Notes and Queries, Number 179, April 2, 1853. / A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc.

Transcriber's Note: This text contains accented Greek. You may want to change fonts if the accented Greek renders as boxes on your monitor. If your system allows for it, hovering over the Greek text will show a transliteration. Archaic spellings such as Ffurther and pseudonymes have not been modernized.

I wish to note, and to suggest to students in ethnology, the Query, how it comes to pass that John Bull has a peculiar propensity to call things by his own name, his familiar appellative of Jack ?
The four jack knaves, jack -a-lents, jack -a-dandies, jack -a-nasties, and jacks -in-office ( jack -an-apeses every man jack of them), with that name fraught with mysterious terror, Jack Ketch, are the scape-graces of this numerous family; and, at every Jack who would be the gentleman, at a saucy Jack who attempts to play the jack with us, our indignation rises, like that of Juliet's nurse. But, on the whole, Jack is an honest fellow, who does his work in this life, though he has been reproached with Tom's helping him to do nothing; but let the house that Jack built vindicate him from this calumny. Jack , we repeat, is an honest fellow, and is so more especially, when as Jack -tar (Heaven protect him from Jack -sharks both on sea and shore!) he has old Ocean beneath, and the union- jack above him. Of black and yellow jack , who are foreigners, we make no mention; neither of Jack -Spaniards, nor of Jacko the monkey, whom we detest; but, go where we will, Jack meets us, and is master of all trades, for that we hold to be the right, though, we are aware, not the usual version of the saying. In short, with Merry Andrews , Jerry Sneaks, Tom Noddies, and Silly Simons , we may all have a casual acquaintance; but Jack , sweet Jack , kind Jack , honest Jack , Jack still is our familiar.
John Jackson.
When I first began to write on Mythology, I followed the Germans in using mythus for the Greek μῦθος. I afterwards thought it would be better to Anglicise it, and, strange to say, I actually found that there was a rule in the English language without an exception. It was this: Words formed from Greek disyllables in ος, whether the penultimate vowel be long or short, are monosyllables made long by e final. Thus, not only does βῶλος make bole , but πόλος pole , πόρος pore , σκόπος scope , τόνος tone , &c.; so also γῦρος, gyre ; θύμος, thyme ; στῦλος, style ; κύβος, cube , &c.: I therefore, without hesitation, made an English word mȳthe . Mr. Grote, in his History of Greece , has done the very same thing, and probably on the same principles, quite independently of me; for, as I am informed, he has never condescended to read my Mythology of Greece and Italy , perhaps because it was not written in German. We have had no followers, as far as I am aware, but Miss Lynn, in her classical novels, and Mr. J. E. Taylor, in his translation of the Pentamerone , &c.