button to main menu  Clarke's Survey of the Lakes, 1787

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page xxx:-
to the use of them which we feel in ourselves in the description of any unusual object,) exceedingly natural to the human mind; so natural indeed, that I hope it is not true which I have heard related, that the people in a certain district in Cumberland, having a tolerable quantity of hills in their neighbourhood, were obliged from their want of invention merely, to call one of them Nameless.
So much with respect to the simple mode of transferring of terms, on account of resemblance of one thing to another: There are however others, which, like Dr Sharp's word Pistol, go still further. That I may not entangle either myself or my readers in tracing the origin of a number of different terms, amongst which, though obviously a-kin, it is impossible to know with even a tolerable degree of probability which is the eldest, I shall pick out a certain set of words, amongst which I am almost sure an affinity subsists throughout; though, like every other set, I dare nor pretend to say which is the ancestral word, or that which gave being to the rest, or whether any of those which are now left merit such a name. I am led to the choice of these which follow, by a sentence in the Appendix to Mr West's account of those Lakes, in which he mentions the word Scale, and gives, for the sake of elucidating the meaning of the word, this quotation, if I recollect aright, from Shakespear, "to scale't a little further." I beg leave however to observe, before I enter upon the subject of the kindred phrases of the word Scale, that I think Mr West's wish of tracing the English language, at least in some degree, to its roots by means of its dialects, a very good one; but that his want of acquaintance with the general mode of accenting particular words, and indeed of the general disposition of the dialect, has misled him several times in the little which he has attempted of this kind. Guthrie also, as far as I remember, in his history of Scotland, has some observations on the dialect of that country, indicating, that many original phrases of our language may be found in it, which is very true. However, to return to my subject, it may be remembered, that in Dutch, Schil, Schulp, or Shelp, signifies a Shell, which in the dialect of Cumberland is pronounced Schell or Skell; in that dialect also the word is used for a scale. Belonging to this word therefore are several verbs, with their derivatives: to take anything from its husk, or shell, is to sheil or shell it, as pease, &c. The husks of oats are called skillings or shillings, and the kernels are groats, (what affinity there has been supposed to exist between these and the coins of that name, I know not.) Again; to Scale, is to strip off scales, bark, &c. but is more frequently used in a natural sense: thus any kind of crust or scurf, occasioned by disease on the body, is said, on its being detached from it, or falling asunder, to scale off. The dish also wherewith milk is skimmed has the name of a Scale-dish; whether from its scaling off the cream, or from its diminishing to a thin edge like a scale or skell, is not quite obvious, but probably from both; neither is it impossible, that, before the invention of wooden dishes, milk might be skimmed with a shell in reality: every kind of dish likewise which is thin at the margin is a Scale-dish; and such are those wooden ones which were formerly, and are still, in some cases, suspended at the end of a balance for the purpose of weighing; hence the name of the Scales, and a pair of scales; which words are in process of time used indiscriminantly, and sometimes in the singular number, for the balance itself; and thence extended by metaphor to the deliberating faculties of the mind, and to every thing which is a counterpoise to that which opposes it; being moreover variously modified according to the nature of circumstances. The hull of a ship is called its Skell, as also a house without its furniture. The booths likewise, constructed for the watchers of cattle in summer, amidst the most uncultivated parts, were Skells or Scales; and their Latin name in the deeds of those times is Scalingae: these buildings, however, afterwards grew into towns, which took their names accordingly, as Sea-Scale, (Scalinga ad mare,) Scale, Scale-fell, Skelton, Scalesby, Booth-scale, &c.: of the same stock is the name of certain fish, Skelly; and of a bird, Skell-Drake. I might be laughed at for suggesting that Shelf, in this dialect Skelf; or Skelvin, the name of the additional rail that goes round a cart, are from the same origin: however, was I not afraid of being tedious, I could produce an account of things that would give such a suggestion no small probability.
V. Hav-
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