GENERAL KNOWLEDGE QUESTIONS
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
Sin,—With all respect to your answers to Miss Crawford's questions last week, I beg to reject your far-fetched and unconvincing explanation of " loggerheads." The term is derived from " leaguer," and expresses that state of affairs when besiegers and besieged have sapped, and counter sapped, to a point where neither can proceed further, and there arises that state of passive hostility indicated by the expression to he " at loggerheads." There is a place outside Oxford still known as " loggerheads," recalling the siege of that town by the Parliamentary army.
" To take the cake" has nothing to do with the ancient Greeks. The expression refers to the prize awarded, in the shape of a cake, to the successful couple in that form of competition known among the negroes of the United States
as a - cake-walk.--I am, Sir, &e., C. RUSSET.. Montreux Palace Hotel.
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