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The only parallel this Egyptian myth of Creation presents to the Hebrew cosmogony is in its picture of the primaeval water, corresponding to the watery chaos of Genesis i. But the resemblance is of a very general character, and includes no etymological equivalence such as we find when we compare the Hebrew account with the principal Semitic-Babylonian Creation narrative.
But I concluded later that it might have a remote and roundabout origin in the old army slang, "a spruce hand" at "brag" the latter being a variant of the game of poker, and a spruce hand, apparently, one which, held by a bluffer, contained cards of no real value. Some day these etymological mysteries must be probed.
Patrick? But was there ever a philological trouble for which the Sanscrit could not afford at least a conjectural cure? A dictionary of that extremely venerable tongue is an ostrich's stomach, which can crack the hardest etymological nut. The Sanscrit name for the Lotus is simply Padma.
Much the same is it with many other sinewy Saxonisms of this sort, which emigrated to New-England rocks with the noble brawn of the old English emigrants in the time of the Commonwealth. Thus, some of the best and furthest-descended English words the etymological Howards and Percys are now democratised, nay, plebeianised so to speak in the New World.
The change operated quickly enough afterwards, and to a great extent through the influence of the Umbrian which had used d or c before E and I for some time. In spelling much irregularity prevailed, as must always be the case where there is no sound etymological theory on which to base it. In the earliest inscriptions we find many inconsistencies.
A thoroughly good etymological dictionary of English is yet to seek; and even if we should ever get one, it will be for students, and not for the laity. Nor is it the primary object of a common dictionary to trace the history of the language. Of great interest and importance to scholars, it is of comparatively little to Smith and Brown and their children at the public school.
Indeed, the lad was remarkable for a peculiar spiritual beauty of person and sweetness of manner that made almost every one love him. He was, in fact, lovely, in the etymological sense of that misused word, and people softened towards him as to a young, guileless child.
This illustrates the tendency for words that are psychologically disconnected from their etymological or formal group to preserve traces of phonetic laws that have otherwise left no recognizable trace or to preserve a vestige of a morphological process that has long lost its vitality.
Mannhardt, as we said, held that Mr. Max Muller's favourite etymological 'equations, Sarameya=Hermeias; Saranyu=Demeter-Erinnys; Kentauros=Gandharvas and others, would not stand criticism. 'The method in its practical working shows a lack of the historical sense, said Mannhardt. Curtius a scholar, as Mr.
Into these etymological questions I have no intention to enter, since I am not qualified to do so, nor is it necessary, as they have been fully dealt with by Mr. MacRitchie's views tally with the facts mentioned in the foregoing section.
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