Word

The Power of Words
COSTERUS NEW SERIES 163

Series Editors:
C.C. Barfoot, Theo Dhaen
and Erik Kooper
Christian Kay
The Power of Words

Essays in Lexicography, Lexicology
and Semantics
In Honour of Christian J. Kay
Edited by
Graham D. Caie,
Carole Hough and
Iren Wotherspoon
Amsterdam-New York, NY 2006
Cover photo: University of Glasgow

Cover design: Aart Jan Bergshoeff
The paper on which this book is printed meets the requirements of
ISO 9706:1994, Information and documentation - Paper for
documents - Requirements for permanence.
ISBN-10: 90-420-2121-7
ISBN-13: 978-90-420-2121-1
Editions Rodopi B.V., Amsterdam - New York, NY 2006
Printed in the Netherlands
Acknowledgements
The editors would like to thank Mrs Flora Edmonds and Mr Ian
Hamilton of the Department of English Language, University of
Glasgow for their invaluable assistance and technical support. Ms
Marieke Schilling of Rodopi has been most helpful, as has Professor
Erik Kooper of the University of Utrecht and the series editor.
This page intentionally left blank
List of Contents
Introduction
ix
Old English colour lexemes used of textiles

in Anglo-Saxon England
C. P. Biggam
Slang terms for money: a historical thesaurus

Julie Coleman
23
Huv a wee seat, hen: evaluative terms in Scots

Fiona Douglas and John Corbett
35
Lexical splits and mergers:

some difficult cases for the OED
Philip Durkin
57
Of fderan and eamas: avuncularity in Old English

Andreas Fischer
67
$ho:fian{*}/vK2: a LAEME-based lexical study

Roger Lass and Margaret Laing
79
The rhyme potential of Scots

Caroline Macafee
91
Of politeness and people

Terttu Nevalainen and Heli Tissari
103
ME douten and dreden

Michiko Ogura
117
What did Anglo-Saxon seals seal when?

Jane Roberts
131
Notes on the medical vocabulary of John Keats

Jeremy J. Smith
159
viii
Tell her to shut her moof:

the role of the lexicon in TH-fronting in Glaswegian
Jane Stuart-Smith and Claire Timmins
171
Forces of change: are social and moral attitudes legible in this

Historical Thesaurus classification?
Louise Sylvester
185
Key word in context:

semantic and pragmatic meaning of humour
Irma Taavitsainen
209
Lexicographical Lyrics
James McGonigal
221
Notes on the Contributors
225
Tabula Gratulatoria
Introduction
This volume is in honour of Christian Kay, Professor of English
Language at the University of Glasgow since 1996.
Christians career at the university goes back to 1969, when she
was appointed a part-time research assistant on the Historical
Thesaurus of English (HTE), an ambitious project initiated by
Professor Michael Samuels. From 1969 Christian worked also as a
part-time editor working on the Collins dictionaries, and the two posts
started her on a research career in lexicography and lexicology.
Christians love of collating and categorising things goes back to
her Edinburgh childhood, when she was never happier than when
putting buttons or sweets into piles according to colour, shape or size.
Her schooling took place at the Mary Erskine School, made famous by
Muriel Spark, though there is nothing of Miss Jean Brodie about
Christian. Christian thrived there and went on to Edinburgh
University, where she graduated M.A. in English Language and
Literature in 1962. Like many Scots, she decided to see the world:
first she travelled to the States, where she completed a postgraduate
M.A. in English at Mount Holyoke College, writing a thesis on
Synonym Clusters in Beowulf. After that she spent three years
teaching English at the Folk University of Sweden in Stockholm,
where, inter alia, she learned to speak Swedish. On her return to
Scotland she took the diploma in General Linguistics at Edinburgh in
1968-69. Luckily for us she forsook Edinburgh, coming to Glasgow in
1969 to work on the Thesaurus as well as for Collins dictionaries, and
in 1979 she was appointed to a full-time lectureship in Glasgows
English Language Department. She has now worked here for thirty-six
years and with effect from September 2005 she will be an Honorary
Professorial Research Fellow in the Department.
Christian has worked tirelessly and with great enthusiasm on the
HTE and she has, since Michael Samuelss retirement in 1989, been
the projects Director. The HTE, a monumental work, which promises
to be such a great benefit to scholars in so many different disciplines,
will be completed in the next few years. Already a large number of
scholars have benefited greatly from using this projects archives, as
many of the articles in this collection witness. Many more visitors, too
numerous to mention, have made pilgrimages to Glasgow to consult
the research materials assembled here. The largest work that has so far
come out of the HTE project is A Thesaurus of Old English (1995,
2000), which is now about to be published again, this time in
electronic form.
Christian has written a large number of articles on the HTE,
semantics and lexicography. She has edited six volumes of essays,
which include collections of conference papers on historical
linguistics. At the turn of the century she embarked with Jim
McGonigal and other colleagues at Glasgow University on the
ambitious LILT project (Language into Languages Teaching) which
was commissioned by the Scottish Executive Education Department.
After its completion Christian toured Scotland introducing the
software to teachers who have found it a major benefit in language
teaching. Christian has always been at the forefront of computer
assisted learning, producing programs such as English Grammar: an
Introduction, The Basics of English Metre and ARIES: Assisted
Revision in English Style. She has been Director of STELLA
(Software for the Teaching of English and Scottish Language and
Literature and its Assessment), a project in the Computers in Teaching
Initiative, for many years and along with Jean Anderson has helped
the University of Glasgow remain at the forefront of CALL. She is
also a prime mover in the highly successful project, the Scottish
Corpus of Texts and Speech.
Her administrative abilities, including fund-raising, are
legendary. When I succeeded Michael Samuels to the English
Language Chair in 1990 Christian graciously guided me in the
mysteries of Higher Education in the UK and in even more complex
topics such as the administrative workings of the University of
Glasgow. She made a superb Head of Department in the periods 198992 and 1996-99, demonstrating her flair for financial management and
her admirable common sense and no-nonsense approach to some of
the illogical or irrational dictates of central university or government.
She also has wide experience of examining at all levels in the
university system and is much in demand at international conferences.
Christians teaching has covered a wide range of topics in
English language, from her own subjects of semantics and literary and
linguistic computing to general linguistics, the history of English,
pragmatics and spoken discourse. She is an extremely caring teacher
and many scholars today have her to thank for the encouragement and
xi
assistance she gave them. Many of the contributors to this volume

acknowledge this help.
I think that this quotation from Matthew Arnold which, although
intended for classical translators, fits Christian admirably: she is
eminently plain and direct both in the evolution of [her] thought and
in the expression of it, that is both in [her] syntax and [her] words;
[she] is eminently plain and direct in the substance of [her] thought,
that is in [her] matter and [her] ideas; and finally that [she] is
eminently noble.
It is not all work and no play with Christian. She is a keen and
knowledgeable supporter of opera and classical music, especially
Scottish Opera.
It is therefore a great honour and pleasure to prepare this volume
of essays on her research areas of lexicography, lexicology and
semantics.
Graham D. Caie
Old English colour lexemes used of textiles in

Anglo-Saxon England
C. P. Biggam
Introduction
This paper is the first of at least two articles to investigate the Old
English (OE) vocabulary of textile colours, in relation to both AngloSaxon manufactures, and imported materials.1 While the present paper
concentrates on colour words, the next will be principally concerned
with dyes and dye words.2 It is hoped that this semantic investigation
will complement the valuable work taking place in the disciplines of
1
I would like to record here my gratitude to Prof. Kay for the years of interest and
support she has generously given to my efforts in historical semantic research. Colour
has long constituted one of our mutual interests. In all my work, including the present
paper, her Thesaurus of Old English, produced with Jane Roberts and Lynne Grundy,
has proved an invaluable research tool (Jane Roberts and Christian Kay with Lynne
Grundy, A Thesaurus of Old English, Kings College London Medieval Studies XI, 2
vols., London: Kings College London Centre for Late Antique and Medieval Studies,
1995).
2
The principal sources of Old English word definitions in this research are the
Dictionary of Old English (DOE), and, for those words which have not yet appeared
in the DOE (from the letter G onwards), the dictionaries by Clark Hall, and Toller
(Angus Cameron, Ashley Crandell Amos, Antonette diPaolo Healey et al. (eds.),
Dictionary of Old English in Electronic Form A-F, Toronto: Pontifical Institute of
Mediaeval Studies, 2003; J. R. Clark Hall, A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, with a
supplement by Herbert D. Meritt, 4th edition, Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1960; T. Northcote Toller (ed.), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary Based on the
Manuscript Collections of the Late Joseph Bosworth, Supplement by T. Northcote
Toller with revised and enlarged addenda by Alistair Campbell, 2 vols., Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1898-1972). In cases where I have published word-studies, I
use my own definitions, and provide references. For Latin words, my principal
authority is the dictionary by Latham and Howlett (DMLBS) and, for those words
which have not yet appeared in the DMLBS, the Oxford Latin Dictionary (OLD), and
the dictionary by Souter (R. E. Latham and D. R. Howlett, Dictionary of Medieval
Latin from British Sources, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975- ; P. G. W. Glare
(ed.), Oxford Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982; Alexander Souter, A
Glossary of Later Latin to 600 A.D., Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1949). Definitions
have been abbreviated where appropriate.
C. P. Biggam
archaeobotany and the chemical investigation of dye traces on

surviving textiles.
2. Scope of the Research
The results presented and discussed in both this and later papers are
drawn from a review of all occurrences of hue words and dye words in
the Old English corpus.3 All those references which could definitely
or reasonably be related to a textile referent were retrieved, and then
classified as belonging to one of four different contextual types
relating to the geographical location of the textile: English, exotic,
generalized and unknown. For these papers on the situation in AngloSaxon England, I have drawn on the English and the generalized
contexts. The latter indicates contexts in which the author implies that
a colour or dye usage is universally appropriate, and we must assume
that an Anglo-Saxon audience or readership would have interpreted
this as applicable to them.
The research does not include achromatic colours, namely, the
range from black, through all the greys to white, since these colours
(and also brown) were available without the use of dyes as, for
example, in woollen textiles produced from sheeps fleeces of these
colours. Also excluded are words denoting colour features other than
hue, such as DARK, PALE, BRIGHT and others, and textile colours
which are not the result of dyeing, such as thread of gold.4
3
Antonette diPaolo Healey and Richard L. Venezky, A Microfiche Concordance to

