WORD-TWISTING AND ETYMOLOGY. [TO TEE EDITOR 01 TES n SPECTATOR. " ]
Sea,—The instances of word-twisting hazarded by your corre- spondent "J. K.," will scarcely, I think, bear examination. Passing over the fact that the transposition of initials in " tight as a rivet," would give " right as a tivet" (not trivet), is it not plain that the rightness of a trivet consists in the well-known property of a three-legged stool always to stand steady, spite of any accidental inequality in the length of its legs,—a pro- perty not shared by a four-legged stool ?
As for "butterfly," the cognate German form, Butter.vogel, seems to forbid the notion of an anagram of "flutter-by." The derivation of "butterfly " is uncertain. Johnson's idea that it is " so named because it first appears in the beginning of the season for butter," seems hardly admissible. A more likely origin is that the name comes from the colour of one species, and this is confirmed by Filigel's interpretation of Butter-vogel, —"a large white moth."—I am, Sir, Sec., T. J. M.
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