Gents Mag 1755 p.115

---

	introduction, lists
	miscellaneous list
	Gentleman's Magazine vol.25 p.115, 1755:-
etymology   sayings
	Obscure Phrases Mr URBAN, THE superiority of your collection, the consequent extent of its sale, evidently depend on the multiplicity and variety of your correspondents; by these you are enabled to gratify curiosity with novelty, and without these you would be compelled to act like your imitators, if they deserve even that name, who copy books long since published, and transcribe into their collection what they find in others, without adding any new matter, contracting it into a more comprehensive view, or correcting any accidental defect. For my own part, I never fail to find several articles that afford me entertainment; but have of late been particularly gratified in my favourite subject of Antiquities. The pieces signed Gemsege are excellent of their kind, and, I think, of greater utility than is generally thought, or indeed than appears upon the first view. His interpretation of antient inscriptions throws great light upon those parts of history that are left in obscurity by other writers. To instance in one particular out of many; he has by a very small part of an inscription, and a date, discovered Aughton steeple to be a precatory offering for the pilgrimage of grace, of which neither Fabian, Fuller, Rapin, or Dugdale seem to have had any knowledge, notwithstanding their accuracy, diligence, and penetration. By his explication of adages and phrases, which time would probably render inscrutable in a few years, the knowledge of old customs is preserved, and the language illustrated. I therefore, with many others, most earnestly wish that he would proceed to explain such other British inscriptions as can be procured, and such other British expressions as are frequently uttered, tho' seldom understood; and to convince him that associates will be wanting, I will venture to propose a conjecture or two of my own, and shall hope for his approbation. Spick and span new, is an expression, the meaning of which is obvious, tho' the words want explanation; and which, I presume, are a corruption of of the Italian, Spiccata da la Spanna, snatched from the hand; opus ablatum incude; or according to another expression of our own, Fresh from the mint; in all which the same idea is conveyed by a different metaphor. It is well known that our langauge abounds with Italicisms, and it is probable the expression before us was coined when the English were as much bigotted to Italian fashions, as they now are to those of the French. There is another expression much used by the vulgar, wherein the sense and words are equally obscure: The expression I mean is, An't please the pigs, in which there is a peculiarity of dialect, a corruption of a word, and a common figure called metonymy: For in the first place, an in the midland counties is used for if; and pigs is most assuredly a corruption of Pyx, (from Pyxis and Πυξίς) a vessel in which the host is kept in Roman Catholic countries. In the last place the vessel is substitued for the host itself, by an easy metonymy, in the same manner as when we speak of the sense of the house, we do not mean to ascribe sense to bricks and stones, but to a certain number of representatives. The expression, therefore, means no more than Deo volente, or as it is translated into modern English by coachmen and carriers, God willing. G.S.

Lakes Guides menu.

---