‘Does a dark lantern give out black light?’ asked my husband as if in delirium. He was reading a book I would have been enjoying if he hadn’t grabbed it. It is called 1776, being about London in that year, when Britain was losing its Empire of America. It’s by Justin Lovill, who ten years ago gave us an entertaining miscellany called Ringing Church Bells to Ward off Thunderstorms.
Anyway, my husband’s question concerned an incidental reference to a dark lantern, spelled lanthorn in the newspaper source quoted. It made me realise that I have never understood this apparatus. The spelling lanthorn is a piece of popular etymologising, based on lanterns almost always, before the 19th century I think, glazed with horn. Lanthorn was no semi-literate aberration, but a spelling used by respectable writers, including the co-author of the original Spectator (1711-12), Joseph Addison.
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