Corruptions.—Another and greater class of names comprises those which are corruptions of classical names or of those unfamiliar in other ways.
A well-known example is daffodil, which was originally affodyl, a corruption of asphodel, a name of unknown meaning, originally given to the iris, and transferred to narcissus. A very obvious corruption is aaron, which has been applied to Lords and Ladies, whose scientific name is Arum. An incomprehensibly foolish instance is bullrush for pool-rush, i.e. water rush. This name has at least the merit of supplying material for that riddle of our childhood in which occur the words “when the bull rushes out.”
Carraway is another obvious corruption of its Latin name Carum carui. In the ancient Schola Salernitana, as I learn from Sir Norman Moore, is a punning Latin line, “Dum carui carwey non sine
febre fui” (“When I was out of carraway I was never free from fever”).
Dogwood (Cornus sanguinea) was originally dagwood, so called because it was used to make dags or skewers: doubtless the same word as dagger. According to a Welsh tradition dogwood was the tree on which the devil hung his mother. I cannot resist the pleasure of quoting this fact, although it does not bear on anything in particular.
Eglantine, a name used for the wild rose, is with much probability derived from the Latin aculentus, prickly, which became in French aiglent. Hence came the French names of the plant eglantier and our eglantine.
Gooseberry is believed not to have anything to do with a goose, but to come from the Flemish Kroes, meaning a cross, a comparison said to be suggested by the triple thorns, though of course a fourth thorn is needed to make this simile accurate. It is hard to see why a plant which grows wild in England, and seems by some botanists to be considered indigenous, should have a Flemish name. Prior, our chief authority, asserts that the early herbalists constantly took names from continental writers, and I think his judgment may be trusted. The problem of the derivation of the word gooseberry may at least serve to illustrate the difficulty of the subject.
The name Hemlock, which nowadays has a wicked poisonous sound, has in truth a very innocent origin. It is compounded of hem, i.e. haulm, a stalk, and lock, or leac, a plant, thus signifying merely a plant with a stem. Jack of the Buttery, a name applied to
Sedum acre, is said to be a corruption from bot, i.e. an internal parasite, and theriac, by which was meant a cure for that evil. The last-named word has turned into “Jack,” and bot has grown into “buttery.”
Lamb’s tongue is said to be a name for Plantago media; but this must, I think, be a corruption of land tongue, which is highly appropriate to the tongue-like leaves lying so closely appressed to the soil that no blade of grass grows under them, as though they were determined to spite any one who should root them up by disfiguring his lawn with naked patches. But still better evidence is forthcoming in the fact that my old Cambridgeshire gardener always called them land tongues. Why the Anglo-Saxons used the name way bread for the plantain I do not see: the fact is vouched for by Cockayne in his book entitled Leechdoms.