Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 11.djvu/133

 10 s. XL FEB. 6, 1909.J NOTES AND QUERIES.

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book (p. 159), was " Parson " Ford's tutor and surety. His son, another Christopher Anstey (1724-1805), became famous as the author of the ' New Bath Guide.'

ALEYN LYELL READE. Park Corner, Blundellsands, near Liverpool.

(To be continued.)

THE LIQUID N IN ENGLISH. By " the liquid n " I mean the sound of the gn in poignant, mignonette, and champignon ; these seem to be "the only words in which the symbol gn has its old meaning. It is worth inquiring into the history of the sound and of the symbol gn generally.

I would first of all put aside such words as opinion, union, and the rest, in which the symbol gn was never used, at any rate in English, though the sound is the same. The ' N.E.D.' notes the rare spellings oignion and ingyeon for the modern onion, from F. oignon.

The chief examples of E. ni from (or equivalent to) F. gn are minion, companion, pinion, poniard ; we may also add munnion, trunnion, with nni, and Shakespeare's ronyon, a scurvy creature, from F. rogne. The ni in bunion answers to the gn in Ital. bugnone, explained by Florio as " a push, a bile, a blane, a botch."

In some words (whatever they were once) the g and n are now separated ; as in regnant, malignant, repugnant, stagnant, pregnant.

There is at least one curious result. It seems to be certain that the final gn in cam- paign, arraign, deign, feign, reign, benign, condign, sign, design, ensign, assign, impugn (or in most of these), was formerly pro- nounced with the gn in poignant ; and that the same is true of some words now spelt with a simple n, such as disdain (i.e., dis- deign), complain (see ' N.E.D.'). Note espe- cially coin, join, and loin ; also coign.

It is clear that English people much dis- liked this final sound, and reduced it to simple n. The M.E. for sign was sig-ne (dissyllabic), pronounced somewhat like seen-ya.

This consideration accounts for the use of ny for the liquid gn in Middle English. Mr. Mayhew draws attention to some re- markable examples, in his edition of the Winchester MS. of the ' Promptorium Parvu- lorum.' Examples are : erany, a spider (F. araigne) ; seny, a sign ; lony, a loin (O.F. logne) ; bony, a great knob (prov. E. boine, a swelling caused by a blow, F. bigne, O.F. buigne, the word whence we may derive

E. buni-on) ; ionyon, to join ; sonyon, to- essoin or excuse ; kuny, a coin.

This liquid n is common in Middle Scotch ; Barbour, for example, has cunyhe, a coign, a corner ; renye, a rein for a horse ; derenye, to darraign, Chaucer's darrayne, &c. The most remarkable thing of all is the change- of this final gn to ng in writers like Sir David Lyndesay, as in ring, to reign. He actually rimes signis, signs, with thyngis, things- (' The Monarche,' 1. 5450).

WALTER W. SKEAT.

BRITISH MUSEUM LIBRARY CATALOGUE. It may seem ungrateful in an old reader who has reaped so many benefits from the great library in Bloomsbury to find fault with the arrangements, and if I stood alone in this complaint, I would retain my isolation ; but the grievance is ventilated by many. In the first place, I and J are treated as the same letter, as U and V are. That was all right when the Catalogue wa& begun, and was in manuscript ; but now that printing has superseded handwriting, the obsolete fashion of cataloguing Jones and Ives under the same letter, or Vale and Unwin as having the same initial, might be discontinued and the modern usage- adopted.

In the second place, anonymous works- are catalogued according to a bewildering system, the object of which seems to be to- hide the identity of the work. Take the case of a valuable little book with the following title : ' An Account of the Origin of Steam-Boats, in Spain, Great Britain, and America, and of their Introduction and Employment upon the River Thames between London and Gravesend to the Present Time,' i.e. 1831. A pencil note on the title-page is " by R. P. Cruden," the historian of the Port of London. One would think that it would be catalogued under ' Steam Boats,' that being the main, subject ; but no, it is catalogued under ' Spain.' I am told the rule is to take the first proper name. In this case it is mis- leading, because no one studying the history of steam navigation on the Thames would think of looking under Spain.

That rule, however, is not applied in the next case. A well-written little book pub- lished in 1907 is entitled 'Devon, the Shire of the Sea Kings.' ' Devon ' would seem to be the natural heading, but no in the Catalogue it will be found under ' Great Western Railway.'

I could give other instances, but these must suffice. A. RHODES..