Lesson 12
Moby Dick
Points to Ponder
Cologne, most oftenly seen as "eau de cologne" means water of Cologne. Cologne is a city in Germany. We very often use the words cologne or perfume for any scented liquid, but originally perfumed toilet water was made in the German city of Cologne in 1709, hence the name. This is why Cologne is capitalized in this literature passage, even though we now use it to name any perfumed toilet water.
Why "toilet" water? The word toilet comes from the French word, toile, meaning cloth. A cloth was usually spread over a table in a chamber or dressing room. The word began to be used to name the dressing table and then to include the whole room.
2. a. Adverbs modify verbs, adverbs, and adjectives. They can appear almost anywhere in a sentence. In fact, they can even be moved around within the sentence without changing the meaning of the sentence. For example, in the dependent clause "if it could truthfully be added that his spouts are mixed with water," the adverb is truthfully telling how it could be added. Truthfully could be placed in any position within the clause:
truthfully if it could be added…
if truthfully it could be added…
if it truthfully could be added…
if it could truthfully be added…
if it could be truthfully added…
if it could be added truthfully…
Most of these sound fine. Some are awkward, but they all work.