Pièce 16 - Letter from W. W. Skeat to W. Aldis Wright

2 single sheets

(Place of writing not indicated.)—Discusses the word ‘hoist’ (cf. The Tempest, I. ii. 148).

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Transcript

Mar. 9.

Dear Sir—

I see hoist occurs in Tempest. I. 2. It is clearly there a past tense = hois’d.

In your Bible Word-book you derive it from Fr. hausser. To that I object; & think Mr. Wedgwood quite right in distinguishing between Hoise & Hawse in English. It is hawse that is from Fr. *hausser.

But Mr. Wedgwood, deriving hoise from Fr. hisser, has not really hit it, nor explained the oi sound. Hisser in French is late, not in Cotgrave. The word is really Teutonic. Of course we took it, like most other naval terms, from Dutch: & the Dutch long i (ij) explains our oi.

Dutch.
hijschen, to raise hijsch-blok, a pulley. hijschtouw, a tackle-rope.
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German
hisser, to raise hisse, a pully†.
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French hisser merely borrowed from G. hissen.
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At least, that’s my view till better turns up.

Yours sincerely
W. W. Skeat.

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† Sic.

This description was created by A. C. Green in 2022.