Literary Blunders: A Chapter in the "History of Human Error"

Title: Literary Blunders: A Chapter in the "History of Human Error"

Author: Henry B. Wheatley

Release date: December 1, 1995 [eBook #371] Most recently updated: March 22, 2012

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/371

Credits: Produced by Charles Keller

Produced by Charles Keller

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LITERARY BLUNDERS

A CHAPTER IN THE

``HISTORY OF HUMAN ERROR''

BY HENRY B. WHEATLEY, F.S.A.

PREFACE. ——

EVERY reader of The Caxtons will remember the description, in that charming novel, of the gradual growth of Augustine Caxton's great work ``The History of Human Error,'' and how, in fact, the existence of that work forms the pivot round which the incidents turn. It was modestly expected to extend to five quarto volumes, but only the first seven sheets were printed by Uncle Jack's Anti-Publishers' Society, ``with sundry unfinished plates depicting the various developments of the human skull (that temple of Human Error),''<p > and the remainder has not been heard of since.

In introducing to the reader a small branch of this inexhaustible subject, I have ventured to make use of Augustine Caxton's title; but I trust that no one will allow himself to imagine that I intend, in the future, to produce the thousand or so volumes which will be required to complete the work.

A satirical friend who has seen the proofs of this little volume says it should be entitled ``Jokes Old and New''; but I find that he seldom acknowledges that a joke is new, and I hope, therefore, my readers will transpose the adjectives, and accept the old jokes for the sake of the new ones. I may claim, at least, that the series of answers to examination questions, which Prof. Oliver Lodge has so kindly supplied me with, comes within the later class.<p _>

I trust that if some parts of the book are thought to be frivolous, the chapters on lists of errata and misprints may be found to contain some useful literary information.

I have availed myself of the published communications of my friends Professors Hales and Skeat and Dr. Murray on Literary Blunders, and my best thanks are also due to several friends who have helped me with some curious instances, and I would specially mention Sir George Birdwood, K.C.I.E., C.SI.., Mr. Edward Clodd, Mr. R. B. Prosser, and Sir Henry Trueman Wood_.<p _>

CONTENTS. —— CHAPTER

BLUNDERS IN GENERAL.

PAGE

Distinction between a blunder and a mistake— Long life of a literary blunder —Professor Skeat's ``ghost words''— Dr. Murray's ``ghost words''—Marriage Service—Absurd etymology— Imaginary persons—Family pride— Fortunate blunders—Misquotations— Bulls from Ireland and elsewhere . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1

CHAPTER II.

BLUNDERS OF AUTHORS.

Goldsmith—French memoir writers— Historians—Napier's bones—Mr. Gladstone— Lord Macaulay—Newspaper writers—Critics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

<p _> CHAPTER III.

BLUNDERS OF TRANSLATORS. PAGE

``Translators are traitors''—Amusing translations—Translations of names— Cinderella—``Oh that mine adversary had written a book''—Perversions of the true meaning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

CHAPTER IV.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL BLUNDERS.

Watt's Bibliotheca Britannica—Imaginary authors—Faulty classification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

CHAPTER V.

LISTS OF ERRATA.

Early use of errata—Intentional blunders— Authors correct their books—Ineffectual attempts to be immaculate—Misprints never corrected. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

CHAPTER VI.

MISPRINTS.

Misprints not always amusing—A Dictionary of Misprints—Blades's Shakspere and Typography—Upper and lower cases—Stops—Byron—Wicked Bible—Malherbe—Coquilles—Hood's lines—Chaucer—Misplacement of type . . . . . . . . . . . . .100

<p _> PAGE CHAPTER VII.

SCHOOLBOYS' BLUNDERS.

Cleverness of these blunders— Etymological guesses—English as she is Taught—Scriptural confusions— Musical blunders—History and geography— How to question—Professor Oliver Lodge's specimens of answers to examination papers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .157

CHAPTER VIII.

FOREIGNERS ENGLISH.

