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The gentle craft. Angling. The pun is on gentle, a maggot or grub used for baiting the hook in angling.
Can anyone tell me how fishing came to be called "angling"?
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George Sand The pen-name of Mme. Dudevant, born at Paris 1804. Her maiden name was Dupin.
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CHARLEMAGNE was nearly 8 feet in height, and was so strong he could squeeze together three
horseshoes with his hands.
I wondeer how good the authority for this statement is.
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Gibberish (g hard). Geber, the Arabian, was by far the greatest alchemist of the eleventh century, and
wrote several treatises on "the art of making gold" in the usual mystical jargon, because the ecclesiastics
would have put to death any one who had openly written on the subject. Friar Bacon, in 1282, furnishes a
specimen of this gibberish. He is giving the prescription for making gunpowder, and says -
"Sed tamen salis-petrę
LURU MONE CAP URBE
Et sulphuris."
The second line is merely an anagram of Carbonum pulvere (pulverised charcoal).
"Gibberish," compare jabber, and gabble.
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Gibraltar (g soft). A contraction of Gibel al Tari (Gibal Tar), "mountain of Tari." This Tari ben Zeyad
was an Arabian general who, under the orders of Mousa, landed at Calpė in 710, and utterly defeated
Roderick, the Gothic King of Spain. Cape Tarifa is named from the same general.
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Gift-horse Don't look a gift-horse in the mouth. When a present is made, do not inquire too minutely
into its intrinsic value. (An experienced horse man can judge age, and so the value of a horse by its
teeth.)
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blue[Re Gaberdine: Gabardine' (3 syl.). A Jewish coarse cloak. (Spanish, gavardina, a long coarse cloak.)
One of my dictionaries at home goes back a bit further with gaberdine... just to the 13th C., and relates the word to Pilgriams cloak (not so much a Jewish cloak as a cloak of one on a pilgrimage to Jerusulam.. )
here is more from Bartelby's
Obsolete French gauvardine, from Old French galvardine, perhaps from Middle High German wallevart, pilgrimage : wallen, to roam (from Old High German walln; see wel-2 in Appendix I) + vart, journey (from Old High German, from faran, to go; see per-2 in Appendix I).
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Gig (g hard). A whipping top, made like a Ń. ( I haven't seen a kid with a "gig" since I was
ten years old. The top was cone shaped, with a screw inserted deeply into tip, and ground to a point.
One laid a short length of string about like fish line a short ways from mtoiddly to the tip, and
then wound the string tightly about the top, more than halways toward the top. The other
end of the string had of bowline knot that fitted over the thumb. When the top was thrown
down, the tension on the string forced it to spin very rapidly. On a hard surface it would
spin for perhaps a minute. Big deal in those days. Some kids tried to split other kids' tops
by aiming their top at them. I never succeeded at that.
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Girl This word has given rise to a host of guesses: -
Railey suggests garrula, a chatterbox.
Minshew ventures the Italian girella, a weather-cock.
Skinner goes in for the Anglo-Saxon ceorl, a churl.
Why not girdle, as young women before marriage wore a girdle [girle]; and part of a Roman marriage
ceremony was for the bridegroom to loose the zone.
As for guessing, the word gull may put in a claim (1 Henry iv. 1); so may the Greek koure, a girl, with
a diminutive suffix koure-la, whence gourla, gourl, gurl, girl.
(The Latin gerula means a maid that attends on a child. Chaucer spells the word gurl.)
Probably the word is a variation of darling, Anglo-Saxon, deorling.
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Glass is from the Celtic glas (bluish-green), the colour produced by the woad employed by the ancient
Britons in dyeing their bodies. Pliny calls it glastrum, and Cęsar vitrum.
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