The proverbs that are misunderstood are ordinarily sound enough in their teaching, and are freely used by all--a meaning, not the correct one, having been tacked on to them and found to be a good working one. This is a philological principle that we meet with in all directions. Asparagus, for instance, is so called from the Greek word to tear, many of the species being armed with spines that lacerate,[125:A] but the costermonger knows nothing of this, so he drops the word that has no meaning to him and calls it sparrow-grass, a much more meaningless word really. A somewhat common expression amongst a certain class is "That's the ticket," meaning "that is the proper course to pursue." Why it should carry this significance is not on the face of it obvious, but the whole matter is cleared up when we find that it is a corruption of "C'est l'etiquette." Another popular expression of approval takes the form of "That's the cheese." Familiarity makes such an expression accepted without demur, but one moment's consideration suffices to convince us that what it says cannot really be what it means.[125:B] If we turn it, for instance, into "C'est le fromage," and so get rid of the old formula, we realise this better. What we are to put in its place is quite another matter. One authority suggests that cheese is really the French word "chose," and would bid us accept "C'est le chose" as the true rendering. Another informs us that "chiz" is Bengalee for "thing," and that the expression has been imported from the East; while a third, and he is the man that we would personally pin our faith on, reminds us that "choice" was in Anglo-Saxon times "chese." In the "Vision of Piers Plowman," for example, we read-- "Now thou might chese How thou cal me, now thou knowst al mi names." "That's the cheese," then, if we accept this explanation, is "That's the choice," the satisfactory result that one would have chosen to happen.