Will any of your philological readers be so obliging as to communicate any note he may have touching the original or definition of the word Catchup?
It does not appear in Johnson's Dictionary. Mr. Todd, in his edition, inserts it with an asterisk, denoting it as a new introduction, and under Catsup says, see Catchup. Under this latter word he says—"Sometimes improperly written Ketchup, a poignant liquor made from boiled mushrooms, mixed with salt, used in cooking to add a pleasant flavour to sauces." He gives no derivation of the word itself, and yet pronounces the very common way of spelling it improper.
What reference to, or connexion with, mushrooms has the word?—and why Catsup, with the inference that it is synonymous with Catchup?
G.
"Let me make a Nation's Ballads, who will may make their Laws!"
One perpetually hears this exclamation attributed to different people. In a magazine which I took up this morning, I find it set down to "a certain orator of the last century;" a friend who is now with me, tells me that it was unquestionably the saying of the celebrated Lord Wharton; and I once heard poor Edward Irving, in a sermon, quote it as the exclamation of Wallace, or some other Scottish patriot. Do relieve my uncertainty, and, for the benefit of our rising orator, tell us to whom the saying ought to be set down.
C.U.B.E.R.
To endeavour Oneself.
In the Collect for the 2nd Sunday after Easter, in the preface to the Confirmation Service, and in the form of Ordering of priest, the verb "endeavour" takes (clearly, I think) a middle-voice form, "to endeavour one's self." Is there any other authority for this usage? No dictionary I have seen recognises it.
G.P.