Mind your language
'MUMMY'S made a mistake!' chanted Veronica.
'Do shut up, 0 Scrapings of my Womb,' I replied. 'It is not surprising with you jigging around the kitchen when I'm trying to write. If you really want a laugh, go and take an objective view of what you quaintly refer to as your "tidy" room.'
I was nettled because I had written (Spectator, 18 January) that St Maturi- nus (died c. 388) had been ordained by St Polycarp, whose feast we celebrated last Monday, but who died before AD 166. Not very likely, eh? But I'd just copied it out of a biographical dictio- nary without giving it half a minute's thought.
But more encouraging news comes from Mr Paul Dinnage, who writes to speculate that the name of Stephen Maturin in Patrick O'Brian's series of novels does indeed come from St Maturinus, though by a surprising route.
There was a congregation of religious men called the Trinitarians, whose con- stitutions were approved on 17 Decem- ber 1198. Their aim was to ransom Christian prisoners from captivity among the Muslims. By the time their most famous (to us) hostage, Cervantes, was released in 1580 they had bought back some 90,000.
Anyway, their Paris house was dedi- cated to St Mathurin, and they became known in France as Mathurins. If it is to be believed, the black and white of their habits caused Mathurins to be used as a French slang term for dice or dominoes. Perhaps because of the button-spotted uniforms of sailors mathurins came to mean 'salts' or 'jack tars', though Littre in his supplement (1877) gives the meaning as the wooden ships them- selves, 'par plaisanterie', though he doesn't explain the joke — perhaps from a dice-box?
In any case, the main meaning was nautical in the 19th century (though 'lighting a candle to St Mathurin' meant a fit of madness, of which the saint was a patron or apotropaic agent).
So there it is: Stephen Maturin, Catholic Catalan and seafarer behind wooden walls. It sounds plausible enough to convince enough people once it is in print. But you Jack Aubrey fans, who are, if you'll forgive me, in some ways not unlike Trekkies, will no doubt slap me down again.
Dot Wordsworth
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