Old English, Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1980.
4
I have also decided to exclude OE pll and pllen, unless they are in association
with a colour or dye word. Although the older dictionaries are agreed that this noun
and adjective refer principally to a type of garment, they also tend to add senses which
imply a specific colour, such as purple garment, purple (Clark Hall, op. cit., s.v.
pll). The Old English word derives from the Latin pallium which, in the context of
early medieval ecclesiastical dress, was white in colour (Janet Mayo, A History of
Ecclesiastical Dress, London: Batsford, 1984, pp. 23-24). Some examples of this
garment were made of a costly material known as purpura in Latin, but it is clear that
purpura was not always purple in colour, as Dodwell quotes examples of red, white,
green, black and mixed-colour purpura (C. R. Dodwell, Anglo-Saxon Art: a New
Perspective, Manchester Studies in the History of Art 3, Manchester: Manchester
University Press, 1982, p. 146). It is clear, therefore, that the use of Modern English
purple in the definition of OE pll/pllen is unsafe, whether it is intended to refer to
the colour of the pallium, or to the meaning of purpura. Dodwell defines purpura as a
textile word, referring to shot-silk taffeta (colour not specific) (op. cit., pp. 147-50).
Old English colour lexemes
3. Textile Types
3.1 Silk
3.1.1 (seolc; geolu)
In the tenth-century medical work now known as Balds Leechbook,
jaundice (gealadl or geolwe adl) is said to cause the body of the
patient to turn yellow like good yellow silk (ageolwa swa god
geolo seoluc).5
3.1.2 (godwebb; geolu)
See Section 5.1.1 under Garments (Unspecified).
3.2 Wool
3.2.1 (wull; hwen)
See Section 4.2.3 under Straining-Cloths.
4. Textile Manufactures (Excluding Clothing)
4.1 Hangings and Coverings
4.1.1 (wagrift, strl, hwitel, wstling; brun, brunbasu)
In his prose work De virginitate, the Anglo-Saxon scholar Aldhelm
(died 709 or 710) stresses that purity is not sufficient, by itself, to
achieve perfection, since it must be accompanied by other virtues. To
illustrate his point he reminds the reader of hangings and coverings
woven in diverse colours which please the eye much more than a
monochrome product. Aldhelm, writing in Latin, uses the words
cortina curtain, wall-hanging and stragula (for stragulum) bed- or
couch-cover, rug, blanket.6 In two manuscripts of this text, cortina is
Under these circumstances, it is not possible to interpret any context, which lacks
further elucidation, as involving a particular colour.
5
Oswald Cockayne (ed.), Leechdoms, Wortcunning and Starcraft of Early England,
Rerum Britannicarum medii aevi scriptores 35, 3 vols., London: Longman, Green,
Longman, Roberts and Green, 1864-66, II, 1865, 10, 106.
6
Rudolf Ehwald (ed.), Aldhelmi Opera, Monumenta Germaniae historica: Auctorum
antiquissimorum 15, Berlin: Weidmann, 1919, p. 244.
C. P. Biggam
glossed in Old English with wagrift tapestry, veil, curtain, and

stragula is glossed with strl curtain, quilt, matting, hwitel
blanket, and wstling sheet, blanket.7
Certain of the threads in these products are said to be dyed
purpureus in colour, that is purple, crimson or sim[ilar] (the exact
shade depending on the technique used), referring to the dye obtained
from the purpura shellfish. Purpureus is here glossed brun in Old
English. Both Napier and Goossens suggest that brun is an
abbreviation for brunbasu (although Goossens adds a question mark
to his comment), and the DOE agrees (s.v. brun-basu). While it is true
that abbreviations are common in these glosses, the expansion to
brunbasu in this context may be unwarranted. There is no doubt that
the hangings and coverings evoked by Aldhelm are of the highest
quality, since he describes the embroiderers skill in working pictures,
and he continues with a second example comprising the Temple
hangings in Jerusalem. This high-quality context may have persuaded
earlier editors that brun, traditionally defined as brown or dark,
indicates too ordinary a colour, while brunbasu is more impressive,
meaning dark purple, purple; red-purple, scarlet.8 The DOE,
however, while also defining brun as of a brown hue, dark-coloured,
continues its definition to include this words extended range into
purple and red (among other colours) when glossing Latin words
with such meanings. Old English had no basic term for PURPLE and
so conveyed this colour with various reddish words,9 and the use of
7
Arthur S. Napier (ed.), Old English Glosses Chiefly Unpublished, Anecdota

Oxoniensia 4, part 11, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1900, p. 28; Louis Goossens (ed.),
The Old English Glosses of MS. Brussels, Royal Library, 1650 (Aldhelms De
laudibus virginitatis), Verhandelingen van de Koninklijke Academie voor
Wetenschappen, Letteren en Schone Kunsten van Belgi, Klasse der Letteren,
Jaargang XXXVI, 74, Brussels: Koninklijke Academie voor Wetenschappen, 1974,
pp. 218-19.
8
I must express my doubts about this dictionary sense of scarlet for brunbasu. Both
elements of this compound term need more research, but it is clear that basu denotes
warm (red-based) colours which are vivid, rich and eye-catching. I suspect that the
addition of brun- creates a darkening effect to such colours, indicating, perhaps
especially, violet, dark purple and crimson. This would parallel the effect of bl- in
blhwen which darkens hwen blue (grey). (C. P. Biggam, Blue in Old English:
an Interdisciplinary Semantic Study, Amsterdam and Atlanta: Rodopi, 1997, pp. 22339.) Scarlet is not dark, and so appears to be in inappropriate company in the DOEs
definition of brunbasu.
9
Roberts, Kay with Grundy, op. cit., I, 146.
brun to fulfil this function in a translation context suggests it may

have had a close relationship with the more impressive warm colours
even where translation was not involved.10
4.2 Straining-Cloths
4.2.1 (cla; hwen)
A number of medical recipes in Old English call for a concoction to
be strained or wrung through a blue cloth. In Balds Leechbook,
treatment for a broken head involves boiling some herbs in butter
and straining them (seohhian) through a hwen cloth (cla).11 In Book
3 of the Leechbook, a treatment for palsy involves mixing coriander
powder with a womans milk, and wringing it (awringan) through a
hwen cloth.12 Also in Book 3, the preparation of an ear-salve
involves soaking several herbs in wine or vinegar, and then wringing
(wringan) the resulting liquid through a hwen cloth into the ear.13
The Old English colour word hwen has been researched, and defined
as blue (grey) indicating that grey is a less common sense than
blue.14
4.2.2 (cla; linhwen)
Two further references of related interest to those in Section 4.2.1
occur in another medical text, the Lacnunga, at least part of which
dates to the late tenth to mid eleventh century, but which contains
much older elements. The first reference concerns a treatment for eyes
that are stopped up, and which recommends taking specified herbs,
and dripping (drypan) their juice into the eye through a cloth.15 The
second reference is a treatment for dimness of the eyes which
involves soaking a part of wild teasel in honey, pounding it, and then
10
This may explain the references where brun is used of flowers (DOE, s.v. brun,
1.b).
11
Cockayne, op. cit., II, 24.
12
Ibid., II, 338.
13
Ibid., II, 344.
14
Biggam, op. cit., pp. 115-270.
15
Edward Pettit (ed. and trans.), Anglo-Saxon Remedies, Charms, and Prayers from
British Library Ms Harley 585: the Lacnunga, Mellen Critical Editions and Translations 6a-b, 2 vols., Lewiston, NJ, Queenston, Ontario and Lampeter: E. Mellen Press,
2001, I, 6.
C. P. Biggam
wringing (wringan) the resulting substance through a cloth into the

eye.16 In both these cases the cloth is described as linhwen.
Lin can mean flax or linen. It seems unlikely that a cloth
would be described as linen-blue (or linen-grey) since such a
description would be redundant if the cloth were made of linen
(linen-blue linen) and confusing for other textiles (e.g. linen-blue
wool). The flax-plant probably provides the answer, since the most
common colour of its flowers is pale blue, so linhwen is reasonably
defined as flax-flower blue.17 (See also Section 4.2.3 below.)
4.2.3 (cla; hwen)
In Book 3 of the Leechbook, a treatment is recommended for small
eye (sml), and all pains in the eye. Small eye has been variously
interpreted as shrinkage of the eye, or contraction of the eyeball or
pupil.18 The problem is to be treated by chewing wild teasel and then
wringing (wringan) the juice through a blue (hwen) and woollen
(wyllen) cloth onto the eyes of the patient.19
Although several British plants can produce a blue dye, there is
little evidence, either historical or archaeological, that anything other
than woad (Isatis tinctoria L.) (OE wad) was exploited for this
purpose in Anglo-Saxon England.20 The blue cloths used in medical
treatments, therefore, were most likely to have been dyed with woad,
and there may have been a very good reason for this. The woad plant
has vulnerary and styptic properties, aiding the healing of wounds and
the staunching of blood,21 and its appearance in certain Anglo-Saxon
medical recipes suggests these properties were understood.22 It is
clear, however, that wound-healing qualities are not especially helpful
for some of the problems mentioned above, and it may be that certain
16
Pettit, op. cit., I, 8.

Biggam, op. cit., pp. 209-10.
18
DOE, s.v. -sml.
19
20
Penelope Walton Rogers, Textile Production at 16-22 Coppergate, The Archaeology of York 17/11, York: Council for British Archaeology for York Archaeological
Trust, 1997, p. 1766.
21
Malcolm Stuart (ed.), The Colour Dictionary of Herbs & Herbalism, London:
Orbis, 1979, p. 80.
22
For example, Cockayne, op. cit., II, 132 (a burn); II, 36 (an eye ulcer).
17
healers had come to consider a woad-dyed cloth as standard medical

equipment.
4.3 Binding-Strips
4.3.1 (wrd; wrtt; read, wrteread)
In Book 3 of the Leechbook, a treatment for migraine (healf heafod
ece) is given which involves binding plantain roots around the head.
The instruction reads bind a moran ymb [t] heafod mid wrte
reade wrde. Cockayne interprets this as an instruction to bind
[plantain] roots and wrtt (a plant) around the head with a red band
( reade wrde),23 but others have taken wrte read to be a
compound term meaning wrtt-red.24 The latter interpretation would,
of course, assume the binding-strips to have been dyed with wrtt
dye, and would exclude the presence of wrtt plants. Since the term
wrtbaso wrtt-red (or -purple, or -crimson) is extant, there can
be no objection to the theoretical existence of wrtread.
Another cure for pain in the head (heafodece), however, lends
support to Cockaynes interpretation. In this instruction, the physician
is told to take the lower part of wrtt, put it on a red binding-strip, and
bind it to the head (genim nioowearde wrtte do on readne wrd
binde [t] heafod mid).25 In this second cure, wrtt is the only plant
involved, and the binding-strip is an unspecified red. It would clearly
be safer to interpret the first cure along similar lines, with the
exception that two plants were involved in that case, plantain and
wrtt, perhaps because migraine is a stronger pain than general headache. Both cures would then involve the plants being tied to the head
with red binding-strips, but not specifically wrtt-red.
It is quite possible that the writer of these two cures was
unconcerned about distinguishing between the wrtt plant and wrttdyed cloth, since it may have been simply the presence of wrtt, in
any form, which was important. Schlutter makes a good case for the
wrtt-plant being a source of red dye, by considering the evidence for
the cognate word in Old High German, rezza or riza.26 This lexeme is
23
Ibid., II, 307.

For example, O. B. Schlutter, Anglo-Saxonica, Anglia, 30 (N. F. 18) (1907), 23960, 248; Toller, op. cit., see Supplement, s.v. wrt-read.
25
26
Schlutter, op. cit., 249.
24
C. P. Biggam
used to gloss several Latin words which can indicate red dyes, such as
coccum scarlet dye etc., murex purple dye etc., sandix red dye
etc. and others. The Old English word wrtt also appears to be
identified with madder, probably the best-known red-dye plant in
England, in a herbal glossary.27 Wrtt-dye will be further discussed in
a future paper (see Section 1).
4.4 Patches
4.4.1 (fihl, fogcla; read)
In St Matthews gospel (9.16), Jesus is asked why his disciples do not
fast regularly, and he offers a metaphor to explain. He says that one
does not repair an old garment with a piece of new cloth
(Authorized Version), as this just makes the split worse. The words
used in the Vulgate for this phrase are panni rudis, and rudis has
many senses, but usually indicates something unfinished or untried.
The Old English gloss to rudis in the West Saxon gospels is niwe
new, but, in the Lindisfarne Gospels, the gloss to the phrase is fihles
[ve]l fotcla reades. Fihl is defined as cloth, rag, and fogcla as
joining-cloth, patch (fotcla is a manuscript error). It would appear
that the glossator of the Lindisfarne Gospels mistakenly understood
Latin rudis as meaning red, and has produced a puzzling sentence
implying that a red patch makes a split in a garment worse. Clearly,
his attention was on the sense of the individual words rather than the
meaning of the sentence.28
5. Clothing
5.1 Garments (Unspecified)
5.1.1 (gewd; geolu)
The solution of Riddle 35 in the Exeter Book,29 and the almost
identical Leiden Riddle30 is mail-coat.31 The mail-coat is the
27
J. Richard Stracke (ed.), The Laud Herbal Glossary, Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1974, p.
42. Line 728 reads Grias .i. medere. wrette. See also Strackes comments on p. 97.
28
I am grateful to Roy Liuzza for discussing this passage with me.
29
George Philip Krapp and Elliott van Kirk Dobbie (eds.), The Exeter Book, The
Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records: a Collective Edition 3, New York: Columbia University
Press, and London: Routledge, 1936, p. 198.
narrator, and admits it is a garment (gewd) but presents a series of

