History, Wonder Tales, Fairy Tales, Myths and Legends The Flemish | Page 202

Chapter XII
The Influence of Low Dutch on the Technical Vocabulary of Various Crafts and
Manufactures
12. 1.
A CONSIDERABLE number of words from Low Dutch are technical terms of handicrafts
and minor manufactures not important enough to demand separate treatment. Often it
is evident at a glance what craft or industry is responsible for a particular word, at
other times there is doubt as to the exact channel of introduction, as several separate
crafts could equally well have brought in the word. It is impossible in such cases to go
beyond the statement that it is a technical term. Such technical terms would be
introduced with every fresh industry started or improved in this country by Low Dutch
workers, and Low Dutch craftsmen seem to have been prominent in every advance of
English material culture. In the reign of Elizabeth particularly, the best hope of bringing
about a considerable improvement in English industry at a small cost lay in granting
patents to men who had enterprise enough to plant a new art or introduce a new
manufacture, and in many of these new industries Low Dutch people were 6