Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 34, Number 78, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 May 1902 — Bits of English. [ARTICLE]

Bits of English.

Many of our English words have bits of meaning hidden away in their cells,- showing what men have done and thought centuries ago. Flocks and herds were once currency, rude metal was weighed as a price, and copper was probably the first coin to tefich Roman palms, facts found ip the words “pecuniary,” “expend” and “estimate.” “Salary” takes us back to the time when t£e Roman legions received salt as part pay. “Calculate” recalls*an age when pebbles were used In counting; and “stipulate,” the custom of breaking a straw between two in making a contract. “Paper 11 claims relationship with the papyrus of the Nile, and “volume” with the early sheepskin roll. “Library” dates back to the time when pages were of bark, and “book” tells (is that the bark ywas from the “bok” or beech tree. A “pagan” was at first a village-dweller, and a “heathen” a heath-dweller.* To “abhor” is to bristle; to “accost,” to draw near to the ribs; to be “chagrined,” to be chafed with rough leather. “Rival” suggests an unfair neighbor sharing an irrigating brook, and “homage” the act of a kneeling serf, laying his toil-roughened hands between those of his feudal lord with the promise, “I am your man.” These bits hint at the riches that may be found by the one who is willing to dig out some language besides his own.

Belladonna is a preparation from the deadly nightshade, a plant familiar to most persons from being frequently seen as an ornamental shrub in the flower gardens. All parts of the plant are actively poisonous, and many fatalities have resulted from the leaves or berries being incautiously chewed or eaten bj’ children and other persons. If we wish to be big men to those who come after us we should keep no log books, but always remember to sing, “1 never did so when I was young,” then, you see, they’ll never have a chance to find out what blooming idiots we were.— “Up and Down the Sands of Gold,” by Mary Devereux.