This sort of initial-letter derivation was probably brought into fashion in England by the alleged origin of "Cabal," or, perhaps, by the many guesses at the much disputed word "AEra." I shall take the liberty of quoting a few sentences with reference to such etymologies, _as a class_, which I find in an unpublished manuscript upon a kindred subject. "Besides, such a splitting up of a word of significant and perfect meaning in itself is always a bad and suspicious mode of derivation. "It is generally an after-thought, suggested by some fortuitous or fancied coincidence, that appropriateness of which is by no means a sufficient proof of probability. "Of this there can scarcely be a better example than the English word 'news,' which, notwithstanding the felicity of its supposed derivation from the four cardinal points, must, nevertheless, so long as the corresponding words 'nova,' 'nouvelles,' &c. exist, be consigned to its more sober and common-place origin in the adjective '_new_.'" To this it must be added that the ancient orthography of the word _newes_, completely upsets the derivation Mr. Gutch has brought before your readers. Hone quotes from "one Burton, printed in 1614: 'if any one read now-a-days, it is a play-book, or _a pamphlet_ of _newes_." I had been in two minds whether or not to send this communication, when the scale is completely turned by the apropos occurrence of a corroboration of this latter objection in "NOTES AND QUERIES" of this day. Mr. Rimbault mentions (at p. 277.), "a rare black letter volume entitled _Newes from Scotland_, 1591." Here is one more proof of the usefulness of your publication, that I am thus enabled to strengthen the illustration of a totally different subject by the incidental authority of a fellow correspondent. A.E.B. Leeds, March, 1850. * * * * * REPLIES TO MINOR QUERIES. _Swot_ is, as the querist supposes, a military cant term, and a sufficiently vulgar one too. It originated at the great slang-manufactory for the army, the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. You may depend upon the following account of it, which I had many years ago from the late Thomas Leybourne, F.R.S., Senior Professor of Mathematics in that college.