Siquijor
SIQUIJOR, a town of the province of Negros Oriental, Philippine Islands, on a small island of the same name about 14 m. S.E of Dumaguete, the capital of the province. Pop. (1903) after the annexation of San Juan, 19,416. There are sixty-four barrios or villages in the town, but only one of these had in 1903 more than 1000 inhabitants. The language is Bohol-Visayan. The principal industry is the raising of coco-nuts and preparing them for market. Other industries are the cultivation of tobacco, rice, Indian corn and hemp, and the manufacture of sinamay, a coarse hemp cloth. The island is of coral formation; its highest point is about 1700 ft.
18, Coelom, continuous with 12 and 21. modern usage: e.g. " Sire Aleins Basset," " Sire Enris li filz , r> 1 Gerolt " (Sir Henry Fitz Gerald), " Sire Girard Talebot," from the " Sire Robert Tresgoz."
It is notable that in connexion with a name the title Sire in the poem usually stands by itself : sometimes mis (my) is prefixed, but never li (the). Standing alone, however, Sire denominates a class and_the article is prefixed: e.g. les 19, Oesophagus.
20, Dorsal vessel arising blood-sinus 6.
21, Coelom.
seirs d'Engleterrethe lords of England (/. I5837). 6 " Sire," " Seignor " are used in addressing the king or a great noble.
It is thus not difficult to see how the title " Sir " came in England to be " prefixed to the expressions of knights." Knighthood was the necessary concomitant of rank, the ultimate proof of nobility. The title that expressed this was " Sire " or " Sir " prefixed to the Christian name. In the case of earls or barons it might be lost in that of the higher rank, though this was not 1 Certainly not " from Cyr, nvp, a diminutive of the Greek word xuptos " (F. W. Pixley, A History of the Baronetage, 1900, p. 208).
2 For not very obvious reasons some baronets now object to the contracted form " Bart.," which had become customary. See Pixley, op. cit. p. 212.
3 Edited in 3 vols., with notes, introduction and mod. French translation by Paul Meyer for the Soc. de 1'Histoire de France (Paris, 1891).
* " Who was of good lineage and after his father became earl." 6 Cf. /. 18682. N'entendi mie bien li sire _ Que mis sire Johan volt dire.
universal even much later: e.g. in the 14th century, Sir Henry Percy, the earl marshal, or Sir John Cobham, Lord Oldcastle. The process by which the title lost all connotation of nobility would open up the whole question of the evolution of classes in England (see GENTLEMAN). In the case of baronets the prefix "Sir" before the Christian name was ordained by King Jamesl. when he created the order.
The old use of " Sir " as the style of the clergy, representing a translation of dominus, would seem to be of later origin; in Guillaume le Mareschal even a high dignitary of the church is still maisire (master): e.g. " Maistre Pierres li cardonals " (/. 11399). It survived until the honorific prefix " Reverend " became stereotyped as a clerical title in the i;th century. It was thus used in Shakespeare's day: witness " Sir Hugh Evans," the Welsh parson in The Merry Wives of Windsor. In the English universities there is a curious survival of this use of " Sir " for dominus, members of certain colleges, technically still " clerks," being entered in the books with the style of " Sir " without the Christian name (e.g. " Sir Jones ").
In ordinary address the title " Sir," like the French Monsieur, is properly applied to any man of respectability, according to circumstances. Its use in ordinary conversation, as readers of Boswell will realize, was formerly far more common than is now the case; nor did its employment imply the least sense of inferiority on the part of those who used it. The general decay of good manners that has accompanied the rise of democracy in Great Britain has, however, tended to banish its use, together with that of other convenient forms of politeness, from spoken intercourse. As an address between equals it has all but vanished from social usage, though it is still correct in addressing a stranger to call him " Sir." In general it is now used in Great Britain as a formal style, e.g. in letters or in addressing the chairman of a meeting; it is also used in speaking to an acknowledged superior, e.g. a servant to his master, or a subaltern to his colonel. " Sir " is also the style used in addressing the king or a prince of the blood royal (the French form " Sire " is obsolete).
In the United States, on the other hand, or at least in certain parts of it, the address is still commonly used by people of all classes among themselves, no relation of inferiority or superiority being in general implied.
The feminine equivalent of the title "sir" is legally " dame" (domino) ;' but in ordinary usage it is "lady," thus recalling the original identity of the French sire with the English " lord." (W. A. P.)
Note - this article incorporates content from Encyclopaedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, (1910-1911)
