YOU MIGHT AS WELL KILL A MAN AS FRIGHTEN HIM TO DEATH. Your conduct to the person in question is harsh (tyrannical, overbearing, unfeeling); always implying it is only towards some one in your power you would behave so, and that it is disgusting to others to witness, and base as regards yourself. U maat als wie el kele er m'aen, als verete in heim! Toe deeze! q. e. you fellow, you are as an overplus throat, a secret canker! I'll put an end to this, my good fellow ! You are merely a swallower the more, a silent devouring cancer! it shall be done away with; you cause a double expenditure; you eat away in secret my means; I'll send you about your business; I'll have no more of you! As the brutal capricious apostrophe of a vulgar Croesus to his hanger-on; to his necessitous companion [toad-eater]. Maete, fellow, match, mate, mess-mate. Kele, keele, throat, the swallow. De keel smeeren, is to anoint the throat [by eating and drinking]. Verete, the contracted participle present of vereten, to gnaw, to eat away, to consume, whence our to fret. In heim, by stealth, in secret. Toe deeze, let this be at an end, conclude; this concluded be, be the end of it. It does not imply that the utterer of the threat means to carry the threat into effect; but is used by him merely as a savage display of power-to one whom he knows must submit. Toe, concluded, ended. A TOAD EATER. As one in the most abject state of self-conscious degradation; one who feels he had better be dead than continue the life he leads. Er dood hiet eer; q. e. there is he who calls continually for death to relieve him; one who is always praying internally an end may be put to the misery he endures from his abject slavery and disgraceful way of life. Dood, death, as dissolution, and grounded in the same thema as douwen, daauwen, to thaw, to dissolve And death is as dissolution of the body into its constituent parts; and necessarily a setting free of that which is within. Death was formerly spelt dede. And also I would that al tho had the DEDE."-CHAUCER. "Lo Lorde, my Lady hath my death isworne "With outin gilt, but thy benignite Upon my DEDELY † hirt have some pite.” CHAUCER. Hieten, heeten, to call, to invoke, to say what is wanted, to call by name. Eer, ever, for ever. TIT FOR TAT. Like for like, leaving no difference between the two in question. Dit vor dat; q. e. this for that; but in the sense of, word for word. I take the verb to tittle-tattle is simply a frequentative formation from the above phrase; and not, as Johnson says, from the verb tateren (to stutter) for stuttering and tittle-tattle have no relationship. Quid pro quo, is a phrase of the same sense. Tattle, as idle talk, talk which amounts to nothing, leaves things as they were, is probably the ellipsis of this verb, used in a substantive sense. A LICKSPITTLE. One who flatters [courts another] for some undue purpose by base means. Lickspit t'el; q. e. one who is lickerish (dainty, fond of dainties) at another's expense; a glutton every where, except at his own house [expense]. Lick (leck)-spit has also the meaning of a glutton, in the sense of one fond of dainties, and is as one who would not only eat what has been dressed on the spit, but lick the spit afterwards. Lickspit te el is, as the meanest of all gluttons; he who will gratify an undue fondness for *I wish that death had all those. Mortal, that which is mortal in the heart as the container of spirit, that which is of another nature. dainties by paying the forfeit of self-respect. Lecken, licken, likken, to lick; t'el, te el, elsewhere, from home, at another's house. El is both as the Latin aliàs, aliò, and as alius the noun adjective, and the root-word of each. IN APPLE-PIE ORDER. A homely, but old and well known, expression for the exact [due] state of the object in question; each thing in its proper place; all exactly as it should be. In happe el bij hoord er; q. e. in the event [which has taken place] another hand has interfered; that which has happened has another cause than what appears upon the face of it; implying, all that happens is a part of the universal system of a directing providence. That whatever happens is destined by him who provides all. Inferring there is no such thing as chance [effect independent of cause] however it may seem to him who looks no further than upon that which has taken place, and regards it merely in relation to the first blush [the immediate effect in regard to the event in question]. From which it is to be inferred all which happens is as providential pre-arrangement; and is no other than as the self-readjusting system of equivalents, universally admitted in the system of physics in relation to the heavenly bodies. By the travesty the expression is contracted to the homely sense of, all in order in a shop [a house] or any other smaller concern within the scope of hourly observation. In, in. Happe, happening, an event, an instance happened; the contracted participle present of happen, to take hold, to seize, to snap up, and thus to take [seize] and, in idea, to stop [for the moment] time in its course: and happe, is but as the moment [period] of time the event in question takes [took] place. Hence the frequentative happenen and our to happen, as well as happy and happiness, terms implying moments properly seized and used, and what else as happiness. El, elsewhere, another. Bij, in the power of. Hooren, to belong to, to be the right (property) of. Er, there. B, and p, intermutating sounds. letter, and happe el bij hoord er, sounds apple pye order, by omitting the two aspirates. NEITHER HERE NOR THERE. H no As when we say, that's neither here nor there ; in reference to something said out of place, misplaced, nothing to do with the subject in question. Niet hier nae oort er; q. e. not that which is fit for the occasion; not proper here; not in its proper place. Nae oort er, according to place, in place there, that which is suitable for the occasion. Nae, according to, and answers to secundùm, and selon. HE IS AS WHIMSICAL AS A DANCING BEAR. Said of a conceited fantastical person, who takes the customary attentions of society for marks of respect intended for himself only, and makes himself the object of ridicule by consequent blunders and grimaces. Hij is als wie inne sich al als eer 't aensien baer; q. e. he acts like one who takes to himself as an honour that which is sheer customary propriety; he is like one who appropriates to himself that which is common to all present; he evidently places to his own account attentions not designed more for him than another. Innen, to take, to appropriate, to make income of. Eere, respect, honourable distinction. Het aensien, notice, casting the eye upon. Baer, bare, naked, pure. Sich, himself, pronounced sic. Wie inne corresponds to whim in sound. TO DIE IN ONE'S SHOES. To be hung, to come to the gallows. T'u d'haeye in wan sjuw's; q. e. when you have the shark it's of no use to you; when you have caught the shark what can you do with it; and thus implying a bad job, a hard pull and nothing caught but carrion. Hanging is also a bad job and nothing comes of it but the rogue's carrion; and it is into this sense we have turned the original form. T'u, to you. D'haeye, haai, the shark, the well known fish. In, in your possession. Wan, vain, empty, useless, the source of the Latin vanus, and sounds one. Sjouw, sjuw, labour, work, whence the French suer, and probably the Latin sudare. 'S, is, is. D'haeye sounds die, dye. Sjuw's sounds as we utter shoes. The phrase in both forms is evidently jocular. Of all fish none a greater affronter of death, none more worthless, none more contentious, when hooked. The true type of a rogue. Te dijen, to get on, to prosper, to continue, to increase; and I suspect our verb to die, is as the ellipsis of the familiar phrase te dijen te niete, to go on to nothing; and so to come to nothing, in relation to this life. Can the idea of going on be borne in the mind without coming to that of stopping? To die, implies necessarily the having gone on; and to stop, as a natural consequence. "For al my wil, my luste wholly, Is to turne; but wote ye what te done? * For nothing I ne leve it nought; But live and DYEt right in the thought." The above is suggested as a possible source of the verb to die; for which none, that can be admitted, has been yet proposed. To die has no connection in source with dood; but probably our own terms dead and death are as died and dieth, and indeed the same words. Chaucer sometimes spells *The original form of TO DIE and the same verb as te dijen, (to go on, to increase, to advance). + Probably in the sense of thrive, prosper, be happy, go on. And thus as" I live and am happy (thrive) in this thought. |