10 s. x. AUG. 29, 1908.] NOTES AND QUERIES.
177
A few days ago a friend wished to know
-what the initials K.C.G. stood for. They
followed the name of Capt. W. H. Patten
Saunders, " the European champion ath-
lete," in Allibone's ' Dictionary of Litera-
ture,' and appear to have no connexion
with the Guelphic Order.
Formerly the use of initials was restricted to cases of well-known application (such as R.N., for instance), or to the brief form of signature to notes, as underneath.
R. B.
Upton.
At a certain show place which I will not mention, the members of the party, on enter- ing the picture gallery, were asked to sign their names in the visitors' book, which all did. These included a peer of the realm,
- a knight, a distinguished ecclesiastic,
several members of Parliament, only one of whom added the M.P., and one who added F.S.A. One individual after his nourishing signature placed P.L.G. The custodian was puzzled, and asked the mean- ing. The answer was " Poor Law Guar- dian." AYEAHR.
"PEARL" (10 S. v. 409, 493; vi. 118, 137). I have been vainly searching for a good example of the unusual linguistic change of 6 into p, the ordinary permutation being, of course, the converse. Lately I received, however, a picture postcard from a friend in Italy, and on looking at the postmark the following equation flashed upon me : as " Bologna " is to " polony " (sausage), so is " beryl " to " pearl," or possibly so. This consonantal change also appears in It. Roberto and Ruberto, which rgive Ruperto as variant ; but a very good case is that of Eng. " purse " from Fr. bourse, which I find Prof. Skeat in his ' Dic- tionary ' notes as an anomaly ; as also "* peat " from O.E. beat, fuel.
Weigand, following in the footsteps of 'Grimm, to whose * Deutsches Worterbuch ' MR. H. KREBS kindly referred me, is of opinion that the German form is nothing but a vulgar corruption of the Syrian berulo, through the Greek and Latin. He finds that Luther uses berle once, namely, in Job xxviii. 18 ; while berl occurs in Stieler as late as 1 68 1 , also for pearl. On the other hand, Weigand regards the diminu- tives berlein (berlin) and perlein (perlin) a-s direct germanized translations of the Med. Lat. perula, formed from the German beere, -a berry + dim. termination lein.
Luther's choice of berle in the Book of Job for " pearl " is interesting to Biblical
students, I think, because the American
Revised Version (1901) renders this word
" crystal." Jewish scholars nevertheless
assert that although the Israelites may have
trafficked in pearls", it is exceedingly doubtful
if these ornaments are ever actually men-
tioned in Scripture. ' The Jewish Encvclo-
ia,' vol. ix. s.v., says :
" It is possible that Semitic peoples valued the
red pearl very highly, since the Arabic form
marjanof the Sanskrit word for pearl, mangara
(from which latter the Greek /aupyapirtjc is derived),
designates both little pearls and red coral";
while Heb. peninim (Lam. iv. 7) is said
to denote indifferently red pearls, corals,
or rubies.
The fact that Weigand further cites the German verb perlen, to bubble over, trickle, drop, and traces it to Frauenlob, with the meaning to adorn, to beautify with pearls, agrees well with what I said previously of the probable association of ideas between the occurrence of beryls naturally in the geode or nodular pebble, the interior of which is often studded with them, along with other crystalline minerals, and the natural formation of pearls in the oyster, the It. madre perla, mother-of-pearl, signify- ing literally the producer of pearls within the musseL N. W. HILL.
New York.
WIDKIRK : ' THE WAKEFIELD MYSTERIES ' (10 S. x. 128). My note upon Widkirk was founded upon my notion that there is a manuscript annotation to the effect that the Towneley Plays were connected with " Wydkirk " or " Widkirk." I am away from home, and cannot refer to books. If there is no such note, I am of course wholly wrong, and beg leave to withdraw all that I have said as to this matter.
My point is that, if there be any reference to a Widkirk, there is no particular reason why it might not, after all, mean some Woodkirk, because the A.-S. for " wood " is both widu and wudu, the former being the older and better spelling. I cannot pursue the subject now, for lack of help.
WALTER W. SKEAT.
' EPULUM PARASITICUM ' (10 S. x. 130). The author of this book was Nicolas Rigault, a classical philologist, a critic, and a French- man (b. 1577, d. 1654). An account of him will be found in the ' Biographie Univer- selle ' (1843-66), and there are several very interesting allusions to him in Mark Patti- son's ' Isaac Casaubon ' (2nd ed., 1892). Therein will be found references to Rigault' s friendship with De Thou and to his work
