Philadelphia.
The Patronymic "Mac."—The Inverness Courier of 1823 gives a list of genuine Celtic surnames beginning with Mac, amounting to no less than 392.
Kirkwallensis.
Erroneous Forms of Speech.—Should you consider the following as worth a place in your publication, they are at your service.
1. The much used word Teetotal is wrong: it ought to be written Teatotal. It implies the use of tea, instead of intoxicating liquors: that was its original meaning. Let us return to the proper spelling. Better late than never.
2. The expression, lately become very common, "Up to the present time," and so forth, is wrong. It ought to be "Down to the present time." The stream of time, like all other streams, is always descending. In tracing a thing backwards, from the present time, it is quite right to use the word up.
3. The words down and up are much misapplied by the inhabitants of the provinces in another sense, not knowing, or forgetting that, par excellence, London is considered the highest locality: from every place, how high soever its position, it is "up to London," and to every such place, it is "down from London." In London itself, St. Paul's Cathedral is considered as the highest or central point; and in every street radiating from that point, it is up when going towards it, and down when going from it. In going from St. Paul's to the Poultry we go down Cheapside.
4. The inhabitants of provincial towns and cities are much in the habit of saying such a person is not "in town" to-day. That is wrong: they ought to say "in the town." The word town is, par excellence, applicable to London alone.
Robert Smart.
Sunderland.