"an aitch-bone" is a misunderstanding of the older form a nache bone a word derived

through old French from the Latin natis buttock.

As the word "belfry" is now written, it is perhaps excusable to see some reference to

the "bells" that hang therein. This however is the result of a corruption. The original

spelling of the word was berfrey and berefreid meaning a "watch-tower" and tower of

defence, adopted from the old German bergan "protect" and fridu "peace". The Italians

manufactured a different form of the same word, associating the belfry with the "striking"

either of a bell or clock, hence the Italian battifredo.  It is our own unestablished

speculation that the term "bats in the belfry" may have arisen from this peculiar turn in

the spelling of the word.

"A pretty kettle of fish" means to most of us a perplexing state of affairs, but the

"kettle" has no reference here to the pot in which the fish may be cooked, it refers to the

keddle, a net fixed with osier stakes, old French quidel, and so an enclosure alive with

floundering fish. We are not likely to perpetuate the definition given in a learned German

publication "A fort, is a place to keep men in, fortress to keep women in".

Not far from the Chapel of the Opened Book is the Church of St. Giles, Cripple-gate.

Most guides assure us that the gate was so called because of the cripples who begged

there.  Stowed says that "the postern of Cripplegate was so called long before the

Conquest".  The postern itself was the original crypel otherwise creep, a low arch

opening through which there was a passage. A crypel-geat in Wiltshire is mentioned in

the Domesday Book, and the word is used in Yorkshire for a low opening in a fence or

"Who", says Dr. Smythe Palmer, "would not feel confident that the verb `to adjust', to

arrange and settle, was a derivative of the Latin ad and justus, and meant to make just or

even, to set right?" The word however is derived from the old French joste and the Latin

juxta, which means to bring things "near" and so to harmonize or match them. So arises

the ambiguity of our phrase "It is just twelve" which may either mean "It is nearly

twelve, but not quite" so following the original idea of juxta or "it is exactly twelve" so

following the mistaken original, the Latin juste. When being shown over an old house,

visions of cream and golden butter come before the mind when the guide says "This is

the buttery". The word is derived from "butt" which meant a cask.

It is universally assumed that the Trade Winds are so called because they are

serviceable to shipping and so encourage trade. This however is but an accidental

connexion. The original word "trade" meant a "course" with which we should compare

the Saxon trod, a track, or the Sussex trade, a ro+++. As Shakespeare makes

King Richard II say: