Page:The Sources of Standard English.djvu/127

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Orrmin's work proves that England had not yet lost the power of compounding words with Prepositions and such words as even, full, orr, un, and wan. This gives wonderful strength and pith to his verse. We de&shy;generate writers of later days use few compounds but those with out, over, under, and fore; and in this respect England falls woefully short of India, Greece, and Ger&shy;many. Orrmin, like the Peterborough Chronicler, separates the Verb and the Preposition; he says, ‘to standenn inn’ (instare), ‘he strac inn,’ from the old strican, to pass. Inn is by him often pared down to i, as in the Southern Homilies; Shakespere has ‘digged i the dark.’ The letter n often vanishes before a dental, as in the case of tonth, tooth.

The old bufan now becomes abufenn (above); bifóran changes to biforr (ante).