Page:The Journal of English and Germanic Philology Volume 18.djvu/277

 The Functions of Old English GeweorVan 271 lassen and gewdhren in the sense of Vahr machen,' 'leisten,' and 'verbiirgen' respectively are of a totally different character and only serve to confuse the issue. 52 Obviously unsatisfactory, in fact impossible is Heyne's explanation of this gewdhren from Middle High German gew&ren 'als wahr erweisen' (Deutsches Wb'rterbuch I, 1160 f.). There is no way of connecting that verb with our modern usage. That gewdhren lassen was not admitted by grammarians into the standard language until recent times, is to be gathered from Heynatz's Antibarbarus (of 1796-7, see Wunderlich), in which attention is called to the 'strange meaning' of the combination as current 'in some districts.' It is not found in Adelung. 53 FR. KLAEBER. The University of Minnesota. 62 Verdam quite properly keeps the idiom gewerden laten entirely separate from the combination of gewerden ('fieri') with laten (or doeri), meaning 'scheppen.' 53 It is of some historical interest to note that in J. Ch. A. Heyse's Hand- worterbuch der deutschen Sprache (1833) this gewahren is called a palpable cor- ruption of gebaren.