Exhibition English—French Work on the Societies of the World—Hotel keepers' English—Barcelona Exhibition—Paris Exhibition of 1889—How to learn English— Foreign Guides in so called English —Addition to God save the King— Shenstone. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .188

INDEX. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .215

LITERARY BLUNDERS.

CHAPTER I.

BLUNDERS IN GENERAL.

THE words ``blunder'' and ``mistake'' are often treated as synonyms; thus we usually call our own blunders mistakes, and our friends style our mistakes blunders. In truth the class of blunders is a sub- division of the genus mistakes. Many mistakes are very serious in their consequences, but there is almost always some sense of fun connected with a blunder, which is a mistake usually caused by some mental confusion. Lexicographers state that it is an error due to stupidity and carelessness, but blunders are often caused<p 1> <p 2>by a too great sharpness and quickness. Sometimes a blunder is no mistake at all, as when a man blunders on the right explanation; thus he arrives at the right goal, but by an unorthodox road. Sir Roger L'Estrange says that ``it is one thing to forget a matter of fact, and another to blunder upon the reason of it.''

Some years ago there was an article in the Saturday Review on ``the knowledge necessary to make a blunder,'' and this title gives the clue to what a blunder really is. It is caused by a confusion of two or more things, and unless something is known of these things a blunder cannot be made. A perfectly ignorant man has not sufficient knowledge to make a blunder.

An ordinary blunder may die, and do no great harm, but a literary blunder often has an extraordinary life. Of literary blunders probably the philological are the most persistent and the most difficult to kill. In this class may be mentioned (1) Ghost words, as they are called by Professor Skeat—words, that is, which have been registered, but which never really existed; (2) Real words that exist through a mis<p 3>take; and (3) Absurd etymologies, a large division crammed with delicious blunders.

1. Professor Skeat, in his presidential address to the members of the Philological Society in 1886, gave a most interesting account of some hundred ghost words, or words which have no real existence. Those who wish to follow out this subject must refer to the Philological Transactions, but four specially curious instances may be mentioned here. These four words are ``abacot,'' ``knise,'' ``morse,'' and ``polien.'' Abacot is defined by Webster as ``the cap of state formerly used by English kings, wrought into the figure of two crowns''; but Dr. Murray, when he was preparing the New English Dictionary, discovered that this was an interloper, and unworthy of a place in the language. It was found to be a mistake for by-cocket, which is the correct word. In spite of this exposure of the impostor, the word was allowed to stand, with a woodcut of an abacot, in an important dictionary published subsequently, although Dr. Murray's remarks were quoted. This shows how difficult it is to kill a word which has <p 4>once found shelter in our dictionaries. Knise is a charming word which first

appeared in a number of the Edinburgh Review in 1808. Fortunately for the fun of the thing, the word occurred in an article on Indian Missions, by Sydney Smith. We read, ``The Hindoos have some very strange customs, which it would be desirable to abolish. Some swing on hooks, some run knises through their hands, and widows burn themselves to death.'' The reviewer was attacked for his statement by Mr. John Styles, and he replied in an article on Methodism printed in the Edinburgh in the following year. Sydney Smith wrote: ``Mr. Styles is peculiarly severe upon us for not being more shocked at their piercing their limbs with knises . . . it is for us to explain the plan and nature of this terrible and unknown piece of mechanism. A knise, then, is neither more nor less than a false print in the Edinburgh Review for a knife; and from this blunder of the printer has Mr. Styles manufactured this D<ae>dalean instrument of torture called a knise.'' A similar instance occurs in a misprint of a passage <p 5>of one of Scott's novels, but here there is the further amusing circumstance that the

etymology of the false word was settled to the satisfaction of some of the readers. In the majority of editions of The Monastery, chapter x., we read: ``Hardened wretch (said Father Eustace), art thou but this instant delivered from death, and dost thou so soon morse thoughts of slaughter?'' This word is nothing but a misprint of nurse; but in Notes and Queries two independent correspondents accounted for the word morse etymologically. One explained it as ``to prime,'' as when one primes a musket, from O. Fr. amorce, powder for the touchhole (Cotgrave), and the other by ``to bite'' (Lat. mordere), hence ``to indulge in biting, stinging or gnawing thoughts of slaughter.'' The latter writes: ``That the word as a misprint should have been printed and read by millions for fifty years without being challenged and altered exceeds the bounds of probability.'' Yet when the original MS. of Sir Walter Scott was consulted, it was found that the word was there plainly written nurse.

