‘Oorveeg’ at first looked more attractive.
Its derivation, however, showed that it was something that ‘skimmed along’ the ear, or ‘touched it lightly’!
Now it was conceivable that the sleeves or cuffs of ancient times had proved inconvenient; but that they had ever been so large as to flap about one’s ears, I positively refused to believe.
It was quite a comfort to discover, as I did somewhat by accident, that ‘oorveeg’ meant a ‘box on the ear.’ Thus I could reject it without scruple—which I did.
Manchet was so obviously French that I never looked at it twice. My grammar was most stringent in banishing all foreign words. Especially avoid French terms, it insisted. That was an easy rule. Geen Fransch woordje bij! So I avoided manchet.
ZIE-BENEDEN.
I had now only one word left, which of course must be right. Handboei, moreover, defined its own functions with welcome precision. It obviously meant something to fit closely round the hand; and with a sense of having achieved an intellectual victory, I set down on my list below the ‘halsbanden’, ‘4 paar handboeien’.
After this discipline in the art of ‘rejections and exclusions’ it seemed child’s play to fix on the proper rendering for sock.
Sok—blyspel—vilten binnenzool—ploegschaar,—that was what the front part of the dictionary gave me to work upon. ‘Blyspel’ and ‘ploegschaar’ I dropped overboard without qualm, for I found they meant ‘comedy’ and ‘ploughshare’; and when it came to choosing between sok and vilten binnenzool, I gave the first the preference, as my book shed no light whatever on vilten binnenzool.