Page:The Sources of Standard English.djvu/110

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The Old and Middle English.
81

page 83, the two forms scine and schine (shine), the last being a new sound now creeping into English. So popular did it become, that we forced French verbs in ir to take the sound, as cherish and flourish. But the French cabus has become cabbage, just as Perusia became Perugia. The corrupt forms of 1120, swice, wice, and moche, now become swulc, swuche, and sulche (such); wilche, and hwiche; muche and muchel. The old gylt be­comes gult in the South; our guilt is a combination of the two. We see a new form in hwilke time se eure (which time so ever). Ælc (quisque) takes its modern shape of elche and eche; and an is fastened on to it, though as yet very seldom. Thus, at page 91, we read ‘heo it delden elchun;’ that is, to each one. Latost (ultimus) is cut down to leste at page 143; and þy lœs þe is shortened into leste, which we still keep. If and neor replace the old gif and neah; the first is the Scandinavian ef. Saule of him is put for his soul, simply to eke out a rime; and the of is sometimes used as an adverb, with a new spelling, as at page 29, ‘ʓif þin hefet were offe,’ The word þurhut (throughout) now appears. Oðerlicor now becomes oðer-weis (page 31); at page 165 we see evrema (evermore); at page 139 the œvric (quisque) of Peterborough is found in its new shape, efri: the East Midland corruptions were already beginning to find their way to the South. What was before written on lif (in vita) is now seen as alive (page 161); yet our dictionary-makers, even to this day, will have it that alive is an adjective. We see such new forms as under­ling and fowertene niht (fortnight). When we find the word knave child applied to the infant Saviour at page