History
The oldest known reference to the name is in a document of 1417, written by an English scholar in Latin, which refers to Claves Mann and Claves Legis ("The Keys of Mann" and "The Keys of Law"). There is a dispute, however, over the origin of the name. The word "keys" is thought by some to be an English corruption of the Norse word kjósa meaning "chosen". However a more likely explanation is that it is a mishearing of the Manx-language term for "four and twenty", kiare as feed (pronounced kee-air...), the House having always had 24 members. The Manx-language name of the House of Keys remains Yn Chiare as Feed ("The Four and Twenty").
Read more about this topic: House Of Keys
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“We are told that men protect us; that they are generous, even chivalric in their protection. Gentlemen, if your protectors were women, and they took all your property and your children, and paid you half as much for your work, though as well or better done than your own, would you think much of the chivalry which permitted you to sit in street-cars and picked up your pocket- handkerchief?”
—Mary B. Clay, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 3, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)
“It’s not the sentiments of men which make history but their actions.”
—Norman Mailer (b. 1923)
“We know only a single science, the science of history. One can look at history from two sides and divide it into the history of nature and the history of men. However, the two sides are not to be divided off; as long as men exist the history of nature and the history of men are mutually conditioned.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)