The Saxon letter for th (<?p>) has long <p 6>been a sore puzzle to the uninitiated, and it came to be represented by the letter y. Most of those who think they are writing in a specially archaic manner when they spell ``ye'' for ``the'' are ignorant of this, and pronounce the article as if it were the pronoun. Dr. Skeat quotes a curious instance of the misreading of the thorn (<?p>) as p, by which a strange ghost word is evolved. Whitaker, in his edition of Piers Plowman, reads that Christ ``polede for man,'' which should be tholede, from tholien, to suffer, as there is no such verb as polien.

Dr. J. A. H. Murray, the learned editor of the Philological Society's New English Dictionary, quotes two amusing instances of ghost words in a communication to Notes and Queries (7th S., vii. 305). He says: ``Possessors of Jamieson's Scottish Dictionary will do well to strike out the fictitious entry cietezour, cited from Bellenden's Chronicle in the plural cietezouris, which is merely a misreading of cietezanis (i.e. with Scottish z = <?z> = y), cieteyanis or citeyanis, Bellenden's regular word for citizens. One regrets to see this absurd <p 7>mistake copied from Jamieson (unfortunately without acknowledgment) by the compilers of Cassell's Encyclop<ae>dic Dictionary.''

``Some editions of Drayton's Barons Wars, Bk. VI., st. xxxvii., read—

`` `And ciffy Cynthus with a thousand birds,'

which nonsense is solemnly reproduced in Campbell's Specimens of the British Poets, iii. 16. It may save some readers a needless reference to the dictionary to remember that it is a misprint for cliffy, a favourite word of Drayton's.''

2. In contrast to supposed words that never did exist, are real words that exist through a mistake, such as apron and adder, where the n, which really belongs to the word itself, has been supposed, mistakenly, to belong to the article; thus apron should be napron (Fr. naperon), and adder should be nadder (A.-S. n<ae>ddre). An amusing confusion has arisen in respect to the Ridings of Yorkshire, of which there are three. The word should be triding, but the t has got lost in the adjective, as West Triding became West Riding. The origin of <p 8>the word has thus been quite lost sight of, and at the first organisation of the Province of Upper Canada, in 1798, the county of Lincoln was divided into four ridings and the county of York into two. York was afterwards supplied with four.

Sir Henry Bennet, in the reign of Charles II., took his title of Earl of Arlington owing to a blunder. The proper name of the village in Middlesex is Harlington.

A curious misunderstanding in the Marriage Service has given us two words instead of one. We now vow to remain united till death us do part, but the original declaration, as given in the first Prayer Book of Edward VI., was: ``I, N., take thee N., to my wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us depart [or separate].''

It is not worth while here to register the many words which have taken their present spelling through a mistaken view of their etymology. They are too numerous, and the consideration of them would open up a <p 9>question quite distinct from the one now under consideration.

3. Absurd etymology was once the rule, because guessing without any knowledge of the historical forms of words was general; and still, in spite of the modern school of philology, which has shown us the right way, much wild guessing continues to be prevalent. It is not, however, often that we can point to such a brilliant instance of blundering etymology as that to be found in Barlow's English Dictionary (1772). The word porcelain is there said to be ``derived from pour cent annes, French for a hundred years, it having been imagined that the materials were matured underground for that term of years.''

Richardson, the novelist, suggests an etymology almost equal to this. He writes, ``What does correspondence mean? It is a word of Latin origin: a compound word; and the two elements here brought together are respondeo, I answer, and cor, the heart: i.e., I answer feelingly, I reply not so much to the head as to the heart.''

