“Were you interested in it?” asked Mr. Seward, the Secretary of State.
“Well, yes. I saw some very curious things,” was the President’s rejoinder.
“What?” asked Secretary Seward.
“Well, there’s the word hominy, for instance. We have just ordered a lot of that stuff for the troops. I see how the word originated. I notice it came from the Latin word homo—a man.
“When we decline homo, it is:
“‘Homo—a man.
“‘Hominis—of man.
“‘Homini—for man.’
“So you see, hominy, being ‘for man,’ comes from the Latin. I guess those soldiers who don’t know Latin will get along with it all right—though I won’t rest real easy until I hear from the Commissary Department on it.”