Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 3.djvu/43

 in. JAN. 14, 1905.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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performing some remarkable feat in that brief space, or to one who used to say, as some do now, "I shall only be two or three minutes," knowing well they will be much longer. There may, of course, be a more subtle derivation for both surnames, but I am afraid this is too small a matter to ask PROF. SKEAT to give us his opinion upon.

A. S. ELLIS. Westminster.

It is quite certain that the O. French espec has nothing to do with spicer, but is a totally different word, and means a speight, i.e., a woodpecker. Godefroy's 'O.F. Diet.' gives espec, especque, espoit, espois, a woodpecker, with several quotations. A very clear one is from an old glossary : " Picus, ung pivert ou especque." Pivert is still in use. The O.F. espec resulted from an attempt to adopt the Du. and G. specht. Cf. Prov. E. wood-spack, wood spite, both given by Swainson (E.D.S.). Cotgrave has both e'peiche and Jpiche, "a speight, the red - tailed woodpecker, or highaw." The form e'peiche is still in use ; so says Hatzfeld. The E. form is speight, which is also used as a proper name There was an editor of Chaucer who spelt it Spegkt. WALTER W. SKEAT.

SPELLING REFORM (10 th S. ii. 305, 450). It would be interesting to know what is the ground of the preference which MR. RALPH THOATAS feels for the spelling forego rather than forgo. I suppose forebid, foreget, or foreswear would have no attraction for him, so that he would say that he liked forego best because he, and probably a majority of his contemporaries, have always so written it. He does not trouble himself about which is right. Neither do I : that is to say, I do not desire to alter a spelling in accordance with what I perceive to be the true origin of the word. But if I find that there are good literary authorities, ancient and modern, for a certain spelling which does accord with the true etymology, I like to side with those who know the fact rather than with those who do not. Now the for words are generally akin to the German words beginning with ver, and the fore words to those in German beginning with vor. If, then, I find two words/ore<70 and forgo, differently built up, and entirely differing in signification, though differing but little in sound, 1 am not surprised that they should have been con- founded, though I should see cause for regret if the blunder should be perpetuated. I wrote some of this to a friend many years ago. He answered, "Ah ! Shakspere and Milton are

good enough for me, and as they spelt so I spell." What he meant was that as their later editors spelt so he spelt ; and I have thought it might interest your readers, or some of them, if I showed how Shakspere and Milton themselves did deal with those verbs. I have not Mil ton at hand nor the concordance ; but, if my memory serves me, he had four times to express the sense " do without," and then the word he used was forgo. Once he expressed going before, and his word was, as might be expected, forego. I am not sure of the numbers, but I am quite sure of the distinction.

Nor is there any doubt in the case of Shakspere. 1 mean Shakspere himself, not his editors. Eleven times they use the word forego or its belongings : in eight of them they mean him to express "do without" ; but the poet himself spelt them, so far as the First Folio teaches us, forgo. In two cases one in ' All 's Well that Ends Well,' and one in 'Othello' he means "goes before," and writes " fore-goer " and " fore-gone."

There is one more an interesting one in 'All 's Well that Ends Well,' Act I. sc. iii. : "By our remembrances of days foregone.'' So write the editors, and so nearly wrote Shakspere

" of days forgon." It may be that he

spelt wrongly in the opposite way from theirs ; but bearing in mind that the German absolute equivalent of the English forgo is vergehen, and that that means "to pass away, to elapse," it would seem that we have here another meaning for the legitimate word forgo, the passage meaning "of days gone by " or "of vanished days." ALDENHAM.

" LICENCE" AND " LICENSE " (10 th S. ii. 484). Like every one else, I have the greatest respect for PROF. SKEAT as an authority in the etymology of our language. In my note at 10 th S. ii. 451 I should not have said that license, practise, and prophesy are spelt with ce when used as nouns " in defiance of all rule." It was a mistake due to a partial alteration of my sentence, which is not worth explaining. I had PROF. SKEAT'S dictionary at hand when I was writing. My objection was, and is, to the two spellings, the arbitrary double forms which serve no useful purpose and are a real trouble in the schoolroom. PROF. SKEAT is in favour of ce in all these words. In the case of the third word I read in his dictionary that the distinction between the sy and cy forms is "unoriginal, arbitrary, and absurd." Very well, then ; cannot we get rid of the double form altogether 1 There is no good reason why in these matters we should be bound by