Chapter XVII

), and Shilling is the Anglo-Saxon name Scilling. The oldest and commonest of such nicknames is the simple Penny, with which we may compare the German surname Pfennig and its compounds Barpfennig, Weisspfennig, etc. The early adoption of this coin-name as a personal name is due to the fact that the word was taken in the sense of money in general. We still speak of a rich man as "worth a pretty penny." Hallmark is folk-etymology for the medieval Half-mark. Such medieval names as Four-pence, Twenty-mark, etc., probably now obsolete, are paralleled by Fr. Quatresous and Sixdenier, still to be found in the Paris Directory. It would be easy to form conjectures as to the various ways in which such names may have come into existence. To the same class must belong Besant, the name of a coin from Byzantium, its foreign origin giving it a dignity which is absent from the native Farthing and Halfpenny, though the latter, in one instance, was improved beyond recognition into MacAlpine.

IMPRECATIONS

There is also a small group of surnames derived from oaths or exclamations which by habitual use became associated with certain individuals. We know that monarchs had a special tendency to indulge in a favourite expletive. To Roger de Collerye we owe some information as to the imprecations preferred by four French kings--

"Quand la Pasque-Dieu (Louis XI.) décéda, Le Bon Jour Dieu (Charles VIII.) luy succéda, Au Bon Jour Dieu deffunct et mort Succéda le Dyable m'emport (Louis XII). Luy décédé, nous voyons comme Nous duist (governs) la Foy de Gentilhomme (Francis I.)."

So important was this branch of linguistics once considered that Palsgrave, the French tutor of Princess Mary Tudor, includes in his Esclarcissement de la Langue Francoyse a section on "The Maners of Cursyng." Among the examples are "Le grant diable luy rompe le col et les deux jambes," "Le diable l'emporte, corps et ame, tripes et boyaux," which were unfortunately too long for surname purposes, but an abridged form of "Le feu Saint Anthoyne l'arde" [Footnote: Saint Anthony's fire, i.e. erysipelas, burn him!] has given the French name Feulard. Such names, usually containing the name of God, e.g. Godmefetch, Helpusgod, have mostly disappeared in this country; but Dieuleveut and Dieumegard are still found in Paris, and Gottbehüt, God forbid, and Gotthelf, God help, occur in German. Godbehere still exists, and there is not the slightest reason why it should not be of the origin which its form indicates. In Gracedieu, thanks to God, the second element is an Old French dative. Pardoe, Purdue, whence Purdey, is for par Dieu--

"I have a wyf pardee, as wel as thow" (A, 3158).

There is a well-known professional footballer named Mordue ('sdeath), and a French composer named Boieldieu (God's bowels). The French nickname for an Englishman, goddam--

"Those syllables intense, Nucleus of England's native eloquence"

(Byron, The Island, iii. 5)--

goes back to the fifteenth century, in which invective references to the godons are numerous. [Footnote: "Les Anglais en vérité ajoutent par-ci, par-là quelques autres mots en conversant; mais il est bien aisé de voir que goddam est le fond de la langue" (Beaumarchais, Mariage de Figaro, iii. 5).]

Such nicknames are still in common use in some parts of France--

"Les Berrichons se désignent souvent par le juron qui leur est familier. Ainsi ils diront: 'Diable me brûle est bien malade. Nom d'un rat est à la foire. La femme à Diable m'estrangouille est morte. Le garçon à Bon You (Dieu) se marie avec la fille à Dieu me confonde.'"

(Nyrop, Grammaire historique de la langue française, iv. 209).

PHRASE-NAMES

Perhaps the most interesting group of nicknames is that of which we may take Shakespeare as the type. Incidentally we should be thankful that our greatest poet bore a name so much more picturesque than Corneille, crow, or Racine, root. It is agreed among all competent scholars that in compounds of this formation the verb was originally an imperative. This is shown by the form; cf. ne'er-do-well, Fr. vaurien, Ger. Taugenichts, good-for-naught. Thus Hasluck cannot belong to this class, but must be an imitative form of the personal name Aslac, which we find in Aslockton.

As Bardsley well says, it is impossible to retail all the nonsense that has been written about the name Shakespeare--"never a name in English nomenclature so simple or so certain in its origin; it is exactly what it looks--shake-spear." The equivalent Schüttespeer is found in German, and we have also in English Shakeshaft, Waghorn, Wagstaff, Breakspear, Winspear. "Winship the mariner" was a freeman of York in the fourteenth century. Cf. Benbow (bend-bow), Hurlbatt, and the less athletic Lovejoy, Makepeace. Gathergood and its opposite Scattergood are of similar origin, good having here the sense of goods. Dogood is sometimes for Toogood, and the latter may be, like Thoroughgood, an imitative form of Thurgod (