Minor Notes.
Sobriquet.
—As this word is now pretty generally adopted in our language, I send you this Note to say that the word is not soubriquet, as some of your correspondents write it, but sobriquet; the former being what the French term a locution vicieuse, and only used by the illiterate. Ménage derives the word from rubridiculum.
PHILIP S. KING.
Origin of Paper.
—Whether a product is indigenous or foreign may generally be determined by the rule in linguistics, that similarity of name in different languages denotes foreign extraction, and variety of name indigenous production. The dog, whose name is different in most languages, shows that he is indigenous to most countries. The cat, on the contrary, having almost the same name in many languages, is therefore of foreign extraction in nearly all countries. The word paper is common to many tongues, the moderns having adopted it from the Greek; in which language, however, the root of the word is not significant. In Coptic (ai GUPTIC) the word bavir means a plant suitable for weaving: and is derived from the Egyptian roots ba, fit, proper; and vir, to weave. The art of paper-making may therefore be inferred to be the invention of the Egyptians; and further, that paper was made by them as by us, from materials previously woven. This inference would be either confirmatory or corrective of history, in case the history were doubtful, which it is not.
T. J. B.
Lichfield.
Persistency of Proper Names.
—The village of Boscastle, originally founded by the Norman Botreaux, still contains, amongst other French names, the following:—Moise, Amy, Benoke, Gard, Avery (Query, Yvery),—all old family names; and places still called Palais, Jardin, and a brook called Valency.
S. R. P.
Launceston.
Cheap Maps.
—This is the age of cheap maps and atlases, yet the public is miserably supplied. We have maps advertised from 1d. to 5s., and atlases from 10s. 6d. to 10 guineas. Yet they are generally impressions from old plates, or copies of old plates, with a few places of later notoriety marked, without taking the entire chart from the latest books of voyages and travels. Look at the maps of Affghanistan, Scinde, Indian Isles, American Isthmus, &c.
On inquiry at all our shops here for a moderately priced map of the new railway across South America to Panama, and for maps of California and Borneo, not one could be got.
Have any of your chart-wrights in London got up such maps for youth and emigrants? If not, let them take the hint now given by
PATERFAMILIÆ.
Edinburgh.