Chapter Calandrino to Caligula of C by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Calandrino to Caligula

Calandrino A typical simpleton frequently introduced in Boccaccio's Decameron; expressly made to be befooled and played upon.

Calatrava (Red Cross Knights of). Instituted at Calatrava, in Spain, by Sancho III. of Castile in 1158; their badge is a red cross cut out in the form of lilies, on the left breast of a white mantle.

Calauri'a Pro Delo Calauria (Ovid: Metamorphoses, vii. 384). Calauria was an island in the Sinus Saronicus which Latona gave to Neptune in exchange for Delos. A quid pro quo.

Calceolaria Little-shoe flowers; so called from their resemblance to fairy slippers. (Latin, calceolus.)

Calceos mutavit He has changed his shoes, that is, has become a senator. Roman senators were distinguished by their shoes, which were sandalled across the instep and up the ankles.

Calculate is from the Latin calculi (pebbles), used by the Romans for counters. In the abacus, the round balls were called calculi, and it was by this instrument the Roman boys were taught to count and calculate. The Greeks voted by pebbles dropped into an urn- a method adopted both in ancient Egypt and Syria; counting these pebbles was “calculating” the number of voters. (See page 2, col. 1, Abacus .)
   I calculate. A peculiarity of expression common in the western states of North America. In the southern states the phrase is “I reckon,” in the middle states “I expect,” and in New England “I guess.” All were imported from the mother country by early settlers.

“Your aunt sets two tables, I calculate; don't she?”- Susan Warner: Queechy (vol. i. chap. xix.)

Calculators (The
   Jedediah Buxton, of Elmeton, in Derbyshire. (1705-1775.)
   George Bidder and Zerah Colburn (an American), who exhibited publicly.
   Inaudi exhibited “his astounding powers of calculatin' ” at Paris in 1880, his additions and subtractions were from left to right.

“Buxton, being asked `How many cubical eighths-of-an-inch there are in a body whose three sides are 23,145,786 yards, 5,642,732 yards, and 54,965 yards?' replied correctly without setting down a figure.”

“Colburn, being asked the square root of 106,929 and the cube root 268,336,125, replied before the audience had set the figures down.”- Price: Parallel History, vol. ii. p. 570.

Cale [See Kale .]

Caleb The enchantress who carried off St. George in infancy.
   Caleb, in Dryden's satire of Absalom and Achitophel, is meant for Lord Grey of Wark (Northumberland), one of the adherents of the Duke of Monmouth.

“And, therefore, in the name of dulness, be
The well-hung Balaam [Earl of Huntingdon] and old Caleb free.”
Lines 512-13.

Caleb Quotem A parish clerk or jack-of-all-trades, in Colman's play called The Review, or Wags of Windsor, which first appeared in 1808. Colman borrowed the character from a farce by Henry Lee (1798) entitled Throw Physic to the Dogs.

“I resolved, like Caleb Quotem, to have a place at the review.”- Washington Irving.

Caledon Scotland. (See next article.)

“Not thus, in ancient days of Caledon,
Was thy voice mute amid the festal crowd.”
Sir W. Scott.