SOME BOOKS OF THE WEEK.
[Under this heading we notice such Books of the week as have not been reserved for review in other forme.] Words and their Ways in English Speech. By J. B. Greenough and G. L. Kittredge. (Macmillan and Co. 5s. net.)—Messrs. Greenough and Kittredge, who hold, respectively, the chairs of Latin and English at Harvard, have produced by collaboration a remarkably interesting and instructive book. We are naturally reminded of Archbishop Trench's work in the same field. But fifty years have brought about many changes in philological science—the " Study of Words " appeared in 1851—and the authors of the volume now before us bring to their task a much larger equipment of knowledge. The most important chapters are 8 (" The Latin in English"), 13-14 (" The Development of Words "), and 16 (" The Conventional Character of Language "); but wherever we may happen to look—the volume is eminently one that may be opened at random with good results—we are sure to find something of value. We take from 16 one or two suggestive examples. "Fist" is a word that has acquired a fixed conventional usage ; it must be either pugnacious, as in the Kaiser's "mailed fist," vulgar, or jocose. We cannot say, as Messrs. Greenough and Kittredge put it, "the lady held a lily in her delicate fist." Forlorn hope has a curious history. It is an adaptation of the Dutch verloren hoop, "a lost band." It is suggested that it was a happy chance that corrupted hoop into hope. It is more possible than usual to give some idea of this building by detached bricks from it ; but it should properly be studied as a whole. The matter is large in quantity and well arranged.
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