H. C. C.
Devonianisms (Vol. viii., p. 65.).—Your correspondent Mr. Keys is at a loss for the origin of the word plum, as used in Devonshire. Surely it is the same word as plump, although employed in a somewhat different sense. Plum or plump, as applied to a bed, would certainly convey the idea of softness or downiness. As to the employment of the word as a verb, I conceive that it is analogous to an expression which I have often heard used by cooks, in speaking of meat or poultry, "to plump up." A cook will say of a fowl which appears deficient in flesh, "It is a young bird; it will plump up when it comes to the fire." A native of Devonshire would simply say, "It will plum."
As to the word clunk, it is in use throughout Cornwall in the sense of "to swallow," and is undoubtedly Celtic. On referring to Le Gonidec's Dictionnaire Celto-Breton, I find "Lonka, or Lounka, v.a. avaler."
I have neither a Welsh dictionary nor one of the ancient Cornish language at hand, but I have no doubt that the same word, with the same signification, will be found in both those dialects of the Celtic, probably with some difference of spelling, which would bring it nearer to the word clunk.
It is not wonderful that a word, the sound of which is so expressive of the action, should have continued in use among an illiterate peasantry long after the language from which it is derived was forgotten; but many pure Celtic words, which have not this recommendation, are still in common use in Cornwall, and a collection of them would be highly interesting. Could not some of your antiquarian correspondents in the west, Mr. Boase of Penzance for example, furnish such a list? I will mention one or two words which I chance to remember: mabyer, a chicken, Breton mab, a son, iar, a hen; vean, little, Breton vihan.
To persons acquainted with the Welsh or Breton, the names of places in Cornwall, though sometimes strangely corrupted, are almost all significant. The dialect of Celtic spoken in Cornwall appears to have approached more closely to the latter than to the former of these tongues; or perhaps, speaking more correctly, it formed a connecting link between them, as Cornwall itself lies about midway between Wales and Brittany.
Edgar MacCulloch.
Guernsey.
Gentile Names of the Jews (Vol. viii., p. 563.).—The names of Rothschild, Montefiore, and Davis are family names, and not noms de guerre.