[The alphabet was so designated, because in the old primers a cross was prefixed to it. Nares tells us that in French it was called _Croix de par Dieu_; and upon reference to Cotgrave for an expression of that term we find, "The Christ's-cross-row; or the hornbook wherein a child learns it."] _Apple-pie Order._--_Spick and Span new._--My wife very much grudges my spending threepence a week for the "NOTES AND QUERIES", and threatens me with stopping the allowance unless I obtain from some of your correspondents answers to the two following Queries:-- 1. What is the origin of the phrase "Apple-pie order?" 2. Ditto--of "Spick and span new?" JERRY SNEAK. [We leave to some of our friends the task of answering the first of the Queries which our correspondent has put to us by desire of his "better-half." There is much curious illustration of the phrase _Spick and Span_ in Todd's _Johnson_, s. v. _Spick_: and Nares in his _Glossary_ says, "_Span-newe_ is found in Chaucer: 'This tale was aie _span-newe_ to begin.'--_Troil. and Cres._, iii. 1671. It is therefore of good antiquity in the language, and not having been taken from the French may best be referred to the Saxon, in which _spannan_ means to stretch. Hence _span-new_ is fresh from the _stretchers_, or frames, alluding to cloth, a very old manufacture of the country; and _spick_ and _span_ is fresh from the spike, or tenter, and frames. This is Johnson's derivation, and I cannot but think it preferable to any other." A very early instance of the expression, not quoted by Todd, may be found in the _Romance of Alexander_: {331} "Richelich he doth him schrede In _spon-neowe_ knightis weode."--L. 4054-5. And _Weber_, in his _Glossary_ (or rather, Mr. Douce, for the "D" appended to the note shows it to have proceeded from that accomplished antiquary), explains it, "_Spon-neowe_, span-new, newly spun. This is probably the true explanation of spick and span new. Ihre renders sping-spang, _plane novus_, in voce fick fack." The learned Jamieson, in his _Dictionary_, s. v. _Split-new_ (which corresponds to the German _Splitter neu_, i. e. as new as a splinter or chip from the block), shows, at greater length than we can quote, that _split_ and _span_ equally denote a splinter or chip; and in his _Supplement_, s. v. _Spang-new_, after pointing out the connexion between _spinga_ (assula) and _spaungha_ (lamina), shows that, if this be the original, the allusion must be to metal newly wrought, that has, as it were, the gloss from the fire on it: in short, that the epithet is the same as one equally familiar to us, i. e. _fire-new_, Germ. _vier-neu_. We will bring this note to a close by a reference to Sewell's _Dutch Dictionary_, where _Spikspelder nieuw_ is rendered "Spick and span new."]