Page:The Sources of Standard English.djvu/149

120 yet been settled how we were to translate the Latin Neuter Relative quod. We saw ‘&#x0293;etes bi wam’ in the Homilies; in the Ancren Riwle, page 382, we see ‘sum þing mid hwat he muhte derven.’ This last is the English form of quod: but we were not to use it. We were to follow the form employed in page 354: ‘þeawes, bi hwuche me climbedð to þe blisse.’ Yet this hwuche is almost always in the present work used in its true old sense (now unhappily lost) of qualis, its kindred word. The new translation of quod was to take root in York&shy;shire, as well as in Dorset, thirty years later. The old that was, of course, in full employment as a Relative.

In page 110, we see how the old onefne came to be changed; in the Salopian copy it is found as onevent, in the Dorset copy as onont, not far from our anent In the same page, we see how the old Preposition &#x0293;eond (per) was dropping out of use; it was still employed in Dorset, but was replaced in one shire by over, in another by in. When we find onlich, it does not convey our sense of the word; it as yet means nothing but solitary. What was called leste (solutus) in Dorset, was lowse and lousse in other shires, not far from our loose: this may be seen at page 228. The Southern influence, which changes f into v and g into w, may be seen in page 290, where we hear that the Devil ‘fikeþ mid dogge vawenunge (flatters with doglike fawning): this last word was of old fœgnung. The comparative of late had hitherto only conveyed the sense of serior; but we now find it mean posterior; in page 158, there is mention of the ‘vorme half and þe latere.’ We have since 1220 distinguished the two meanings of the word by doubling the t in later, when it