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

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

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

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL BLUNDERS.

Watt's _Bibliotheca Britannica_--Imaginary authors--Faulty classification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

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

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

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

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 first stage in the corruption took place in France, and the name must have been introduced into this country as Vast. This loss of the middle consonant is in accordance with the constant practice in early French of dropping out the consonant preceding an accented vowel, as _reine_ from _regina_. The change of _Augustine_ to _Austin_ is an analogous instance. _Vast_ would here be pronounced _Vaust_, in the same way as the word _vase_ is still sometimes pronounced _vause_. The interchange of _v_ and _f_, as in the cases of <p 15>_Vane_ and _Fane_ and _fox_ and _vixen_, is too common to need more than a passing notice. We have now arrived at the form St. Faust, and the evidence of the old deeds of St. Paul's explains the rest, showing us that the second syllable has grown out of the possessive case. In one of 8 Edward III. we read of the ``King's highway, called Seint Fastes lane.'' Of course this was pronounced St. _Faust<e'>s_, and we at once have the two syllables. The next form is in a deed of May 1360, where it stands as ``Seyn Fastreslane.'' We have here, not a final _r_ as in the latest form, but merely an intrusive trill. This follows the rule by which thesaurus became _treasure, Hebudas, Hebrides_, and _culpatus, culprit_. After the great Fire of London, the church was re-named St. Vedast (_alias_ Foster)--a form of the name which it had never borne before, except in Latin deeds as Vedastus.[1] More might be said <p 16>of the corruptions of names in the cases of other saints, but these corruptions are more the cause of blunders in others than blunders in themselves. It is not often that a new saint is evolved with such an English name as Foster.

[1] See an article by the Author in _The Athen<ae>um_, January 3rd, 1885, p. 15; and a paper by the Rev. W. Sparrow Simpson in the _Jourral of the British Arch<ae>ological Association_ (vol. xliii., p. 56).

The existence of the famous St. Vitus has been doubted, and his dance (_Chorea Sancti Vit<ae>_) is supposed to have been originally _chorea invita_. But the strangest of saints was S. Viar, who is thus accounted for by D'Israeli in his _Curiosities of Literature_:--

``Mabillon has preserved a curious literary blunder of some pious Spaniards who applied to the Pope for consecrating a day in honour of Saint Viar. His Holiness in the voluminous catalogue of his saints was ignorant of this one. The only proof brought forward for his existence was this inscription:--

An antiquary, however, hindered one more festival in the Catholic calendar by convincing them that these letters were only the remains of an inscription erected for <p 17>an ancient surveyor of the roads; and he read their saintship thus:--

[PREFECTV]S VIAR[VM].''

Foreign travellers in England have usually made sad havoc of the names of places. Hentzner spelt Gray's Inn and Lincoln's Inn phonetically as Grezin and Linconsin, and so puzzled his editor that he supposed these to be the names of two giants. A similar mistake to this was that of the man who boasted that ``not all the British House of Commons, not the whole bench of Bishops, not even Leviticus himself, should prevent him from marrying his deceased wife's sister.'' One of the jokes in Mark Twain's _Huckleberry Finn_ (ch. xxiii.) turns on the use of this same expression ``Leviticus himself.''

The picturesque writer who draws a well-filled-in picture from insufficient data is peculiarly liable to fall into blunders, and when he does fall it is not surprising that less imaginative writers should chuckle over his fall. A few years ago an American editor is said to have received the telegram ``Oxford Music Hall <p 18>burned to the ground.'' There was not much information here, and he was ignorant of the fact that this building was in London and in Oxford Street, but he was equal to the occasion. He elaborated a remarkable account of the destruction by fire of the principal music hall of academic Oxford. He told how it was situated in the midst of historic colleges which had miraculously escaped destruction by the flames. These flames, fanned into a fury by a favourable wind, lit up the academic spires and groves as they ran along the rich cornices, lapped the gorgeous pillars, shrivelled up the roof and grasped the mighty walls of the ancient building in their destructive embraces.

In 1882 an announcement was made in a weekly paper that some prehistoric remains had been found near the Church of San Francisco, Florence. The note was reproduced in an evening paper and in an antiquarian monthly with words in both cases implying that the locality of the find was San Francisco, California. It is a common mistake of those who <p 19>have heard of Grolier bindings to suppose that the eminent book collector was a binder; but this is nothing to that of the workman who told the writer of this that he had found out the secret of making the famous Henri II. or Oiron ware. ``In fact,'' he added, ``I could make it as well as Henry Deux himself.'' The idea of the king of France working in the potteries is exceedingly fine.