Words and Phrases.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20296, 4 May 1934, Page 6

Words and Phrases.

JN A Government circular respecting the drought in England appeared the term, “ Water Undertakers.” The phrase, writes a contributor to the “ Observer,” strikes oddly on ears accustomed to employ the word “ undertaker ” in a different sense, but it is only a reversion to a former and more literal usage. The original undertaker was simply one who undertook—-it might be a war, an enterprise, the publication of a book, or the production of a play. “ Austria," wrote Clarendon, 44 was a great undertaker," meaning that she was an energetic and enterprising country. The word has even been used with theological significance, as in “ The Two Noble Kinsmen,” “ Christ their undertaker to bring them to glory.” “ Nay,” says Sir Toby Belch, “if you be an undertaker, I am for you ”: meaning a fighting man, a man who means business. A precisely similar esse is that of the word 44 Executioner,” which, originally as vague as 44 undertaker, ’ has also specialised in its most lugubrious meaning. As late as 1527 we find Scott maintaining that “ the people had a right to be the executioner of their own will.” TOUCHSTONE.