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Glass Slipper (of Cinderella). A curious blunder of the translator, who has mistaken vair (sable) for verre
(glass). Sable was worn only by kings and princes, so the fairy gave royal slippers to her favourite.
Hamlet says he shall discard his mourning and resume "his suit of sables" (iii. 2).
Glasse (Mrs. Hannah), a name immortalised by the reputed saying in a cookery book, "First catch your
hare," then cook it according to the directions given. This, like many other smart sayings, evidently grew.
The word in the cookery-book is "cast" (i.e. flay). "Take your hare, and when it is cast" (or cased), do so
and so. (See Case, Catch your Hare.)
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It was Voltaire who said, "Si Dieu n'existait pas, il faudrait l'inventer."
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Godiva (Lady). Patroness of Coventry. In 1040, Leofric, Earl of Mercia and Lord of Coventry, imposed
certain exactions on his tenants, which his lady besought him to remove. To escape her importunity, he
said he would do so if she would ride naked through the town. Lady Godiva took him at his word, and
the Earl faithfully kept his promise.
The legend asserts that every inhabitant of Coventry kept indoors at the time, but a certain tailor peeped
through his window to see the lady pass. Some say he was struck blind, others that his eyes were put out
by the indignant townsfolk, and some that he was put to death. Be this as it may, he has ever since been
called "Peeping Tom of Coventry." Tennyson has a poem on the subject.
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Golden Fleece Ino persuaded her husband, Athamas, that his son Phryxos was the cause of a famine
which desolated the land, and the old dotard ordered him to be sacrificed to the angry gods. Phryxos
being apprised of this order, made his escape over sea on a ram which had a golden fleece. When he
arrived at Colchis, he sacrificed the ram to Zeus, and gave the fleece to King Æe'tes, who hung it on a
sacred oak. It was afterwards stolen by Jason in his celebrated Argonautic expedition. (See Argo.)
I have read that the "Golden Fleece" is somehow a garbled legend from the days when gold was
obtained by pouring sediments from river over a sheep's fleece, the heavy gold particles being
trapped in the wool while the mud and clay were washed away.
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Goodman A husband or master is the Saxon guma or goma (a man), which in the inflected cases
becomes guman or goman. In St. Matt. xxiv. 43, "If the goodman of the house had known in what watch
the thief would come, he would have watched." Gomman and gommer, for the master and mistress of a
house, are by no means uncommon.
Joke on me. I thought it was literally "good man".
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Gourmand and Gourmet (French). The gourmand is one whose chief pleasure is eating; but a gourmet
is a connoisseur of food and wines. In England the difference is this: a gourmand regards quantity more
than quality, a gourmet quality more than quantity. (Welsh, gor, excess; gorm, a fulness; gourmod, too
much; gormant; etc.) (See Apicius.)
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rammar Zenodotos invented the terms singular, plural, and dual.
The scholars of Alexandria and of the rival academy of Pergamos were the first to distinguish language
into parts of speech, and to give technical terms to the various functions of words.
The first Greek grammar was by Dionysios Thrax, and it is still extant. He was a pupil of Aristarchos.
Julius Cæsar was the inventor of the term ablative case.
English grammar is the most philosophical ever devised; and if the first and third personal pronouns, the
relative pronoun, the 3rd person singular of the present indicative of verbs, and the verb "to be" could be
reformed, it would be as near perfection as possible.
It was Kaiser Sigismund who stumbled into a wrong gender, and when told of it replied, "Ego sum
Imperator Romanorum, ct supra grammaticam ' (1520, 1548-1572).
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Grass Widow was anciently an unmarried woman who has had a child, but now the word is used for a
wife temporarily parted from her husband. The word means a grace widow, a widow by courtesy. (In
French, veuve de grace; in Latin, viduca de gratia; a woman divorced or separated from her husband by
a dispensation of the Pope, and not by death; hence, a woman temporally separated from her husband.)
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Greek Fire A composition of nitre, sulphur, and naphtha. Tow steeped in the mixture was hurled in a
blazing state through tubes, or tied to arrows. The invention is ascribed to Callinicos, of Heliopolis, A.D.
668.
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Greek Gift (A). A treacherous gift. The reference is to the Wooden Horse said to be a gift or offering to
the gods for a safe return from Troy, but in reality a ruse for the destruction of the city. (See Fatal Gifts.)
"Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes."
Virgil: Æneid, ii. 49.
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