CUMMER—GREENHORN
English gossip, earlier god-sib, related in God, a sponsor, soon developed the subsidiary meanings of boon companion, crony, tippler, babbler, etc., all of which are represented in Shakespeare. The case of Fr. compère and commère, godfather and godmother, is similar. Cotgrave explains commérage as "gossiping; the acquaintance, affinity, or league that growes betweene women by christning a child together, or one for another." Ger. Gevatter, godfather, has also acquired the sense of Fr. bonhomme (p. [80]), Eng. daddy. From commère comes Scot. cummer or kimmer—
"A canty quean was Kate, and a special cummer of my ain."
(Monastery, Ch. 8.)
While christenings led to cheerful garrulity, the wilder fun of weddings has given the Fr. faire la noce, to go on the spree. In Ger. Hochzeit, wedding, lit. high time, we have a converse development of meaning.
Parallel sense development in different languages sometimes gives us a glimpse of the life of our ancestors. Our verb to curry (leather) comes from Old Fr. corréer[73] (courroyer), to make ready, put in order, which represents a theoretical *con-red-are, the root syllable of which is Germanic and cognate with our ready. Ger. gerben, to tan, Old High Ger. garawen, to make ready, is a derivative of gar, ready, complete, now used only as an adverb meaning "quite," but cognate with our yare—
"Our ship—
Which, but three glasses since, we gave out split—
Is tight, and yare, and bravely rigg'd."
(Tempest, v. 1.)
Both curry and gerben must have acquired their restricted meaning at a time when there was literally nothing like leather.
Even in slang we find the same parallelism exemplified. We call an old-fashioned watch a turnip. In German it is called Zwiebel, onion, and in French oignon. Eng. greenhorn likens an inexperienced person to an animal whose horns have just begun to sprout. In Ger. Gelbschnabel, yellow-bill, and Fr. bec-jaune, we have the metaphor of the fledgling. Ludwig explains Gelbschnabel by "chitty-face," chit, cognate with kit-ten, being a general term in Mid. English for a young animal. From bec-jaune we have archaic Scot. beejam, university freshman. Cotgrave spells the French word bejaune, and gives, as he usually does for such words,[74] a very full gloss, which happens, by exception, to be quotable—