Chapter O to Oberthal of O by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

O to Oberthal

O This letter represents an eye, and is called in Hebrew ain (an eye).

O The fifteen O's are fifteen prayers beginning with the letter O (See Horæ Beatissimæ Virginis Mariæ)
   The Christmas O's. For nine days before Christmas (at 7 o'clock p.m.) are seven antiphones (3 syl.), each beginning with O, as O Sapientia, O Radix, etc.

O' An Irish patronymic. (Gachc, ogha; Irish, oa, a descendant.)

O' in Scotch, means “of,” as “Tam-o'-Shanter.”

O.H.M.S On His [or Her] Majesty's Service.

O.K A telegraphic symbol for “All right” (orl korrect, a Sir William Curtis's or Artemus Ward's way of spelling “all correct”).

O. P. Riot (Old Price Riot). When the new Covent Garden theatre was opened in 1809, the charges of admission were increased, but night after night for three months a throng crowded the pit, shouting “O.P.” (old prices); much damage was done, and the manager was obliged at last to give way.

O tempora! O mores! Alas! how the times have changed for the worse! Alas! how the morals of the people are degenerated!

O Yes'! O Yes! O Yes! French, oyez (hear ye).

“Fame with her loud'st O yes!
Cries. `This is he.' ”
Shakespeare: Troilus and Cressida, iv. 5.

Oaf A corruption of ouph (elf). A foolish child or dolt is so called from the notion that all idiots are changelings, left by the fairies in the place of the stolen ones.

“This guiltless oaf his vacancy of sense
Supplied, and amply too, by innocence.”
Byron: Verses found in a Summer-house.

Oak Worn on May 29th. May 29th was the birthday of Charles II. It was in the month of September that he concealed himself in an oak at Boscobel. The battle of Worcester was fought on Wednesday, September 3rd, 1651, and Charles arrived at Whiteladies, about three-quarters of a mile from Boscobel House, early the next morning. He returned to England on his birthday, when the Royalists displayed a branch of oak in allusion to his hiding in an oak tree.
   To sport one's oak. To be “not at home” to visitors. At the Universities the “chambers” have two doors, the usual room-door and another made of oak, outside it; when the oak is shut or “sported” it indicates either that the occupant of the room is out, or that he does not wish to be disturbed by visitors

Oak and Ash The tradition is, if the oak gets into leaf before the ash we may expect a fine and productive year; if the ash precedes the oak in foliage, we may anticipate a cold summer and unproductive autumn. In the years 1816, 1817, 1821, 1823, 1828, 1829, 1830, 1838, 1840, 1845, 1850, and 1859, the ash was in leaf a full month before the oak, and the autumns were unfavourable. In 1831, 1833, 1839, 1853, 1860, the two species of trees came into leaf about the same time, and the years were not remarkable either for plenty or the reverse; whereas in 1818, 1819, 1820, 1822, 1824, 1825, 1826, 1827, 1833, 1834, 1835, 1836, 1837, 1842, 1846, 1854, 1868, and 1869, the oak displayed its foliage several weeks before the ash, and the summers of those years were dry and warm, and the harvests abundant.

Oak-tree (See Philemon. )
   The oak-tree was consecrated to the god of thunder because oaks are said to be more likely to be struck by lightning than other trees.

Oaks (The). One of the three great classic races of England. The Derby and Oaks are run at Epsom, and the St. Leger at Doncaster. The Oaks, in the parish of Woodmanstone, received its name from Lambert's Oaks, and an inn, called the “Hunter's Club,” was rented of the Lambert family. It afterwards