To me Jack is a pet-name for John - a hypocorism, as the grammarians rejoice to call babyish versions of names. You wouldn't baptise anyone Jack. There is no St Jack. (There is, I think, a St Ernest, from Zwiefalten in Germany.) The French name Jacques is their version of James. So, how did Jack become the English familiar byname for John?
Thursday, March 18, 2010
The Geneaology of Jack and Jill
From Dot Woodsworth's Mind Your Language column in the September 26th, 2009 edition of The Spectator.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment