Page:The Sources of Standard English.djvu/272

Rh which have put to flight the commonest of Teutonic words. Strange it is that these French terms should have won their way into our hovels as well as into our manor houses.

I give a few instances of Manning's use of French words; his lines on Confirmation show plainly how much foreign ware we owe to the clergy. He sticks pretty close to the French poem he was translating, as in page 107, une cote perece is Englished by a kote percede; and this gives us some idea of the number of new words that must have been brought in by translators. We see the terms verry (verus), oure (hora), prayere, anoynt, age, renoun, morsel, tryfyl, savyoure, straitly, in vein (frustra), bewte, usurer, valeu, a fair, affynyte, sample, trespas, spyryt, revyle, moreyne (pestis), pestelens, veniaunce, hutch, tremle. It may be laid down, that in his diction this writer of 1303 has more in common with us of 1873 than he had with any English poet of 1250.

A few other changes must be more specially pointed out. Hitherto Englishmen had talked of cristendom, but Robert (page 346) speaks of crystyanyte.

He has dropped the old word syfernes, and translates the kindred French sobreté by soberte, our sobriety.

He has both verement and verryly: the first in its foreign adverbial ending points to mind, the second in its English adverbial ending points to lic (body). In page 149 charyte stands for alms, coming from the French line, la charite luy enveia. In the same page, nycete stands for folly.