Similar accidents happened to Greek words after they were adopted by the
people of Italy, particularly by the Romans. The Latin _orichalcum_, for
instance, is simply the Greek word {~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER CHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~}, from {~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH PSILI AND OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~}, mountain, and
{~GREEK SMALL LETTER CHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~}, copper. Why it was called mountain-copper, no one seems to know.
It was originally a kind of fabulous metal, brought to light from the
brains of the poet rather than from the bowels of the earth. Though the
poets, and even Plato, speak of it as, after gold, the most precious of
metals, Aristotle sternly denies that there ever was any real metal
corresponding to the extravagant descriptions of the {~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER CHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK S