Page:The Sources of Standard English.djvu/316

Rh were pronounced in the late Plantagenet days; bury follows the Southern, gylty the Northern form; there are herke, hearke, and harkene, all three; there are both lawhe and laugh. When we see borugh, we think of a borough of men, but it means only a burrow of conies; our spelling was not yet thoroughly settled. Theft is expressed by roving; we have since given a new meaning to the word. The bear is called both Bruyn and Brownyng. We find the interjection O ho, and also our common pronuncia&shy;tion of me lorde. The z is employed to spell wezel, which had of old been wesel; puf is used where we say pooh.

Caxton had many words and phrases which Tyndale was afterwards to make immortal; such are, skrabbing, ravyn, kyen, adoo, good luck, to you-ward, oftymes, in lyke wyse, chyde with, bewraye, take hede, al be it that, if so be that, how be it. As to Romance words, we find rere&shy;ward, concubyne, tarye, stuff, straytly, sauf that, secrete chamber, dwellyng place, according to, sporte, abhor, mock, refrayne himself. There is also the portentous com&shy;pound, disworshipped. Still the home-born mis held its own against the outlandish dis; two hundred years later Bunyan writes mistrust and not distrust.

In 1482, Caxton brought out an old chronicle written by Trevisa a century earlier; the great printer says, ‘I somewhat chaunged the rude and old Englyssh, that is to wete, certayn wordes which in these days be neither usyd ne understanden.’ We thus see that the Verbs clepe, fonge, won, welk, steihe, wilne, and behote had become obsolete; buxom, nesche, lesue, and bede now sounded strange in London ears; swiþe had to be turned into right, and sprankeleþ into sperclyth. The letter &#x0293;