[Ads-l] quiz, again

[Stephen Goranson]

The original sense of quiz, noun, was a queer phiz, and the former may be a blend, contraction, abbreviation of the latter.

The collocation queer phiz, once fairly common, before the attestation of quiz, gradually fell out of use, which could help explain, not only the origin, but also why that origin was eventually largely forgotten.

This explanation, in my view, is preferable to a [later-proposed?] Latin quis then quiz somehow as a vir bonus.
It is certainly better than the later-set story of chalking it roundabout Dublin, as if a newly-invented word, to win a bet.

Here is a relevant antedating, contributed by David Denison on Language Log, May 14:

"In our Hamilton project we slightly antedated OED's _quiz_ in sense '[a]n odd or eccentric person; a person whose appearance is peculiar or ridiculous' (s.v., n. 1.a). It's used twice by George, Prince of Wales in 1779:
I think then the Quizz's would have stood no chance of escaping notice, there were but two during the whole of our stay that attracted the attention of the whole of our Company (GEO/ADD/3/82/11 p.1, https://www.digitalcollections.manchester.ac.uk/view/EX-RA-GEO-ADD-00003-00082-00011/1)
I think we may encroach so far, as to have a laugh at the Quizzs (GEO/ADD/3/82/22 p.4, https://www.digitalcollections.manchester.ac.uk/view/EX-RA-GEO-ADD-00003-00082-00022/4)

On which I commented, May 15:

"Thanks, David Denison. In that [first of two] early use of Quizz's, as your Mary Hamilton Papers site explains, "The Prince refers to a 'little Original of a French Painter, about as high as my Elbow, and Mrs Bludworth, a more disagreeable prim, stiff creature I never saw' attracting attention at Windsor." In other words, seen as queer physiognomy."

Stephen Goranson

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=64033#comments

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