6
NOTES AND QUERIES.
[9 th S. II. JULY 2, '98.
access state that this word means a shoe-
maker, that is, one who works in cordwain,
which latter word is a modification of cordo-
van, a kind of leather formerly prepared at
Cordova ; and the said dictionaries support
this view by sundry quotations in prose and
verse from writers of authority. Well, which
is right, the dictionaries or the Quarterly
reviewer'? If the latter has blundered, I
think he ought to be just a little ashamed of
himself. PATRICK MAXWELL.
Bath.
MANILA. Hitherto the principal result to us of the Spanish-American war has been a general diffusion of knowledge of the proper spelling of this town. The Spectator, how- ever, continues to substitute for the place- name the Spanish word for a bracelet, manilla, the Spanish pronunciation of which would be very different from that of Manila. Must we wait for a bombardment of the peak of Tenerife to knock out of it for good the superfluous / that we are in the habit of inserting 1 The circumstances which would dock the unmeaning s which we stick to the tail of Lyon and Marseille are too terrible to contemplate. KILLIGREW.
ACCENT IN SPANISH. There are plenty of second-rate Spanish grammar* in English. Perhaps the only one of the first class is Knapp's, yet even Knapp has no mention of the curious and most important law of accent to which I am about to draw attention. Years ago I noticed that, although the correct pronunciation of the name Iturbide is with the penultimate accent, as I have marked it, nevertheless many Spaniards call it Iturbide. I inquired the reason of my friend the late Prince Louis Lucien Bonaparte, but he was as far from suspecting it as I was, and could only suggest that it had been influenced by the adjective ttirbido. It was not till I personally visited Spain that I acquired the clue to this and many another riddle which turned out to be connected with it. The first place I stopped at was San Sebastian, and one of the first things I did was to ask of a man I met, who bore a characteristically Spanish name, how he pronounced it. He replied, "Andonegui," and then, correcting himself, " No," he said, " it should be And6- negui." Later I journeyed further by rail, and as the train drew up at one of the larger stations I overheard an exchange of sentences between two men in the same compartment. " What is this place ? " demanded one. " Zumarraga," answered the other. But the word was scarcely out of his mouth when the official on the platform called out distinctly
" Zumarraga." All this set me thinking, and
I ultimately discovered that not only these,
but a vast number of other place and personal
names of Northern Spain, originally accented
upon the penultimate, had of late years trans-
ferred the stress to the preceding syllable.
I have already given a list of some of these
in 'N. & Q.'(8 th S. vii. 412), but as the subject
is one of the greatest interest to every
student of Spanish, I may be pardoned for
adding (what I have not before stated) that
this transference of accent in names did not
begin in the Basque provinces, but is derived
from the capital, wnere, besides names, it
affects most of the longer nouns and adjectives
in the language. Every one who speaks
Spanish must have come across some in-
stances of words marked paroxytone in tho
dictionaries, but popularly pronounced as
pro paroj-y 'tones. To illustrate how far the
mischief has gone I may quote some lines,
well known in Spain, in which Hartzenbusch
satirizes the fashion and gives many ex-
amples :
Hay gente que dice colega, Y epf grama, estalactita, Pupitre, m^ndigo, sritiles, Hostiles, corola, y auriga, Se oye a muchisimos p6rito, Y alguno prommcia mam para, Diploma, eriidito, perfume, P^rsiles, Tibulo, y Sabedra.
Particularly noteworthy here are Sabedra, the surname of the immortal author of ' Don Quixote,' usually written Saavedra, and Per- siles, the hero of one of his minor works. Like all the others, these were originally accented on the second syllable from the end. JAMES PL ATT, Jun.
GEORGE OLD. An example of the creation of a surname in quite modern times has recently come to my knowledge. It is, I think, sufficiently curious to be recorded in ' N. & O.' Many years ago (the exact date I do not know) a man came to this town seek- ing work. He was engaged by a farmer, at first for a short period only during a busy time, but as he turned out to be hardworking and trustworthy, he stayed from month to month and year to year. He never told his name nor whence he came indeed, he rarely spoke at all. Perhaps it was in conse- quence of this that the neighbours came to the conclusion that he was a Frenchman. This, whether true or false, seems to have been on their part a mere guess. As some designation was required for one who was often spoken of, he was soon nicknamed Old George. When at last, from age and infirmity, he could no longer work, he became charge- able to the parish, and was sent to end his