statements which are intended to confuse those attempting to solve the
riddle, one of which is that it is not made of any textile. The mail-coat
further states that it has not been woven by worms which decorate,
with great skill, the fine yellow (geolu) cloth (godwebb). Aldhelms
Latin original of this riddle refers to Chinese worms (Seres
vermes), making it sufficiently clear that silk is the fabric in
Aldhelms mind.32
5.1.2 (hrgl, reaf; hasufag)
Riddles use several ploys to mislead and confuse the listener, so that
the solution to the riddle is more difficult to guess.33 Riddle 11 of the
Exeter Book begins with the two lines My clothing (hrgl) is
hasufag; ornaments bright, red and shining [are] on my garment
(reaf).34 Suggested solutions to this riddle include night, gold and
wine, but only gold could result in the garment being any form of
textile, namely, a purse, although the purse could just as easily be
made of leather.35 This riddle, has, however, been included in this
paper solely on the basis of its deliberately misleading introduction,
which encourages its audience to envisage a persons clothes, before
the later clues cause them to consider an alternative solution.
Hasu usually means grey but can also mean grey-brown,36 and
fag indicates particoloured, variegated; discoloured, stained, marked,
so the compound word suggests either a garment of various shades of
grey and/or brown, or a garment stained with grey and/or brown
marks. Anglo-Saxon sheep were not only white, but also brown, black
30
Elliott van Kirk Dobbie (ed.), The Anglo-Saxon Minor Poems, The Anglo-Saxon
Poetic Records: a Collective Edition 6, New York: Columbia University Press, and
London: Routledge, 1942, p. 109.
31
Krapp and Dobbie, op. cit., pp. 340-41.
32
Ehwald, op. cit., p. 111.
33
For riddling techniques, see Archer Taylor, English Riddles from Oral Tradition,
Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1951; Nigel F. Barley,
Structural aspects of the Anglo-Saxon riddle, Semiotica, 10 (1974), 143-75.
34
For the Old English text, see Krapp and Dobbie, op. cit., p. 186.
35
C. P. Biggam, Grey in Old English: an Interdisciplinary Semantic Study, London:
Runetree, 1998, pp. 281-87.
36
Ibid., pp. 272-304.
10
C. P. Biggam
and grey,37 so particoloured garments of these colours could be

produced relatively cheaply with no dyeing involved. Alternatively,
the discoloured sense of fag may be foremost in this passage. In
either case, it would seem that the audience of this riddle gained a first
impression of cheap clothes, or a working-garment, perhaps stained
with dirty marks, and this image would have been immediately
disrupted, in typical riddling fashion, by the following mention of
apparently costly red and shining adornments.
The third possibility is the only one which causes this reference
to appear in this paper. The garment may be dyed brown to produce a
sober-coloured item appropriate for church (see Sections 5.2.1 and
5.6.2). The following mention of shiny adornments would provide the
same confusing contradiction as in the previous interpretation, since
they are not appropriate for a religious context.
5.1.3 ((ge)scierpan; read)
Much of the content of the Late Anglo-Saxon homily sometimes
known as Napier XLIX, concerns those who are wealthy, encouraging
them to carry out charitable work, and reminding them of the
temporary nature of earthly riches. The examples given of such riches
are the brightest gold, the costliest gems and clothes of the reddest
fine cloth (eah we us scyrpen mid am readdestan godewebbe)
(Scraggs edition).38 Nine versions of this homily survive,39 and two of
them40 exhibit an interesting change of wording: brightest gold and
reddest fine cloth have been altered to reddest gold and brightest
fine cloth. Scragg suggests that certain scribes thought gold was more
likely to be red than fine cloth,41 but the phrase red gold is, of
37
M. L. Ryder, Medieval sheep and wool types, Agricultural History Review, 32/1
(1984), 14-28.
38
A. S. Napier (ed.), Wulfstan: Sammlung der ihm zugeschriebenen Homilien nebst
Untersuchungen ber ihre Echtheit, Sammlung englischer Denkmler in kritischen
Ausgaben 4, Berlin: Weidmann, 1883, p. 262; D. G. Scragg (ed.), The Vercelli
Homilies and Related Texts, Early English Text Society os 300, Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1992, p. 209.
39
Scragg, op. cit., pp. 191-95.
40
Ibid., pp. xxx-xxxi (sigla J and K).
41
Ibid., p. 217.
11
course, familiar from other Anglo-Saxon texts and may have come
easily to mind.42
Anderson suggests that the reason for this phrase is that OE read
(and its Germanic cognates) retained colour senses from their IndoEuropean origin in a term for earth colours, especially ochre and
haematite which, depending on their treatment as pigments, can
produce colours such as red, reddish brown, orange and reddish
yellow.43 I agree with Anderson that OE read would have included
ORANGE in its coverage, although I have suggested that fire, rather
than ochre/haematite, was the earliest prototype for the warm
colours.44 Old English, and its predecessors, had no basic colour term
for ORANGE,45 so, until this emerged, the colour orange would have
been considered a type of red and/or yellow, depending on the
composition of any particular shade. The phrase red gold provides
evidence that much of the colour denoted by Modern English (ModE)
orange was considered a form of red by speakers of Old English.
It is clear that the Old English RED category differed in its extent
from the equivalent category in the modern language. The crucial
question arising from the reddest fine cloth in Napier XLIX is,
therefore, whether Old English speakers envisaged the reddest part
of the category as being the same as in present-day English. There is
very little evidence to help answer this question, but an indication is
found in a glossary entry in which two Old English compound colour
terms, geoluread reddish yellow and geolucrog saffron yellow
translate three Latin words: flavus pale yellow, golden, fulvus tawny
(from dull yellow to reddish brown), golden-yellow and rubeus
42
Earl R. Anderson, The semantic puzzle of red gold, English Studies, 81 (2000),
1-13.
43
Ibid., 10-11.
44
C. P. Biggam, Prototypes and foci in the encoding of colour, in Christian J. Kay
and Jeremy J. Smith (eds.), Categorization in the History of English, Amsterdam
Studies in the Theory and History of Linguistic Science, Series IV: Current Issues in
Linguistic Theory 261, Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2004, pp. 1940.
45
Brent Berlin and Paul Kay, Basic Color Terms: their Universality and Evolution,
Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1969. The lack of a basic
term does not preclude the use of non-basic terms, such as compound terms, or of
descriptive phrases, to denote a particular hue, but, in addition, such hues can usually
be denoted by an existing basic term with broader coverage than its modern
equivalent.
12
C. P. Biggam
red.46 The presence of rubeus is a little surprising, although it could

be argued that the Anglo-Saxons would have understood this word
was not ruber, the basic Latin term for RED, and might, therefore,
have taken it to represent a mixed colour like the others in this
glossary entry. The significant point, however, is that a mixture of red
with yellow, while apparently included within the boundaries of the
red category, was not at the focus of that category, or a compound hue
term would not have been necessary. This may suggest that the
reddest red for an Anglo-Saxon was an unmixed, fully saturated, or
vivid red, as it is today.
5.2 Garments, Female (Unspecified)
5.2.1 (hrgl; brun)
An Old English penitential text usually known as the Confessionale
pseudo-Egberti, possibly dating to the late ninth century,47 includes in
its list of sins and points of guidance for the use of confessors, a
statement concerning the colour of clothes (hrgl) which women must
wear to Mass, as decreed by St Basil.48 The colour word used is brun.
As discussed above (in Section 4.1.1), brun can gloss Latin words
meaning purple and red, but, more commonly, it means brown or
dark, and the latter pair of meanings would be more appropriate for
this context. Corroboration of this view comes from the Latin text of
the Penitential of Theodore, one of the sources upon which the
Confessionale draws.49 It states that women may receive the host
under a veil, as Basil decided, and the Latin colour word used of the
veil is niger, meaning black or dark.50 It is debatable whether an
46
Robert T. Oliphant [ed.], The Harley Latin-Old English Glossary Edited from
British Museum MS Harley 3376, Janua linguarum, studia memoriae Nicolai van
Wijk dedicata, Series practica 20, The Hague and Paris: Mouton, 1966, p. 187.
47
Allen J. Frantzen, The tradition of penitentials in Anglo-Saxon England, AngloSaxon England, 11 (1983), 23-56, 42. Frantzen refers to this text as the Scrift boc
and argues against a previously suggested late tenth-century date (ibid., 49, where this
text is referred to as the Confessional).
48
Robert Spindler [ed.], Das altenglische Bussbuch (sog. Confessionale PseudoEgberti): ein Beitrag zu den kirchlichen Gesetzen der Angelsachsen, Leipzig:
Bernhard Tauchnitz, 1934, p. 189.
49
Frantzen, op. cit., 44.
50
A. W. Haddan and W. Stubbs (eds.), Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents
Relating to Great Britain and Ireland, 3 vols. in 4, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1869-71,
13
Anglo-Saxon reader who was not familiar with the Latin version,
would interpret brun in this context as brown or as dark (of any
hue).
5.3 Garments, Royal
5.3.1 (godwebb; tirisc)
In Bedes metrical Vita Sancti Cuthberti, he relates how, after the
death of King Ecgfrith of Northumbria (685 A.D.), Aldfrith returned
from his studies under Irish scholars to become the next king.51 Bedes
phrase for Aldfriths royal state is Tyrio in ostro, and this has been
glossed in Old English as in tiriscum godwebbe.52 The place-name
refers to Tyre, now in Lebanon, and a location once famous for the
production of so-called Tyrian Purple (Latin purpura), a dye
extracted from three types of whelk.53 Bede seems to be clearly
echoing the Roman phrase for the accession of a new Emperor,
namely, taking the purple, so it is possible that the phrase was not to
be taken literally. The following discussion, however, presumes there
was a real tirisc royal garment.
The Old English glossator translated ostrum purple garment (in
this context) as godwebb fine clothes. Owen-Crocker defines
godwebb as something made of precious cloth, frequently purple,
normally of silk; probably shot-silk taffeta.54 Since the Old English
phrase means something like in Tyrian fine clothes, the exact force
of the qualifier, tirisc, is difficult to assess. It could simply mean that
the fabric of the royal garment was believed to have come from the
III, 1871, 196; John T. McNeill and Helena M. Gamer, Medieval Handbooks of
Penance: a Translation of the Principal libri poenitentiales and Selections from
Related Documents, Records of Civilization: Sources and Studies 29, New York:
Columbia University Press, 1938, p. 205.
51
Werner Jaager [ed.], Bedas metrische Vita sancti Cuthberti, Palaestra 198, Leipzig:
Mayer & Mller, 1935, p. 99.
52
Herbert Dean Meritt, Old English Glosses (a Collection), The Modern Language
Association of America: General Series 16, New York: Modern Language
Association of America, and London: Oxford University Press, 1945, p. 17.
53
John Peter Wild, The Eastern Mediterranean, 323 BC AD 350, in David
Jenkins (ed.), The Cambridge History of Western Textiles, 2 vols., Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2003, I, 102-17, 115-16.
54
Gale R. Owen-Crocker, Dress in Anglo-Saxon England, revised and enlarged ed.,
Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2004, p. 334.
14
C. P. Biggam
Levant, but the fame of Tyrian dye makes it more likely that it
combines semantic features concerned with the high quality and
colour of that dye. The final hue resulting from dyeing with Tyrian
Purple varied, as has been mentioned already (see Section 4.1.1),
according to the particular species of whelk used, whether and how
their dyes were mixed, and how long the dyed cloth was exposed to
the light when drying.55 The colours most usually associated with this
process are those that were the most highly prized in the Classical
world, namely, violet, purple, crimson and scarlet, and this range, or
part of it, may have been included in the semantics of OE tirisc.
5.4 Garments, Monastic (Inappropriate)
5.4.1 (brunbasu)
The scholar Aldhelm wrote both a prose and a metrical Latin text in
praise of virginity, and presented the prose version to the nuns of
Barking. He makes very clear his disapproval of those nuns who wear
colourful and ornamented clothes, describing certain fine garments as
coloured with precious dyes of purple tincture.56 Aldhelm uses the
Latin phrase purpureae tincturae,57 and purpureus has been glossed
with OE brunbasu.58 Basu purple, red, crimson is especially
associated with vivid and deep (i.e. darkened vivid) varieties of these
hues, occurring in much-admired contexts such as phoenix feathers,
illuminated manuscript letters, luxury fabric, and gem-stones. The
DOE defines the compound term, brunbasu, as dark purple, purple;
red-purple, scarlet. I have suggested (in footnote 8) that the sense of
scarlet is the least likely, since the force of brun- in the compound
term is probably to add darkness, just as the blue element in the colour
purple is seen to have a darkening effect on the red element. It seems,
therefore, that purple, violet,59 and possibly crimson,60 are the most
likely colours of the garments disapproved of by Aldhelm.
55
Wolfgang Born, Purple in classical antiquity, Ciba Review, 4 (Dec. 1937), 11117, 112-13.
56
Michael Lapidge and Michael Herren (trans.), Aldhelm: The Prose Works, Ipswich
and Totowa, NJ: Brewer, 1979, p. 124.
57
Ehwald , op. cit., p. 314.
58
Goossens, op. cit., p. 468; Napier (1900), op. cit., p. 130.
59
By violet, I mean a mixture of red and blue in which blue is perceived as dominant.
15
5.5 Copes and Chasubles

5.5.1 (mssehacele; grene)
The Visio Leofrici is a short text which recounts several vision
experiences of the pious Leofric, Earl of Mercia (died 1057). On one
occasion, Leofric was praying in Christ Church, Canterbury when he
saw himself standing in the middle of the floor, with arms
outstretched, and dressed for taking Mass, including a green (grene)
cope or chasuble (mssehacele). The garment is described as brightly
shining (beorhte scinende) but this may be a feature of the vision
rather than a realistic depiction of a fabric he had seen.61
5.5.2 (mssehacele; brun)
A writ of Edwin, a monk of New Minster, Winchester includes details
of an agreement between the Old and New Minsters in the town. The
text is not authentic in its present, probably late twelfth-century form,
but Keynes believes it incorporates some convincingly circumstantial
information.62 The writ purports to date from 1031-1032, since it
claims to have been written when lfwine was abbot of New Minster
(1031-1057) and lfsige was bishop of Winchester (1012 x 10131032), and it refers to an earlier agreement which it claims took place
while thelwold was Bishop of Winchester (963-84). This agreement
is said to have been ratified by Bishop thelwolds gift of a brun
cope or chasuble (mssehacele) to each monastery. Harmer translates
this colour as brown.63 This is a rather sombre colour for a
prestigious, and intentionally impressive garment, so it may be that its
60
Basu as a simplex can certainly denote scarlet, and crimson can be seen as a
darkened form of this colour which could reasonably be denoted by the compound
term, brunbasu. This is not to say that basu could not also have been used, on its own,
to denote crimson, since individual speakers must have differed in their usage, as in
modern languages, where colours are closely related.
61
A. S. Napier, An Old English vision of Leofric, Earl of Mercia, Transactions of
the Philological Society, s.n., (1909 for 1907-10), 180-88, 184.
62
Simon Keynes (ed.), The Liber Vitae of the New Minster and Hyde Abbey,
Winchester, British Library Stowe 944 together with Leaves from British Library
Cotton Vespasian A.VIII and British Library Cotton Titus D.XXVII, Early English
Manuscripts in Facsimile 26, Copenhagen: Rosenkilde and Bagger, 1996, p. 101.
63
F. E. Harmer, Anglo-Saxon Writs, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1952,
p. 403.
16
C. P. Biggam
common alternative meaning of dark should be understood here,

perhaps indicating a colour similar to violet or crimson.
5.5.3 (mssehacele; geolu)
The will of Bishop Theodred of London and Suffolk (died c.952)
survives in a much later manuscript, and it includes four copes or
chasubles (singular: mssehacele).64 Theodred bequeaths a geolu
yellow mssehacele, which he bought in Pavia, to Odgar. Pavia, in
Lombardy, sold Byzantine silks, and was well-known to Anglo-Saxon
merchants,65 but there is no information on the fabric of Theodreds
garment. He leaves another yellow (geolu) mssehacele to Gundwine,
and this garment is further described as ungerenod unornamented.
5.5.4 (mssehacele; read)
Bishop Theodred (see Section 5.5.3. above) also mentions a read red
mssehacele, and this sentence contains an unfamiliar word
(spracacke) which has been interpreted as the name of a beneficiary.
Whitelock, however, finds no similar name in any Germanic language,
and prefers to consider the passage corrupt.66
Theodreds position in the Church, and his ability to buy items in
Pavia, suggest that his vestments are of the highest quality, but it may
not be so in all cases. The four bequests involving these garments
appear to be listed in descending order of value: thus another
Theodred receives a white mssehacele from Pavia (not discussed
here), a chalice and a massbook; Odgar receives a yellow
mssehacele from Pavia; Gundwine receives an unornamented yellow
mssehacele, and, finally, the red mssehacele is mentioned. It is
noteworthy that the last garment is probably not in the admired
colours of purple, scarlet, violet or crimson, since, if that were the
case, I would expect a more specific colour term, such as basu or
brunbasu. Read, the basic term for RED, seems to constitute an
unenthusiastic description which may indicate the use of a locallyobtained fabric and dye, in contrast with luxury goods from southern
Europe.
64
Dorothy Whitelock (ed.), Anglo-Saxon Wills, Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1930, p. 4.
65
Dodwell, op. cit., pp. 149-52.
66
Whitelock, op. cit., pp. 4, 103.
17
5.6 Dresses
Modern English dress is used here to indicate a one-piece garment
for a woman or girl that covers the body and extends down over the
legs.67 The Old English garment terms appearing in this section are
cyrtel and tunece. Old English cyrtel probably originated as a word for
a short garment (OE *(ge)cyrtan to cut off, shorten) and it is
certainly used of a mans short tunic, but Owen-Crocker identifies it
with the long, and sleeved womans dress seen in manuscript
illustrations, and suggests that the semantics of the word had extended
to include this long dress, worn by secular women on most
occasions.68 I have avoided the use of ModE gown as the COD defines
it as a dress for formal occasions only.
Old English tunece, as a womans garment, occurs very rarely.
Owen describes it as similar to a cyrtel, but she presents evidence that
suggests it had religious associations and was, therefore, likely to be
dull and/or dark in colour.69 As a womans garment, the Modern
English definition of OE tunece is not tunic since that cannot be
longer than the knee (COD).
5.6.1 (cyrtel; blwen)
thelgifu was a late tenth-century Englishwoman of considerable
wealth. Her will survives, dated to 980-90, and, in it, she disposes of
large estates, gold, slaves, horses and garments. She leaves to
Beornwynn her dark blue (blwen) dress (cyrtel) which is untrimmed
at the bottom (neaene unrenod).70 Whitelock translates blwen as
blue, but I have suggested there is sufficient evidence to prefer dark
blue.71
67
Judy Pearsall (ed.), The Concise Oxford Dictionary, 10th edition, Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1999. Henceforth referred to as the COD.
68
Owen-Crocker, op. cit., p. 217.
69
Gale R. Owen, Wynflds wardrobe, Anglo-Saxon England, 8 (1979), 195-222,
203-04, 211.
70
Dorothy Whitelock (trans. and examined), The Will of thelgifu: a Tenth Century
Anglo-Saxon Manuscript, with a note on the document by Neil Ker and analyses of
the properties, livestock and chattels concerned by Lord Rennell, Oxford: Roxburghe
Club, 1968, p. 13.
71
Biggam (1997), op. cit., pp. 91-104. The DOE prefers some shade of blue.
18
C. P. Biggam
5.6.2 (cyrtel; dunn)

As explained above (Section 2), this research is not concerned with
textiles described as dark. The colour word dunn has a general
definition of dark, dusky in the DOE, and the specific meaning of
dark in the contexts of animals, the onyx stone, and clothing. In the
context of landscape features, however, it is defined as dull brown,
and I suggest that it could have had an additional sense of brown in
the contexts of animals,72 and the onyx.73 If this suggestion is
accepted, there seems no reason to suppose that clothing would be the
one context in which a meaning of brown is excluded, so examples
of textiles with dunn have been included in this research.
In thelgifus will (see Section 5.6.1), she bequeaths to Wulfgifu
one or more of her dunn dresses (sing. cyrtel).74 If this colour is
possibly to be understood as brown, there is a further difficulty in that
brown clothing can be produced without the use of dyes, the principal
consideration of this research. Brown wool can be spun from naturally
brown fleeces, and Lord Rennell expresses confidence that this is
exactly the meaning of thelgifus dunn dress/es.75
If Rennell is correct that the colour of these dresses relates to a
natural fleece colour, then this example is not relevant in the present
72
I make this suggestion because OE dunn is used to gloss Latin baius (= badius)
bay (horse), meaning a brown horse with black points (principally, the mane, tail,
and lower limbs). Badius is also glossed by brun brown, dark in, for example, the
First Cleopatra Glossary (William Garlington Stryker, The Latin-Old English
Glossary in MS Cotton Cleopatra AIII, unpublished dissertation, University of
Stanford, 1951, 76). In addition, dunn glosses Latin balidus dun, dark brown. This
evidence appears to indicate at least a distinct possibility that dunn could be defined
as brown as well as dark in most contexts (DMLBS, s.v. badius, cross-reference
from baius, and balidus).
73
The only example of dunn glossing a word cognate with onyx, in this case,
onichinos, occurs in the Leiden Glossary. The OLD defines onychinus as made of
onyx marble, and onyx marble is yellowish green, white and brown (Walter
Schumann, Gemstones of the World, New York: Sterling, and London: N.A.G. Press,
1977, pp. 210-11). Kitson suggests that glosses of onichinus with OE dunn and brun
may have originated in a confusion of Latin flavus yellow with fulvus brown,
tawny or furvus sombre. He points out that furvus is used more or less as a
synonym for fulvus in Late Latin, and translates OE brun and dunn as well as deorc
(Peter Kitson, Lapidary traditions in Anglo-Saxon England: part I, the background;
the Old English lapidary, Anglo-Saxon England, 7 (1978), 38-39).
74
Whitelock (1968), op. cit., p. 12 n. 12, explains that the Old English is ambiguous
as regards the number of gowns involved.
75
Ibid., p. 82.
19
investigation into dye colours. I have retained examples of dunn

textiles in this research, however, as there remains a possibility that
they were dyed. Owen makes the point that dull-coloured garments
were needed by women when attending church,76 so the dunn dresses,
which were sufficiently valuable to be listed in the will of a very
wealthy woman, may have been of a finer textile than wool, or of fine
white wool, and dyed a shade of brown considered appropriate for
religious contexts. Since the principal sense of dunn was dark, such
a colour is likely to have been a dark brown.
5.6.3 (tunece; dunn)
In the will of Wynfld a dunn tunic (tunece) is bequeathed.77 Little is
known about Wynfld, although it can be said that she had an interest
in religious houses, and may even have been a lay-abbess.78 The text
of the will dates to the mid tenth century, and survives in an eleventhcentury copy. As discussed above (in Section 5.6.2), dunn may refer
to a natural, undyed wool colour, or it may refer to a dyed fabric, most
likely dark brown in colour.
5.6.4 (hwen, wden, weolocread)
See Sections 5.7.1 and 5.7.2 under Tunics.
The context is Aldhelms criticism of the vivid and luxurious clothes
worn by certain churchmen and nuns. These include the Latin garment
term tunica, which is not glossed in Old English. The OLD describes
the tunica as the standard Roman garment for women, reaching to the
feet. The word habit, normally used of nuns dresses, seems
inappropriate in this case, considering the colours involved.
5.7 Tunics
Modern English tunic is defined as a loose sleeveless garment
reaching to the thigh or knees (COD). This seems to be the best term
for the standard male garment designated either tunece in Old English,
76
Owen, op. cit., p. 204.

