"SWASHBUCKLING."
[To TR. EDITOR Or TER ErICTATOR..1 Sp2,-^411 the interests of pure English, may I be permitted to remonstrate against this unwarrantable novelty to which you gave countenance. last week by using_ the phrase " swashbuckling sentiment" (p. 761) ? It also occurred in the Spectator last year (May 26th, 1906, p. 834). It has been evolved from " swashbuckler " on the mistaken assumption that this is an agential form,—one who " swashbuckles," or buckles his awash (whatever that may mean). Of course, the "swashbuckler" *as the ruffier or swaggerer who swished his buckler, or smote his shield (armisonue), to strike terror into beholders. "Swashbuckling " is quite on all-fours with Sir Henry Taylor's unhappy back-formation, "butching" (Philip van Artevelde, Part II, iii. 1), from butcher (he who batches !). No one, I believe, has yet ventured on " carpenting " and " barristiug " (educed from " carpenter " and "barrister"), A. SMYTHE PALMER.
Holy Trinity Vicarage, S. Woodford.
[Nostra callus. We crave leave to amend to " awashbucklering." "Butchering' is, of course, the correct form. Who was the condemned man who on the scaffold gave the exebutioner an extra present so that "he should not butcher him" ? "Burgle" has, we think, won its place in the language owing to Mr. Gilbert's delightful jingle, " When the enterprising burglar's not a-burgling."—En. Spectator.]
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