[72] The vowel is not so great a difficulty as it might appear, and we actually have the same change in comrade itself, formerly pronounced cumrade. In the London pronunciation the u of such words as but, cup, hurry, etc., represents roughly a continental short a. This fact, familiar to phoneticians but disbelieved by others, is one of the first peculiarities noted by foreigners beginning to learn English. It is quite possible that chum is an accidental spelling for *cham, just as we write bungalow for bangla (Bengal), pundit for pandit, and Punjaub for Panjab, five rivers, whence also probably the liquid called punch, from its five ingredients. Cf. also American to slug, i.e. to slog, which appears to represent Du. slag, blow—"That was for slugging the guard" (Kipling, An Error in the Fourth Dimension)—and the adjective bluff, from obsolete Du. blaf, broad-faced.
[73] Array, Old Fr. arréer, is related.
[74] This is a characteristic of the old dictionary makers. The gem of my collection is Ludwig's gloss for Lümmel, "a long lubber, a lazy lubber, a slouch, a lordant, a lordane, a looby, a booby, a tony, a fop, a dunce, a simpleton, a wise-acre, a sot, a logger-head, a block-head, a nickampoop, a lingerer, a drowsy or dreaming lusk, a pill-garlick, a slowback, a lathback, a pitiful sneaking fellow, a lungis, a tall slim fellow, a slim longback, a great he-fellow, a lubberly fellow, a lozel, an awkward fellow."
[75] Poke, sack, is still common in dialect, e.g. in the Kentish hop-gardens. It is a doublet of pouch, and its diminutive is pocket.
[76] The meaning of worm has degenerated since the days of the Lindwurm, the dragon slain by Siegfried. The Norse form survives in Great Orme's Head, the dragon's head.
[77] Some derive it from Ger. gleich, like, used of a "flush."
[78] This is why so many French military terms are feminine, e.g., recrue, sentinelle, vedette, etc.
[79] Skinner's Etymologicon (1671) has the two entries, centry pro sanctuary and centry v. sentinel. The spellings centry and centinel, which were common when the words still had a collective sense, are perhaps due to some fancied connection with century, a hundred soldiers.
[80] "This rock is Jesus Christ himself, who is the refuge and sanctuary of the humble."