IX.—Monger, Fishmonger, &C.

This word is the Saxon-English mang-ere in a slightly altered form. Mang-ung is trade, mang-ung hus, house of business. In all probability, mangere always had a force expressive of some inferiority, and bore the same relation to ceápman (chapman) which monger now does to merchant. Even merchant is not the exact equivalent of the Romance word from which it is derived. Mer-chand in French means a shop-keeper or other trader who handles the goods in which he deals, instead of selling through brokers. The great merchant is represented by the French word negoçeant.

All merchants in early times travelled about with their wares; page 32 and, as an encouragement to trade, the Saxon merchant who had travelled three times to foreign countries became ennobled.

Junius considers that mangere was derived from the word mangan, to mix or mingle, from the variety of the wares in which the mangere dealt. But this seems to be rather a strained etymology, founded on mere likeness. To trade or barter is in Saxon-English not mang-an but mang-ian. Mang-an is, however, allied with certain modem words, such as among (in Scotch, amang), which clearly means mingled with. Mongrel, an animal of mixed breed, is from the same source.

The idea of inferiority seems to be attached to the word monger. The great wholesale dealers in fish at Billingsgate, who monopolise the produce of the salmon and other fisheries, although they may condescend to dine at Fishmonger's Hall, escape from the idea of inferiority implied by the word monger, by calling themselves fish salesmen; and when Radical politicians first coined the word borough-monger, to designate the holders of what were called pocket-boroughs, they no doubt intended to hold up the class to public obloquy. We use the word scandal-monger in a dyslogistic sense, and even newsmonger not quite approvingly.

I knew a lady who was the daughter and granddaughter of clergymen, bred with an hereditary contempt of Dissenters, especially of those who had migrated from the church to the chapel. She called those who went about from chapel to chapel—not so much to say their prayers as to hunt after celebrated Dissenting preachers—gospel-mongers. The notion of inferiority in the word monger had clearly, but, perhaps, unconsciously, impressed itself upon her mind.

Monger was also used for a trading vessel; and Halliwell suggests, and I think with reason, that the covered trading-boat which used to ply about the ships in harbour, and which was, and perhaps still is, known as a monkey boat, should rather be called a monger-boat, of which the vulgar name is a corruption. This suggestion we may carry farther. Is not the powder-monkey in ships of war a corruption of powder monger?

There is one compound of monger to which, as it seems to me, a very doubtful etymology has been assigned—I mean coster- monger. It is suggested that coster should be costard, which meant a large kind of apple. Hence, coster-monger was originally a dealer in apples, and was then extended to all classes of traders about the streets. But first, there is no authority for changing coster—which, as I shall presently show, has a definite meaning—into the word costard, which is of very doubtful meaning; and, moreover, the authority for making costard the name of an apple is weak. Then again, assuming that costard means an apple, why should itinerant traders who deal in anything and page 33 everything be called apple-dealers? The costermongers of the London streets pile their donkey-carts with tin-ware, cheap crockery, sprats, and red herrings—in short, with anything that will sell; and there is no need to resort to so far-fetched and doubtful an etymology, when we have a plain, simple, and I think obvious one, lying, as it were, at our very feet.

My solution, I think, is a very simple one. Coster-monger is the Saxon-English ceaster-mangere, town trader, with no more than the letter change of common occurrence. The ea of ceaster and the a of mangere being both changed to o in order to meet a broad pronunciation. Mangere is undoubtedly monger, and if this be so, why should not ceaster be coster? Ceaster enters into compounds in a very similar way. In the Colloquium of Ælfric, printed in Thorpe's Analecta Anglo-Saxonica, the schoolmaster questions the fisherman about the disposal of his fish. "Hwaer cypst thu fixas thine?" (Where do you sell your fish?) "On ceastre." (In the town.) "Hwa bigth hi?" (Who buys them?) "Ceaster wara." (Town dwellers.) If ceaster-wara be a valid Saxon compound, why not ceaster mangere—town traders, costermongers?