Roster (roaster) is the Dutch for gridiron, the allusion being to the parallel lines of the list or plan; for a somewhat similar metaphor cf. cancel (p. [88]). The pleasant fiction that—
"The children of Holland take pleasure in making
What the children of England take pleasure in breaking,"
confirms the derivation of toy from Du. tuig, implement, thing, stuff, etc., a word, like its German cognate Zeug, with an infinity of meanings. We now limit toy to the special sense represented by Du. speel-tuig, play-thing.
DISAPPEARANCE OF CELTIC
Our vocabulary dealing with war and fortification is chiefly French, but most of the French terms come from Italian. Addison wrote an article in No. 165 of the Spectator ridiculing the Frenchified character of the military language of his time, and, in the 16th century, Henri Estienne, patriot, printer, and philologist, lamented that future historians would believe, from the vocabulary employed, that France had learnt the art of war from Italy. As a matter of fact she did. The earliest writers on the new tactics necessitated by villainous saltpetre were Italians trained in condottiere warfare. They were followed by the great French theorists and engineers of the 16th and 17th centuries, who naturally adopted a large number of Italian terms which thus passed later into English.
A considerable number of Spanish and Portuguese words have reached us in a very roundabout way (see pp. [23-7]). This is not surprising when we consider how in the 15th and 16th centuries the world was dotted with settlements due to the Portuguese and Spanish adventurers who had a hundred years' start of our own.
There are very few Celtic words either in English or French. In each country the result of conquest was, from the point of view of language, complete. A few words from the Celtic languages have percolated into English in comparatively recent times, but many terms which we associate with the picturesque Highlanders are not Gaelic at all.[18] Tartan comes through French from the Tartars (see p. [47]); kilt is a Scandinavian verb, "to tuck up," and dirk,[19] of unknown origin, first appears about 1600. For trews see p. [117].
A very interesting part of our vocabulary, the canting, or rogues', language, dates mostly from the 17th and 18th centuries, and includes contributions from most of the European languages, together with a large Romany element. The early dictionary makers paid great attention to this aspect of the language. Elisha Coles, who published a fairly complete English dictionary in 1676, says in his preface, "'Tis no disparagement to understand the canting terms: it may chance to save your throat from being cut, or (at least), your pocket from being pick'd."
Words often go long journeys. Boss is in English a comparatively modern Americanism. But, like many American words, it belongs to the language of the Dutch settlers who founded New Amsterdam (New York). It is Du. baas, master, which has thus crossed the Atlantic twice on its way from Holland to England. A number of Dutch words became familiar to us about the year 1900 in consequence of the South African war. One of them, slim, 'cute, seems to have been definitely adopted. It is cognate with Ger. schlimm, bad, and Eng. slim, slender, and the latter word has for centuries been used in the Eastern counties in the very sense in which it has now been re-introduced.
Apricot is a much travelled word. It comes to us from Fr. abricot, while the Shakespearean apricock—