Dr. Ash's English Dictionary, published in 1775, is an exceedingly useful work, as <p 10>containing many words and forms of words nowhere else registered, but it contains some curious mistakes. The chief and best-known one is the explanation of the word curmudgeon—``from the French c<oe>ur, unknown, and mechant, a correspondent.'' The only explanation of this absurdly confused etymology is that an ignorant man was employed to copy from Johnson's Dictionary, where the authority was given as ``an unknown correspondent,'' and he, supposing these words to be a translation of the French, set them down as such. The two words esoteric and exoteric were not so frequently used in the last century as they are now; so perhaps there may be some excuse for the following entry: ``Esoteric (adj. an incorrect spelling) exoteric.'' Dr. Ash could not have been well read in Arthurian literature, or he would not have turned the noble knight Sir Gawaine into a woman, ``the sister of King Arthur.'' There is a story of a blunder in Littleton's Latin Dictionary, which further research has proved to be

no mistake at all. It is said that when the Doctor was compiling his work, and <p 11>announced the word concurro to his amanuensis, the scribe, imagining from the sound that the six first letters would give the translation of the verb, said ``Concur, sir, I suppose?'' to which the Doctor peevishly replied, ``Concur—condog!'' and in the edition of 1678 ``condog'' is printed as one interpretation of concurro. Now, an answer to this story is that, however odd a word ``condog'' may appear, it will be found in Henry Cockeram's English Dictionarie, first published in 1623. The entry is as follows: ``to agree, concurre, cohere, condog, condiscend.''

Mistakes are frequently made in respect of foreign words which retain their original form, especially those which retain their Latin plurals, the feminine singular being often confused with the neuter plural. For instance, there is the word animalcule (plural animalcules), also written animalculum (plural animalcula). Now, the plural animalcula is often supposed to be the feminine singular, and a new plural is at once made—animalcul<ae>. This blunder is one constantly being made, while it is only occasionally we see a supposed plural <p 12>strat<ae> in geology from a supposed singular strata, and the supposed singular formulum from a supposed plural formula will probably turn up some day.

In connection with popular etymology, it seems proper to make a passing mention of the sailors' perversion of the Bellerophon into the Billy Ruffian, the Hirondelle into the Iron Devil, and La Bonne Corvette into the Bonny Cravat. Some of the supposed changes in public-house signs, such as Bull and Mouth from ``Boulogne mouth,'' and Goat and Compasses from ``God encompasseth us,'' are more than doubtful; but the Bacchanals has certainly changed into the Bag o' nails, and the George Canning into the George and Cannon. The words in the language that have been formed from a false analogy are so numerous and have so often been noted that we must not allow them to detain us here longer.

Imaginary persons have been brought into being owing to blundering misreading. For instance, there are many saints in the Roman calendar whose individuality it would not be easy to prove. All <p 13>know how St. Veronica came into being, and equally well known is the origin of St. Ursula and her eleven thousand virgins. In this case, through the misreading of her name, the unfortunate virgin martyr Undecimilla has dropped out of the calendar.

Less known is the origin of Saint Xynoris, the martyr of Antioch, who is noticed in the Martyrologie Romaine of Baronius. Her name was obtained by a misreading of Chrysostom, who, referring to two martyrs, uses the word <gr xunwr<i!>s> (couple or pair).

In the City of London there is a church dedicated to St. Vedast, which is situated in Foster Lane, and is often described as St. Vedast, alias Foster. This has puzzled many, and James Paterson, in his Pietas Londinensis (1714), hazarded the opinion that the church was dedicated to ``two conjunct saints.'' He writes: ``At the first it was called St. Foster's in memory of some founder or ancient benefactor, but afterwards it was dedicated to St. Vedast, Bishop of Arras.'' Newcourt makes a similar mistake in his Reper<p 14>torium, but Thomas Fuller knew the truth, and in his Church History refers to ``St. Vedastus, anglice St. Fosters.'' This is the fact, and the name St. Fauster or Foster is nothing more than a corruption of St. Vedast, all the steps of which we now know. My friend Mr. Danby P. Fry worked this out some years ago, but his difficulty rested with the second syllable of the name Foster; but the links in the chain of evidence have been completed by reference to Mr. H. C. Maxwell Lyte's valuable Report on the Manuscripts of the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's. The