434
NOTES . AND QUERIES. [9 th s. vm. NOV. 23, 1901.
and consists of every imaginable delicacy,
from sucking-pig or Siberian game to morsels
of herring or sardine laid out on toast, with
tiny bits of carrot around by way of ornament.
These dainties are washed down with draughts
of kvass or fiery vodki.
It was early too early on the morning ot Christmas Day (O.S.) that I found myself in the ante-room of the restaurant of an hotel in Southern Russia. The hour for business had not yet come, and no one was present but a sleepy attendant in his shirt sleeves, engaged in buttoning on his collar; no dainties on the counter to stimulate the appetite or please the eye ; only along the edge a row of plates, and on each of them a knife and tork laid in the fashion of a Greek cross.
Now I do not know whether this had any meaning. Certainly at the time I did not attach to it any mystical significance, nor do I remember noticing elsewhere that this was the Russian fashion of setting knife and fork. Perhaps it may have been done in honour of the feast day ; perhaps it was a mere caprice, if caprice can find expression in the unchang- ing Orient ; and perhaps it was only an acci- dent. However, I send the information to your correspondent for what it may be worth. ROBIN GOODFELLOW.
NOTES ON BOOKS, &o.
A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles.
Edited by Dr. James A. H. Murray. Kaiser
Kyx. (Oxford, Clarendon Press.) WITH the present double section, which appears with the punctuality to which we are now accus- tomed, the letter K, and with it the fifth volume of the ' New English Dictionary,' is concluded. To the fifth volume, to which title-page and preface are now supplied, we shall find some opportunity of recurring. The letter K, with which at present we are concerned, contains 1,577 main words, 495 combinations, and 1,084 subordinate entries of obso- lete forms, &c. 3,156 words, or, with the addition of 413 obrioufi combinations recorded and illustrated by quotations under the main words, 3,569 in all. Against these, to employ a species of comparison now familiar to our readers, we have to oppose 205 words in Johnson, 1,412 in the ' Encyclopedic,' 2,064 in the ' Century,' and 2,071 in Funk's ' Standard.' Far more remarkable is the disparity as regards quotations, of which 12,340 appear in the present instalment, against 1,505 in the correspond- ing portion of the ' Century ' and 684 in that of Richardson. No figures can well be more eloquent than these as to the claims of this truly national work. Native words in K are, we are told, restricted to the initial combinations ke, ki, and kn, words under other combinations being foreign or, rarely, dialectal, and as a rule recent in origin. A glance over the opening pages will show this. After kaiser, with which practically the double section opens, we have many words of Maori and Japanese origin,
one (kakistocracy) from the Greek, and one sup-
posedly of S9uth American origin, before we come
to kale or kail, which is Scottish, the first reference
to " kailyard literature" being in 1895. Words such
as kaleidoscope, kamptulicon, kanaka, and kangaroo
naturally show the date of their invention or intro-
duction. With kata we come to words of Greek
derivation or construction. Katydid reaches us
from the United States, and kava from South-
western Polynesia. Keck (botanical) is said to be
now dialectal. Kex, as all should know, is used by
Tennyson. Under keel, a flat-bottomed vessel, we
are glad to find a quotation from the Tyneside song
" Weel may the keel row." The punishment of
keelhauling is from the Dutch, being abolished in
Holland in 1853. Reference is made to it in an ordi-
nance of 1560. Keen, substantive and verb, for
Irish lamentation, obtains literary recognition in
1811-30. Keep has a curious history, belonging, it
is thought, primarily to the vulgar and non-literary
stratum of the language. In earliest use it equalled
to snatch or take, so that the opposition in Words-
worth's famous lines,
That they should take who have the power,
And they should keep who can, would have had no significance. Among many senses of this verb, that to reside, dwell, live, or lodge, though in literary use from circa 1580 to 1650, is now only colloquial, especially in Cambridge and the United States. Keep, sb., in the sense of the strongest tower in a castle, may perhaps be originally from Italian tenazza, a word not in ordi- nary dictionaries. A single instance of keeperess a woman who keeps a man, is quoted from Richard- son. Evidence is wanting as to the etymology of kelpie, a water spirit, while that of kelt, a salmon, is unknown. Kemb=comb is recognized in unkempt, and less commonly in kempt. Kennel comes first from canis, a dog. For Kentish /ire the reference is to ' N. & Q.' A very interesting history is given of kerchief, O.F. couvr'echief. Kettle is probably from catillus, a diminutive of Lat. catimis, a food vessel. A kettle of fish may be studied with interest. The pronunciation of key was kay until the end of the seventeenth century. In this regard it will be useful hereafter to compare quay. Khedive, f in the form Quiteue, is found so early as the time of Purchas. Kibe, as used by Shakespeare, is of uncertain origin. Much curious information is given concerning slang uses of kick. Killing over- poweringly beautiful goes back to 1634. Under kin we fail to trace "A little more than kin and less than kind," but will not say it is not there. Kinematograph first appears in 1896. King may pos- sibly be regarded as the most interesting and instructive article in the part. Kit-cat is also edify- ing. Kleptomania, in the form deptomania, is first encountered in 1830. Many words in common use are found in kn, as knave, knell, knife, knight, knit, knot, know, &c. The form knorr for knur, in knur and spell, used, we fancy, to be familiar. Ku Klux Klan was in use from 1871 to 1884. One of the latest articles of interest is on Kyrie eleison. Great assistance is owned to our contributor Mr. James Platt, Jun., as tracing to their true origin words from remote languages.
Book-Prices Current. Vol. XV. (Stock.) Tins invaluable record of the prices of books continues to increase in bulk, no fewer than fifty pages having been added to those in the volume lor 1900, itself an advance upon its prede-
