Page:The Sources of Standard English.djvu/118

Rh page 175 we hear of two brethren, ‘þat on is Seint Peter and þat oðer Seint Andreu:’ this is a great change from the ''se an. . . se oðer'' used of the two men who strove for the Papacy in 1129, as recorded in the Peter&shy;borough Chronicle of that year. In Scotch law papers the tan and the tother may be remarked down to very modern times; the confusion between letters is like that seen in the nonce. The Masculine and Neuter of the Article were no longer to be distinguished; at least, in Danish shires. The o, which has so often replaced the old a, has added to our stock of synonyms for unus; we now employ one and an in distinct ways, but this had not been settled in 1180: at page 125 we read of ‘on old man,’ and two lines lower down of ‘an holie child.’

Many English words were now getting new meanings. Among the works of darkness mentioned at page 13 are ‘chest and chew,’ translated by Dr. Morris ‘contention and jaw,’ a new sense of the old ceówan, our chew. There is a famous Mediæval phrase in page 113; Christ, it is there said, ‘herede helle;’ the Harrowing of Hell plays a leading part in our old literature from first to last. We know our phrase, ‘to take to his bed;’ we read in page 29, ‘þu takest to huse,’ that, is, ‘thou keepest at home.’ At page 39, we hear of ‘a man þe was of his wit;’ hence comes our, ‘off his feed.’ At page 201 we see a broad line drawn between napping