[260] [The name of the small grape, originally raisins de Corauntz, was transferred to the ribes in the sixteenth century.]
[261] Ben Jonson, The New Inn, Act i, Sc. i.
[262] [On the contrary, it is the modern “Welsh rarebit” which has been mistakenly evolved out of the older “Welsh rabbit” as I have shown in Folk-Etymology, p. 431. Grose has both forms in his Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, 1785.]
[263] ‘Leghorn’ is sometimes quoted as an example of this; but erroneously; for, as Admiral Smyth has shown (The Mediterranean, p. 409) ‘Livorno’ is itself rather the modern corruption, and ‘Ligorno’ the name found on the earlier charts.
[264] Exactly the same happens in other languages; thus ‘armbrust’, a crossbow, looks German enough, and yet has nothing to do with ‘arm’ or ‘brust’, being a contraction of ‘arcubalista’, but a contraction under these influences. As little has ‘abenteuer’ anything to do with ‘abend’ or ‘theuer’, however it may seem to be connected with them, being indeed the Provençal ‘adventura’. And ‘weissagen’ in its earlier forms had nothing in common with ‘sagen’.
[265] [So Diez. But Prof. Skeat and Scheler see no reason why it should not be direct from French refuser and Low Latin refusare, from refusus, rejected.]
[266] It is upon this word that De Quincey (Life and Manners, p. 70, American Ed.) says excellently well: “It is in fact by such corruptions, by off-sets upon an old stock, arising through ignorance or mispronunciation originally, that every language is frequently enriched; and new modifications of thought, unfolding themselves in the progress of society, generate for themselves concurrently appropriate expressions.... It must not be allowed to weigh against a word once fairly naturalized by all, that originally it crept in upon an abuse or a corruption. Prescription is as strong a ground of legitimation in a case of this nature, as it is in law. And the old axiom is applicable—Fieri non debuit, factum valet. Were it otherwise, languages would be robbed of much of their wealth”. [Works, vol. xiv., p. 201.]
[267] [The direct opposite is the fact. The French contredanse was borrowed from the English ‘country-dance’. See The Folk and their Word-Lore, p. 153.]
[268] [These words are not identical. They were in use as distinct words in the fifteenth century. See N.E.D.]
[269] [Dr. Murray has shown that ‘causeway’ is not a corruption of ‘causey’ but a compound of that word with ‘way’.]