Whitelock (1930), op. cit., p. 14.
78
Ibid., p. 109.
77
20
C. P. Biggam
or tunica in Latin, although the Anglo-Saxon garment could extend to

a little below the knees, and often had sleeves.79
5.7.1 (hwen, wden)
Towards the end of Aldhelms prose De virginitate, he proceeds to
thunder against the vanity and insolence of men and women of the
Church, including monks and nuns, who wear adornments and fine
clothes. He specifically mentions red and blue tunics (tonica coccinea
sive iacintina).80 The Latin word used here for blue (hyacinthinus) is
glossed, in various manuscripts of this text, with OE hwen blue,81
and, in other manuscripts, with OE wden blue.82 The latter word is
cognate with OE wad woad, and means literally woaded.
5.7.2 (weolocread)
The red (coccineus) tunics in the same passage as in Section 5.7.1
above, are glossed with OE weolocread, meaning literally whelkred.83 This compound term is appropriate for the extremely expensive
and prestigious Tyrian Purple dye, derived from specific Mediterranean shellfish, but also for the local British shellfish dye, praised by
Bede for its beauty, and described by him as coccineus red and
having a rubor pulcherrimus most beautiful redness.84
6. Conclusion
It is clear from the historical record that Anglo-Saxon England was
rich in textiles, both in quantity and quality, and much of this
information is found in Latin texts. Dodwell refers to the vast textile
wealth of churches and monasteries, and provides a review of the
evidence in his chapter on textiles which provides an often stunning
79
Owen-Crocker, op. cit., pp. 245-51.

Ehwald, op. cit., p. 318.
81
Goossens, op. cit., p. 479; Napier (1900), op. cit., pp. 134, 147; J. J. Quinn, The
Minor Latin-Old English Glossaries in MS Cotton Cleopatra A.III, unpublished
dissertation, University of Stanford, 1956, p. 164.
82
Napier (1900), op. cit., pp. 163, 170.
83
Goossens, op. cit., p. 479; Napier (1900), op. cit., p. 134.
84
Charles Plummer (ed.), Venerabilis Baedae Historiam ecclesiasticam gentis
Anglorum, Historiam abbatum, Epistolam ad Ecgberctum una cum Historia abbatum
auctore anonymo, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1896, p. 10.
80
21
impression of Anglo-Saxon wealth, and love of luxury and colour.85 It

is understandable that it was the exotic and expensive fabrics and
colours which were the subjects of written descriptions or comments,
and this review of textiles described by colour from the Old English
records shows a similar picture. A large proportion of the references
come from the wills of wealthy people, and Aldhelms criticisms of
the inappropriate clothes of men and women of the Church who could
afford a degree of ostentation. The ordinary world of natural wool
colours and home-dyed textiles is almost invisible, with the probable
exception of the medical references. The use of blue straining-cloths
and red binding-strips is, at least sometimes, connected with
domestically produced textiles (linen and wool), and probably homegrown dye-plants (woad and wrtt), and may involve colour
symbolism. This paper, and its brief conclusion, should be regarded as
an interim report pending a survey of the dye-names and dye-plant
names which will follow.
85
Dodwell, op. cit., pp. 129-69.
Slang terms for money: a historical thesaurus

Julie Coleman
A project as extensive and long-lived as the Historical Thesaurus of
English (HTE) requires large amounts of external finance, and
Christian has often been successful in the tiresome activity of funding
application. This paper combines these two closely related fields - the
HTE and MONEY - by providing a classification of terms for money
listed in cant and slang dictionaries published between 1567 and
1874.1 This is an exploration of the potential usefulness of a historical
thesaurus of slang to supplement the vocabulary provided by the
Oxford English Dictionary (OED), and hence by the HTE.
The following classification includes terms for specific amounts
of money, many of which are names for notes or coins. Some of these
are also used with reference to money in general. Because many cant
and slang lexicographers from this period reproduced material found
in earlier dictionaries, only the date of the first dictionary appearance
is noted. Variant spellings follow the original form, and are preceded
by >. Some of these are clearly the result of erroneous copying, but a
few may reflect genuine variation or change in the spoken language.
When the first glossary of cant appeared in 1567, attached to
Harmans Caveat, there were no notes and no coins, as we understand
them.2 The economy was based on the value of silver. Changes in the
1
These are the dictionaries discussed in J. Coleman, A History of Cant and Slang
Dictionaries. Volume I: 1567-1784, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004 and
Volume II: 1785-1858, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. I have added material
from the various editions of J.C. Hotten, A Dictionary of Modern Slang, Cant, and
Vulgar Words, London: John Camden Hotten, 1859, and from J. Greenwood, The
Seven Curses of London, London: Stanley Rivers and Co., 1869.
2
Thomas Harman, Caveat or Warening for Common Cursetors, London: William
Griffith, 1567.
The historical material in this paper is combined from a number of sources: J.
Giuseppi, The Bank of England: A History from its Foundation in 1694, London:
Evans, 1966, J. Craig, The Mint: A History of the London Mint from A.D. 287 to 1948,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1953, and the excellent websites of:
24
Julie Coleman
price of precious metals affected the value of coins, which were

exchanged according to weight rather than at their face value, so
names were needed both for coins and for amounts of money. For
example, the pound sterling was an amount of money (twenty
shillings), whereas the old sovereign (issued 1489-a1625) and guinea
(issued 1663-1813) were gold coins originally issued at twenty
shillings, but exchanged according to the fluctuating value of the gold
they contained, sometimes for up to thirty shillings. Especially for
larger coins, distinctions between names for amounts of money and
designations of specific coins are not always preserved in slang
terminology, which explains some of the muddiness of the
classification.
The chronology of this classification is based on each terms
earliest appearance in slang dictionaries. Dates in square brackets
represent the OED citation range. OED dates for some of the slang
dictionaries consulted here are not always the same as mine. For
example, I have used c1698 for B. E.s New Dictionary of the Terms
Ancient and Modern of the Canting Crew; the OED uses 1690, c1690,
and a1700. I have used the publication date of Vauxs Memoirs
(1819)3; the OED uses the date noted in the dedicatory letter (1812). I
have used 1797 for Potters New Dictionary of all the Cant and Flash
Languages4; the OED uses 1795, the date of a first edition that I have
not been able to examine. This means that although the slang
dictionary and OED dates do not always tally, the citations are
sometimes identical. In addition, it is not always possible to achieve a
perfect match between OED and slang dictionary definitions. For
example, the OED defines pony as 25, but not as money or
50, the definitions found in the slang dictionaries I have examined.
I have not commented separately on each of these near misses, which
accounts for apparent omissions of OED material.
Chard Ltd (http://www.24carat.co.uk),
the Bank of England (http://www.bankofengland.co.uk),
Tony Clayton (http://www.tclayton.demon.co.uk/coins.html#Index),
and Predecimal.com (http://www.predecimal.com/index.html), which includes a
history of British coinage by Ken Elks.
3
J.H. Vaux, Memoirs of James Hardy Vaux. Written by Himself, London: W. Clowes,
1819.
4
H.T. Potter, A New Dictionary of all the Cant and Flash Languages..., 3rd edition,
London: B. Crosby, 1797.
Slang terms for money
25
Money; a (large) sum of money; a coin

lowre 1567>lower 1610>loure 1665>lour 1673 [lour, lower n21567-1889],
shells 1591 [1592 + 1611], coale 1688>cole c1698 [1673-1870]>coal 1820,
the ready 1688 [1688-1977], balsom c1698, chink c1698 [1573-1611], cly
c1698 [c1690 + 1834 + 1858], cog c1698 [1532-1729], coliander seeds c1698
[c1690 + 1725]>coriander seeds 1785 [1737], crap c1698 [a1700-1787]>crop
1725, darby c1698 [1682-1785]>derby 1811, dust c1698 [(1526 +) 1607a1845], gelt c1698 [a1529-1968]>gilt 1725 [1598-1885]>gelter 1797,
gingerbread c1698 [a1700-1864], goree c1698 [a1700 + 1725]>gory 1741,
kings pictures c1698, lurries c1698 [1673-a1700], muck c1698 [?a13251864], quids c1698, recruits c1698 [1662-1818], rhino c1698 [1688-1851],
ribbin c1698 [a1700-1812]>ribben 1788>ribbon 1797>ribband 1819, round
sum c1698 [1579-1887], Tom fools token c1698, blunt 1703 [1812-a1845],
spanks 1725 [1725], bit 1753 [1894-1928], iron 1785 [1785-1966], the
mopusses 1785 [1699-1980], plate 1785, spankers 1785 [1663-1785], the
Spanish 1788 [1788-1869], glanthem 1789, kelter 1789 [1807-1828], rhino of
rag 1797, rubbish 1797, stephen 1797 [1812-1834], rag 1809 [1590-1846],
rust 1809 [1858], pony 1811, brads 1819 [1812 + 1841], bustle 1819 [1812 +
1830], dibs 1821 [1812-1883], brass 1822 [1597/8-1871], dimmock 1822, the
needful 1822 [a1777-1981], rent 1822 [1828-1977], monish 1835 [17811866], pewter 1835 [1829-1888], rivits 1835 [1846-1937], tip 1835, posh
1839 [1830-1905]>pash 1839, meg 1845, denaly c1855, okre c1855 [1854 +
1890], soskin5 c1855, tin c1855 [1836-1854], chinkers 1859 [1834], feathers
1859, greed 1859, rowdy 1859 [1841-1856], stuff 1859 [1775-1896], clink
1861 [1729-c1817]
Saved or hoarded money
grannam-gold c1698 [a1700]>grannan gold 1779>grannon gold
1780>grannum(s) gold 1785 [grandam gold [(1598 +) 1700], nest-egg c1698
[1686-1990]
Stolen money, or money as the object of theft
caravan c1698 [1688 + 1690], cargo c1698 [1690], prey c1698, ring c1698
[a1700 + 1796]
Money paid as a bribe
oil of palm 1821 [1819 -1935], grease 1835 [1823]
A gold coin6
old Mr. Gory 1673 [a1700 + 1725], goldfinch c1698 [1602-1896], yellowboy c1698 [1662-1957], queer ridge 1848, ridge blunt 1848
5
It seems unlikely, given the citation gap, that this is related to the fifteenth and
sixteenth-century terms seskyn and suskin a Dutch coin of the value of six mites
(OED).
6
Terms for gold and silver in general, such as ridge and wedge, are excluded here
unless they are specifically defined with reference to money in the slang dictionaries.
26
Julie Coleman
A silver coin
smash 1797 [1795], white 1816 [c1374 + 1390 + c1676 + 1823-1960], queer
wedge 1848
A guinea; a sovereign; a pound; twenty shillings
hearts ease 1665 [a1700 + 1785/96], husky lour 1674, job c1698, meg c1698
[1688-c1742], piece c1698 [1616-1727/41], strike 1703, ned 1753 [17531846], canary bird 1785, ridge 1785 [1665-1955 gold], yellow George
1785 [1784 + 1785], stranger 1785 [1785], (rum) quid 1789 [1688-1977],
good-looking picture 1797, noge 1797, shino 1797, bean 1811 [1811-1928],
shiner 1821 [1760-1887], sufferer 1835, cooter 1839>cuta 1845>couter 1851
[couter, cooter 1846-1880], foont 1839, deanee 1845, James 1865 [15671893]
Ten shillings; half-sovereign; half a guinea
smelt c1698 [1635 + 1688 + (1822)]>smell 1848 (erron), half a slat 1747,
half a ned 1789, regent 1821, half-couter 1851, net-gen 1851
Seven shillings
spangle 1811 [1811 + 1823]
Six shillings and eightpence
noble c1698 [1350-1996]
Six shillings
six bob bit 1821
A crown; five shillings
bulls eye c1698, (hind) coach-wheel c1698 [c1690 + 1812 + 1834], decus
c1698 [1688 + 1822], ounce 1725, bord 1741, whores curse 1785, bull 1789
[1812 + 1852], dews 1835, ewif-gen 1851, cart-wheel 1859 [1867 + 1885],
thick un 1865 [1848-1968]
Half a crown; two shillings and sixpence
fore coach-wheel c1698, george c1698 [1659-1785], slate c1698
[a1700]>slat 1703, trooper c1698 [a1700], half an ounce 1725, half a bull
1789, half bull 1822 [1789-1906], alderman 1839, bull 1848, flatch-ynork
1851, half case 1857, halftusherroon 1859
Thirteen and a half pence
loon-slatt c1698 [a1700], hangmans wages 1785
A shilling; twelve pence
bord 1567 [1567-1688], hog 1673 [1673-1875], twelver c1698 [a1700-1732],
traveller 1747, mejoge 1753, boar 1754, button 1785, grunter 1785 [1785 +
1858], she-lion 1785 [1785], thirteener 1785 [1762-1836], bob-stick 1789,
peg 1797, bender 1809, peg-stick 1809, bob 1811 [1789-1915], breaky leg
1839, deaner 1839 [1839-1946], twelve 1839, tevis 1845, gen 1851, rogue
and villain 1857, stag 1857 [1857 + 1887], Abrahams willing 1859, chinda
1871
Elevenpence
leven 1851
27
Tenpence
jumper 1821, net-yenep 1851
Ninepence
ill-fortune c1698, the picture of ill-luck 1785, enine-yenep 1851
Eightpence
teaich-yenep 1851
Sevenpence
neves-yenep 1851
Sixpence
half a bord 1567, half-bord 1665>half-boad 1828>half-head 1828, half a hog
1674, pig c1698 [1622 + a1700], sice c1698>size 1797 [sice, size 1660-1709
+ (1830)], simon c1698 [a1700]>smon 1708, kick 1725 [c1700-1871], sibuxom 1747, griff-metoll 1753, cripple 1785 [1785 + 1885], crook-back
1785, syebuck 1785>syeboord 1871, tester 1785>teaster 1821>teaser 1848,
crook 1788, bender 1789 [1836-1855], Tilbury 1796 [1796-1812], tizzy 1796
[1804-1946], bob 1797, half a grunter 1809, tanner 1811 [1811-1908], bandy
1821, fiddler 1835 [1846-1885], tinker 1835, downer 1839, lord of the manor
1839 [1839-1972], snid 1839 [1839], sprat 1839 [1839-1902], scab 1845,
tawne 1845, hop 1848, exis-yenep 1851, suchera 1871
Fivepence
five win 1789, kids eye 1821, ewif-yenep 1851
A groat; fourpence
flag 1567 [1567 + a1700 + 1851], croker c1698, groat7 1835 [(1351) + 13621885], rouf-yenep 1851, bit 1859, joey 1859 [1865-1884]
Three and a half pence
yenep-flatch 1851
Threepence
treswins 1665, threpps c1698, thrums c1698>thrum 1741 [1699 + 18441933], erth-yenep 1851
As the value of silver rose, it became an uneconomical material

for small change. The last silver farthing was minted in 1553, after
which production was suspended until the introduction of copper
farthings and halfpennies in 1672. Throughout most of the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries there was a shortage of small change. Locally
issued tokens were customarily used instead, and accepted as legal
tender up to the value of sixpence. Pennies and twopence-pieces,
containing their own value in copper, were issued from 1797 onwards.
It is not clear why this standard English term was included in a slang glossary.
28
Julie Coleman
After 1860, farthings, halfpennies, and pennies were all produced in

bronze.
A copper coin
mag 1797, brown 1816 [1812-1865]
Twopence
deuswins 1665, deuce c1698 [a1700 + 1851]>dace c1698>duce 1703, jemmy
1835, owl-yenep 1851
A penny
wyn 1567>win 1608 [1567-1900]>wind 1703>wing 1845, brown 1820,
georgy 1820, yenep 1851, brown bread c1855, copper 1859
A halfpenny
make 1567 [?1536-1618 + 1826-1946]?>meg 1753 [?1747-1988]?>mag 1797
[?1775-1918], baubee c1698 [bawbee 1542-1862], mopus c1698, rap 1785,
scuddick 1821, tannie 1821, tonic 1822, copper 1835, flatch 1851, curdie
1871
A farthing; a quarter of a penny
grig c1698 [1656/7-1839], jack c1698 [a1700-1873], mopus c1698, rag
c1698, token c1698, scrope 1703, meg 1753, fadge 1789 [1789-1873], queer
rag 1809, Covent Garden 1859
Half a farthing
doit c1698 [1594-1850]
A sixth of a penny
bodle c1698 [1650-1834]
Among the terms for small change are several that the slang
dictionaries define more specifically than the OED, which describes
them as general terms for coins of small value. These include mopus
[1699-1980], rap,8 scuddick [1823-1901], all of which frequently
occur in the construction not a . Similarly, the OED defines
copper as copper money a copper coin [(1588) + 1712-Mod],
while the slang dictionaries define it, variously, as a penny or a
halfpenny. Either the slang lexicographers are closer to these terms
usage and are thus able to define them more precisely, or else they are
unaware of or insensitive to their wider use. Token, which the OED
defines as A stamped piece of metal, often having the general
appearance of a coin, issued as a medium of exchange by a private
8
OED 1a: A counterfeit coin, worth about half a farthing, which passed current for a
halfpenny in Ireland in the 18th c., owing to the scarcity of genuine money. Now only
Hist. [1724-1827], also 1b taken as a type of the smallest coin [1823-1881].
29
person or company, who engage to take it back at its nominal value,

giving goods or legal currency for it, indicates the complex legal
status of all small change in this period.
Because gold and silver are both relatively soft metals, they
quickly became worn in circulation. This made it possible to pass poor
quality counterfeits and even blank discs, which accounted for about a
sixth of silver coinage by the end of the seventeenth century when
they were withdrawn for recoinage. Another method of coin-fraud saw
the gold and silver content of coins reduced, sometimes to as little as
half of their legal weight, by clipping off small amounts of metal or
burning it off with acid. Since small change also contained its value in
metal, less ambitious fraudsters specialized in copper coinage.
Counterfeit coin(s)
swimmer c1698, queer 1741 [1812-1981], button 1785, dump 1788 [18211908], frying-pans 1797, smash 1797 [1795-1860], princes money 1813,
(half a) case 1839, schofel 1839 [shoful 1828-1856], sheen 1839 [18391890], sinker 1839 [1839-1900], the things 1839, sham 1845, gammy 1857
Counterfeit
queer c.1698, gammy 1839, bogus 1848 [1839-19429]
A maker of counterfeit coins
queer cole maker c1698, queer bit maker 1785, smasher 1797 [1795-1895],
bit-smasher 1809, bit cull 1821, face-maker c1855, bit-faker 1869
Counterfeiting money
making browns/whites 1816
To pass counterfeit money
ring the changes 1811 [1786 + 1874], smash 1811 [1801-1905], work the
bulls 1839
One who passes counterfeit money
queer cole fencer c1698, smasher 1809, dealer in queer 1822, schofel-pitcher
1839 [1859]
Passing counterfeit money
smashing 1799 [1812 + 1891], slumming 1839 [1839 + 1888], schofelpitching 1859
To clip money
niggle c1698
Clipping money
nigging c1698 [1699 + 1796]
Only the first citation refers to money.
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The metal clipped from coins

spangle 1674, end c1698, nig c1698 [1699 + 1709 + (1725-c1825)], shavings
c1698 [a1700], parings 1725, curle 1785
One who clips or otherwise reduces coins
niggler c1698, curler 1809, nigger 1835
The Bank of England began issuing banknotes soon after its

establishment in 1694, initially for precise sums, but increasingly, as
the eighteenth century progressed, with fixed denominations. Until
1855, cashiers still had to fill in the name of the payee and sign each
banknote individually. These banknotes could be cashed in for gold
and silver coins (i.e. real money), as required.
A bank-note; bank-notes
(rum/queer) screen 1789 [1789-1864], flimsey 1811 [1824-1845], rag 1811,
screave 1821 [1801], leel 1871
Large (of a bank-note)
long-tailed 1839
A hundred thousand pounds
plumb 1785 [plum 1689/1702-1898]
Fifty thousand pounds
half a plum 1826
Fifty pounds
pony 1848
Ten pound note
double finnip 1839>double finnuff 1859
Five pound note
finnip 1839 [1839-1966]>finnuff 1859
Slang and cant terms for money have a variety of origins. Terms
for coins sometimes refer to the colour (e.g. okre (for ochre),
goldfinch, yellow-boy, and canary-bird for gold coins; white for silver;
brown for small change) or lustre of the metal (e.g. shiner a guinea).
Others terms refer to the size (e.g. coach-wheel, cart-wheel, and thick
un, all a crown; fiddler, sprat, and scab, all sixpence), weight
(e.g. ounce a crown; sinker and swimmer both a counterfeit
coin), sound (e.g. chink, chinkers, and clink, all for money), or
quality (e.g. cripple, crook-back, and bender, all for sixpence that
31
piece being commonly much bent and distorted10). Many refer to the
value, either directly (e.g. twelver and thirteener a shilling; sice
sixpence; deuce twopence), or by mathematical formulas (usually
half (a) ). A few appear to refer to the method of production (e.g.
smash a silver coin; strike a guinea; smelt half-guinea).
Images and inscriptions supply some nicknames for coins.
General examples include good-looking picture a guinea and kings
pictures coins. The use of george for both a guinea and half a
crown and of georgy for penny may result from St Georges
presence on the reverse of many coins. Bord a shilling may refer to
the shield on the reverse of Tudor and Stuart shillings (Partridge)11.
Partridge also notes that hog a shilling is probably ex. the figure of
a hog on a small silver coin, but I have not been able to find any
examples. The name decus for a crown is from the inscription decus
et tutamen ornament and safeguard. Presumably because of
discontinuities in coinage, some denominations were designated by
the name of the monarch depicted on them (e.g. James, ?George,
?ned). Regent, for a half-sovereign, is a punning reference to the
position of the Prince Regent, waiting for the death of his father
before he could become a full sovereign.
It appears that the development of a slang sense can have a dragchain effect on related terms. For example, hog is listed with the sense
a shilling in B.E.s dictionary in c169812, to be joined by boar in
1754 and grunter in 1785. Half that amount, sixpence, is designated a
pig. It is possible that kids eye fivepence is similarly related to
bulls eye a crown. Similarly, once iron came to be used for money,
it opened the way for other base metals, including brass, pewter, and
tin to acquire the same meaning.
Some of these terms allude to the effect that the money has on the
possessor (e.g. balsom [sic] money; hearts ease a guinea; tonic a
halfpence), or to the speakers lack of familiarity with the coin (e.g.
stranger a guinea). Many imply that money is not important, either
by reference to refuse (e.g. dust, muck, rubbish, rust all for money)
10
F. Grose, A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, London: S. Hooper, 1785,

s.v. cripple.
11
E. Partridge, A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, 5th edition,
London: Routledge, 1967.
12
B.E., A New Dictionary of the Terms Ancient and Modern of the Canting Crew,
London: W. Hawes, c1698.
32
Julie Coleman
or to worthless objects of a similar shape and size (e.g. rivits [sic] and
brads both for money). Dibs, also for money, are sheeps
knucklebones or small rounded pebbles used in a childrens game.
A few of these terms are derived from the names of foreign coins,
many of which were in circulation in Britain to make good shortages
of small change and precious metals. These include doit half a
farthing from eMnDu duit; flag fourpence from MLG vleger; and
soskin money possibly from MDu seskijn a coin worth six mites
(all OED). More speculative etymologies include couter a sovereign,
from Romany kotor (Partridge); deaner a shilling, from French
denier or Lingua Franca dinarly (Partridge); mejoge a shilling, from
Shelta midgic (Partridge); posh money, from Romany posh half
(OED); schofel counterfeit money, from Yiddish schofel worthless
stuff (Partridge); and tanner sixpence, from Romany tawno small
(Hotten, from Ainsworth13). Also suggesting financial exchanges
between excluded social groups is monish money, which may
represent a pronunciation influenced by Yiddish (OED). A few
disguised terms employ word-play (e.g. she-lion for shilling),
rhyming slang (e.g. rogue and villain for shilling; lord of the manor
for tanner sixpence; Covent Garden for farthing) and back slang
(e.g. flatch for half(pence); yenep for penny, etc.) may have been
used to refer to coins on the brink of liberation from their
unsuspecting possessor. Terms like threpps and thrums, both for
threepence represent non-standard pronunciations of the standard
term, although they do not appear to have been created for the sake of
deception.
Slang lexicographers are particularly fond of anecdotal and
narrative etymologies. In 1785 Grose (op.cit.) listed:
WHORES CURSE, a piece of gold coin value five shillings and threepence, frequently given to women of the town by such as professed
always to give gold, and who before the introduction of those pieces,
always gave half a guinea.
13
W.H. Ainsworth, Rookwood: A Romance in Three Volumes, London: Richard

Bentley, 1834.
33
The Lexicon Balatronicum14 has:

TILBURY. Sixpence: so called from its formerly being the fare for
crossing over from Gravesend to Tilbury Fort.
Narrative etymologies survive into modern slang dictionaries.

Beales edition of Partridges dictionary15 gives the following
explanation for rhino money:
Origin problematic. In Malaya, long ago, the rhinoceros was almost
worth its weight in gold to those opportunists who converted every
part of a slain rhinoceros into aphrodisiacs and sold packets at very high
prices, to Chinese mandarins, who placed great faith in them.
The trouble with such accounts is that they are entirely beyond
proof. Slang terms cannot be subject to the same etymological
investigation as more fully documented standard English terms, and
many of the etymologies listed here may owe more to lexicographers
wishful thinking than to solid fact.
Most of the terms listed here are also to be found in the OED, and
hence in the Historical Thesaurus, often with earlier citation dates,
and sometimes much earlier. A few predate existing OED first
citations, however, as shown above. The most striking are bender a
shilling (27 years), blunt money (109 years), bull a crown (23
years) and rust money (49 years), which are joined by many minor
antedatings.
While this thesaurus is by no means either an exhaustive or
authoritative account of slang usage in this field, it does document the
available contemporary dictionary evidence. This, in itself, reveals
interesting details in the history of individual terms. Why, for
example, are brass money and James a guinea first listed in
nineteenth-century slang dictionaries when they are both documented
from the sixteenth century? The obvious and most probable
explanation is that earlier slang lexicographers, not aiming to provide
comprehensive coverage, had overlooked them. However, a few
intriguing possibilities suggest themselves, which require further
14
Lexicon Balatronicum, London: Printed for C. Chapel, Pall-Mall, 1811.

P. Beale, (ed), A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English by Eric
Partridge, 8th edition, London: Routledge, 2002.
15
34
Julie Coleman
exploration. Had once standard or colloquial terms drifted into slang?

Had the terms moved down the social spectrum? Had slang users
revived terms drifting into obsolescence?
The re-presentation of OED material in thesaurus form opens up
intriguing new research possibilities, previously impossible or
impractical. Scholars in many fields will soon find that the HTE is
worth its weight in gold. A reliable historical thesaurus of slang is
much further off.
Huv a wee seat, hen:

evaluative terms in Scots
Fiona Douglas and John Corbett
Introduction
During her distinguished academic career, Christian Kay has
combined a record of research into lexicography and lexical semantics
with a longstanding interest in teaching pragmatics and stylistics. As a
token of our respect and gratitude for the insights she has afforded us
in these fields, we offer the beginnings of an exploration into the
semantics, pragmatics and stylistic force of evaluative terms in
Scottish speech and writing. Our data come mainly from the Scots
Thesaurus and the growing archives of the Scots Corpus of Texts and
Speech (SCOTS), a project that Professor Kay initiated and to which
she continues to contribute. At the time of writing, the SCOTS project
is in its early stages, with almost 400,000 lexical items in its archives,
a sizeable proportion of which is literary Scots. As the archive grows,
the nature and distribution of evaluative terms in Scottish speech and
writing will be easier to explore; this chapter aims only to present a
preliminary sketch of possible directions for future research.
The Scots Thesaurus is a sample of the vocabulary of modern
Broad Scots, arranged in lexical sets.1 Like all thesauri, it provides a
fascinating map of the linguistic culture from which it springs. The
SCOTS archive is a body of electronically-searchable texts, compiled
by the University of Glasgow and made available on the Web.2 The
SCOTS texts range from Broad Scots to standard Scottish English.3
1
Caroline Macafee, The Scots Thesaurus: an index to the dictionary record, Review
of Scottish Culture, 6 (1990), 85-86; I. Macleod, (ed.), The Scots Thesaurus,
Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press, 1990. [Reprinted 1999, Edinburgh: Polygon]
2
W. J. Anderson (forthcoming), The SCOTS Corpus: a resource for language
contact study, in the proceedings of a conference held in St Andrews, Scotland (1113 June 2004) on Language Contact and Minority Languages on the Littorals of
Western Europe, to be published in the Symposium Logos Series Studies in
36
Douglas & Corbett
Kay in a comparison of the Old English Thesaurus and the Scots

Thesaurus (ST),4 observes that
[ST] presents a lexicon which is to some extent incomplete. This
is partly a matter of editorial selection [...] and of the exigencies
of space, but also indicates the extent to which Standard English
has taken over in certain areas of Scottish life. The impression
given by the ST lexis is that it is largely nominal and descriptive:
a bedrock of names for natural phenomena and everyday objects,
leavened by a highly descriptive vocabulary for individuals and
their characteristics, words such as fushionless, glaikit, peeliewallie, or phrases such as a bonnie fechter or a knotless threid.
This passage identifies a neglected area of research into the use
of Scots terms: in a lexical economy in which both Scots and Standard
English terms have currency, what is the function and value of those
highly descriptive Scots evaluative terms?
Evaluative terms have recently become a focus of interest in
pragmatics, discourse analysis and corpus linguistics.5 In their
introduction to a ground-breaking anthology of articles on evaluation,
Thompson and Hunston argue for the importance of evaluative
language.6 For example, evaluative language functions to:
x Express opinion
x Maintain relations between speakers or writer/readers
Eurolinguistics, Vol. 4, edited by S. Ureland and S. Pugh; F. M. Douglas, The

Scottish Corpus of Texts and Speech: Problems of Corpus Design, Literary and
Linguistic Computing, 17:2, 2003, pp. 259-61.
3
For definitions and discussion of the Broad ScotsScottish English continuum, see J.
Corbett, J. D. McClure and J. Stuart-Smith, eds. The Edinburgh Companion to Scots,
Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2003.
4
C. Kay, A lexical view of two societies: A comparison of the Scots Thesaurus and a
Thesaurus of Old English, in A. Fenton and D. A. MacDonald (eds.), Studies in Scots
and Gaelic, Edinburgh: Canongate, 1994, pp. 41-47.
5
For example, S. Hunston and G. Thompson (eds.), Evaluation in Text: Authorial
Stance and the Construction of Discourse, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000; P.
Leistyna, and C. F. Meyer (eds.), Corpus Analysis: Language Structure and Language
Use, Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2003.
6
Hunston and Thompson, op. cit., pp. 6-13.
Evaluative terms in Scots
37
x Manage discourse organisation (e.g., by signalling boundary

points in sequences of discourse).
The second of these functions promises to be particularly relevant
to the use of Scots, particularly in situations where a sense of the
individuals relationship to the community is negotiated through texts
that contain markers of Scottish identity. Such situations extend from
casual conversation to newspaper texts.7 This chapter sketches some
possible approaches to combining thesaurus and corpus resources in
order to investigate the cultural function of evaluative lexis.
Defining Evaluative Lexis
The kind of terms that fall into the category of evaluation are various.
J. R. Martin attempts to formulate the possibilities in a set of related
systems such as AFFECT (emotions such as happiness or fear),
JUDGEMENT (ethical assessments such as morality), and
APPRECIATION (aesthetic judgments such as beauty).8 Each system
has positive or negative polarity. A random selection of terms from
the Scots Thesaurus that would fit neatly into Martins model of
APPRAISAL are:
AFFECT
JUDGEMENT
APPRECIATION
POSITIVE
canty, joco, mirrie,
(15.5.4)
dacent, douce, leal
(15.3.1)
bonny, guidly, wallie
(15.6.1)
NEGATIVE
crabbit, disjaskit, dour
(15.3.5)
coof, notour, waster
(15.3.2)
ill-farrant, peelie-wersh,
scabbit (15.3.2)
Cf. F. M. Douglas, The Role of Lexis in Scottish Newspapers, unpublished thesis

submitted to the University of Glasgow in fulfilment of requirements for degree of
PhD in the Department of English Language, 2000.
8
J. R. Martin, Beyond exchange: APPRAISAL systems in English, paper given to
Sydney Linguistics Circle, NCELTR, Macquarie University, 3 June, 1994; J. R.
Martin, Beyond exchange: APPRAISAL systems in English, in S. Hunston and G.
Thompson (eds.) op. cit., pp. 142-75; J. Rothery and M. Stenglin, Interpreting
Literature: the role of APPRAISAL, in L. Unsworth (ed.), Researching Language in
Schools and Communities: Functional Linguistic Perspectives, London: Cassell,
2000.
Douglas & Corbett
38
However, as Thompson and Hunstons introduction and the

succeeding chapters in their anthology show, defining evaluative
termseven agreeing a name for themis a tricky matter. Thompson
and Hunston identify affect,9 attitude,10 appraisal,11 connotation,12
modality,13 and stance14 as possible terms, before finally opting for
evaluation themselves.15 They define evaluation as the broad cover
term for the expression of the speaker or writers attitude or stance
towards, viewpoint on, or feelings about the entities or propositions
that he or she is talking about.16 With two qualifications, this is the
definition that we shall adopt here.
The first qualification goes beyond issues of terminology to
address the nature of expressing an attitude or stance on something.17
Cruse observes that evaluative lexical items sometimes describe
emotional states such as surprise:18
I am dumfounert.
and sometimes they simply express them:
Jings!
Martins distinction between construed and implicated affect
touches on the difference to which Cruse alludes; however, Martin
N. Besnier, Reported speech and affect on Nukulaelae Atoll, in J. H. Hill and J. T.

Irvine (eds.), Responsibility and Evidence in Oral Discourse, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1993, pp. 161-81.
10
M. A. K. Halliday, An Introduction to Functional Grammar (2nd ed.), London:
Edward Arnold, 1994.
11
Martin, 2000, op.cit.
12
J. Lyons, Semantics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977.
13
Halliday, op. cit. and M. R. Perkins, Modal Expressions in English, Norwood, NJ:
Ablex, 1983.
14
D. Biber, S. Johansson, G. Leech, S. Conrad and E. Finegan, The Longman
Grammar of Spoken and Written English, London: Longman, 1999, and Hunston and
Thompson, op. cit.
15
Hunston and Thompson, op. cit., p. 2.
16
Hunston and Thompson, op. cit., p. 5.
17
A. Cruse, Meaning in Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000, pp. 5859.
18
A. Cruse, op.cit., pp. 58-59.
39
rightly blurs the apparently clear distinction.19 The use of even an

apparently neutral term in context can load it with evaluative meaning.
The term literary, for example, can refer descriptively to a certain
kind of text. However, in examples from the SCOTS archive, the term
can be used in either a positive or, at least, a more ambivalent way:
the excellent literary quality of the Lanarkshire dialect
material
eres maybe something aifter aa in fit es literary kinna lads say
aboot e hard Northeast
As Sinclair, Louw and Channell have indicated, continued use of
terms in positive or negative contexts shapes their evaluative force, a
point we shall return to in due course.20 In the following extract from
an abstract by McClure, the authorial stance is clear from the
distribution of negative and positive terms that contrast attitudes to the
Scots language over time.21 Literary is embedded again amongst
more explicitly positive terms. (All terms that could be considered
evaluative have been highlighted.)
The Scots language, traditionally neglected or actively
suppressed in the education system, has in recent years enjoyed
a quite dramatic reversal in its fortunes. In chronological
order, the following related developments have taken place: a
remarkable literary efflorescence, including a corpus of
brilliant, inventive, and strongly politically-motivated
poetry
19
Martin, 2000, p. 155.

J. Sinclair, Corpus, Concordance, Collocation, Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1991; B. Louw, Irony in the text or insincerity in the writer? The diagnostic potential
of semantic prosodies, in M. Baker, G. Francis and E. Tognini-Bognelli (eds.), Text
and Technology: In Honour of John Sinclair, Amsterdam: Benjamins, 1993, pp. 15776; and J. Channell, Corpus analysis of evaluative lexis, in Hunston and Thompson,
op. cit., pp. 38-55.
21
J. D. McClure cited in I. McGugan, Inquiry into the role of educational and
cultural policy in supporting and developing Gaelic, Scots and minority languages in
Scotland, Edinburgh: The Scottish Parliament Education, Culture and Sport
Committee, 2003.
20
40
Douglas & Corbett
Apparently non-judgemental or technical descriptive terms, then,

can nevertheless be used with evaluative force, both to describe and
even to express opinions and emotions.22 Our second qualification is
that some apparently technical descriptive terms can also be used nonliterally to manage interaction, as in the use of wee to create a sense of
intimacy or familiarity amongst speakers:
Get a wee drink o watter doon ye.
You huv a wee seat, hen.
We shall look in more detail at wee shortly. To summarise thus
far: given the symbolic use of Scots to establish and maintain social
relations, an investigation of the nature and function of evaluative
vocabulary in Scots and Scottish English promises to be fruitful. The
Scots Thesaurus offers an initial way into evaluative lexis in Scots;
resources like the SCOTS archive promise an increasingly powerful
means of exploring the function of evaluative terms across a range of
genres. Some lexical items express evaluation; others describe
evaluation; and yet other terms that are not in themselves evaluative
can be used pragmatically to communicate evaluations in context.
Again, the Scots Thesaurus and the SCOTS archive offer resources for
the preliminary investigation of this topic.
Evaluative Lexis in the Scots Thesaurus
The key sections of the Scots Thesaurus that deal most explicitly with
evaluation are:
x Section 8 (Life cycle, family)
x Section 9 (Physical States)
x Section 15 (Characters, emotions, social behaviour)
We focus here on Section 15, which is the largest and, since it
deals explicitly with descriptions of character, emotion and behaviour,
its lexis is most obviously evaluative.
As noted above, Martins system of affect has positive and
negative polarities. Cruse supports such a dichotomy, observing that
22
Cf. Hunston and Thompson, op. cit., p. 15.
41
oppositeness is in some way cognitively primitive.23 Cruses turn

from the study of lexis to cognition recalls van Dijks assertion that
ideologies are sociocognitive phenomena that construct the in-group
in a positive light and the out-group in a negative light.24 One line of
investigation would be to identify the resources for evaluation in
Scottish discourse, monitor the use of evaluative language in context,
and explore the ideological or socio-cultural function of evaluation in
establishing and maintaining in-group/out-group identities.
As Table 1 shows, many of the categories in Section 15 fall
easily into positive or negative categories, though others are more
ambivalent.
Table 1: Initial categorisation of section 15 Scots Thesaurus categories according to
positive/negative polarity.
Good/Positive
15.2.3 Intelligence
Bad/Negative
15.2.4 Stupidity
15.3.1 Misc. positive

types
15.3.3 Warm, friendly
15.5.2 Compassion
15.5.4 Joy, merrymaking
15.5.15 Skill
15.3.2 Misc. negative

types
15.3.4 Aggressive
15.3.5 Pessimistic
15.3.6 Touchy
15.3.9 Bold
15.5.20 Obedience
15.6.1 Misc. sources
contentment
15.6.5 Elation
15.3.7 Weakness of
character
15.3.8 Treacherous
15.3.10 Timid
15.3.11 Wild, eccentric
15.6.6 Go
15.3.12 Villainous
15.6.11 Liking
15.4.2 Spendthrifts,
spongers
15.4.3 Affectation
15.4.5 Slovenliness,
laziness
15.5.3 Mockery
15.5.5 Uproar
15.4 Personal, values and

behaviour
15.4.1 Thrift, miserliness,
avarice
15.4.4 Dress sense
15.6.12 Gratitude
15.6.17 Laughter
15.7.6 Endearments
23
Ambivalent
15.1 General & neutral
terms
15.2 Social status &
inherent qualities
15.2.1 High class
15.2.2 Low class
15.3 Character types
15.3.13 Earnest
15.3.14 Independent
15.4.6 Eating habits

15.5 Social behaviour
15.5.1 Persuasion
15.5.6 Drink
Cruse, op. cit., p. 167.

e.g. Teun A. van Dijk, Ideology: A Multidisciplinary Approach, London: Sage
Publications, 1999, pp. 8-10.
24
Douglas & Corbett
42
Good/Positive
Bad/Negative
Ambivalent
15.5.8 Nosiness, slander 15.5.7 Chitchat
15.5.9 Quarrels
15.5.13 Mastery
15.5.10 Opposition
15.5.19 Indifference,
restraint
15.5.11 Abusiveness
15.6 Emotions & states
15.5.12 Revenge
15.6.3 Miscellaneous
sensations
15.5.14 Scolding
15.6.4 Strong emotions
15.5.16 Bad
15.6.10 Longing
workmanship
15.5.17 Shambles
15.6.18 Grimaces, gestures
15.5.18 Being hampered 15.7 Interjections
15.6.2 Misc. sources
15.7.1 Miscellaneous
discontent
15.6.7 Anxiety, care
15.6.8 Madness
15.6.9 Jealousy
15.6.13 Anger
15.6.14 Shame
15.6.15 Fear, disgust
15.6.16 Sorrow, tears
15.7.2 Disgust
15.7.3 Impatience
15.7.4 Discontent
15.7.5 Gratuitous abuse
At first glance, this table seems to confirm the stereotypical dourness

of the Scot. That this trait is evident to the casual reader of the Scots
Thesaurus is supported by Fentons observation in the introduction
that criticism rather than praise is a kenmark of the Scots language,25
and by the editor Iseabail Macleods query:26
Is the [Scots] national reputation confirmed by the long section
(15.4.1) on Thrift, miserliness, avarice? Grippie, meeserable,
meesart, nairra-beagun, peengin, pegral, scrubby, scruntie,
wheetie all mean miserly, mean; they are treated together with
cannie frugal, fendie thrifty, etc., on the other side of the same
coin. Scottish grudgingness with praise seems to be confirmed by
25
A. Fenton,Introduction, in I. Macleod (ed.), The Scots Thesaurus, Aberdeen:
Aberdeen University Press, 1990, p. xii.
26
I. Macleod, Research in progress: Some problems of Scottish lexicography,
English World-Wide, 14:1 (1993), 115-28.
43
the fact that the section on Miscellaneous negative types

(15.3.2) is several times as long as that on Miscellaneous
positive types (15.3.1).
As Macleod suggests, the apparent preference for negative terms
is evident both in the categories as a whole, and in the terms within
each category. There are more terms listed for Low Class (15.2.2)
than High Class (15.2.1), for example. Furthermore, while the great
majority of Low Class terms are negative (165 of 182, or 91%), only
about half of the High Class terms are positive (63 of 127 or 49.6%).
Indeed, 53 of the High Class terms are negative, including
cockapentie a snob, crouse conceited, arrogant, proud, hingthegither clannish and sneist behave in a contemptuous, arrogant
way, be scornful or supercilious.
Some classifications, however, seem to determine whether the
polarity of their members will be positive or negative. Not
surprisingly, 59 of the 67 lexemes within Intelligence (15.2.3) are
positive, only one being obviously negative (souple, which can mean
devious), while, at least out of context, the others appear neutral or
ambivalent e.g. sanshach or pawkie. The lexemes in the category
of Stupidity (15.2.4) are overwhelmingly negative, 159 of the 161,
with none apparently positive, again out of context.27 It is again
noticeable that there are considerably more terms available in Scots to
express the negative characteristic Stupidity than there are to express
its positive counterpart.
Happily for Scottish self-esteem, a disproportionate weighting
towards negative evaluative terms seems to be a general feature of
lexicographical reference works. Channell notes that
During the writing of CCED [Collins Cobuild English
Dictionary], compilers noted more than double the number of
negatively loaded words to positively loaded ones. It is too early
to know why that might be, or even if it is a substantive
observation. It might be, for example, that compilers were more
27
Cf. K. L. Allan, An examination of metaphor from Old English to present day

English focusing on notions of intelligence/cleverness and stupidity, Ph.D. thesis
submitted to the Department of English Language, University of Glasgow, 2003, for a
discussion of the concepts of intelligence and stupidity in the Historical Thesaurus of
English.
44
Douglas & Corbett
sensitive to negative items because the social consequences of an

error with a negative term are much greater than those arising
from a misuse of a positive item. The whole area of evaluative
language seems to require tying up with the notion of facework
employed by Brown and Levinson (1987) in their explanation of
politeness.28
To relate evaluative language to facework, and to explore other
pragmatic issues, it is necessary to turn to speech and writing in
context, as evidenced, for example, by the SCOTS archive. We shall
turn to language in context in the next section. Before doing that, it is
illuminating to consider the distribution of evaluative lexis in the
Scots Thesaurus in greater detail, with reference to Martins model of
APPRAISAL, mentioned briefly above.29
To summarise, the model of APPRAISAL assumes that the
evaluative resources of a language fall into three general categories,
APPRECIATION, AFFECT and JUDGEMENT. Together, these form
a network as shown in Table 2.
The general system of APPRECIATION involves the speakers
evaluation of the worth of something. It can be subdivided into
reaction (i.e. an expression of the impact of something on the
speaker), composition (i.e. an expression of its aesthetic
characteristics) and valuation (i.e. an expression of its worth). The
system of AFFECT indicates the evaluation of mental states such as
happiness, security and satisfaction. The final system, JUDGEMENT,
involves an initial choice between social sanction and social esteem.
Social sanction comprises of the categories ethics (good/bad) and
truth (true/false). Social esteem involves resolve (brave/cowardly,
reliable/unreliable, etc), capacity (intelligent/stupid, gifted/incapable,
etc) and normality (normal/peculiar, lucky/unlucky, etc).
28
Channell, op. cit., p. 55; she refers to P. Brown and S. Levinson, Politeness,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
29
Martin (1994, 2000), op. cit.
45
Table 2: The APPRAISAL System (cf Martin, 2000; Rothery and Stenglin, 2000 )
APPRAISAL
APPRECIATION
reaction
composition
valuation
AFFECT
un/happiness
in/security
dis/satisfaction
ethics
social sanction
JUDGEMENT
truth
social esteem
Resolve
capacity
normality
The question is: to what extent do the resources of Scots realise

the forms of evaluation thus detailed? Looking again at Section 15 of
the Scots Thesaurus, we can begin to see the distribution of terms
according to types of evaluation, or, in Martins terms, APPRAISAL.
Table 3 shows how part of Martins APPRAISAL system, the subsystem of APPRECIATION, might be mapped onto Scots Thesaurus
categories and examples.
Table 3: APPRECIATION and the Scots Thesaurus categories
APPRECIATION
ST CATEGORIES
EXAMPLES
REACTION
Grimaces, gestures
Laughter
Mockery
Uproar
Opposition
bo make a face, girn snarl, grimace

heffer laugh heartily, snicher snigger
dunt insult, taisle tease, irritate, vex
brangle state of confusion, too hoo fuss
conter oppose, disassent refuse to agree
COMPOSITION
Dress sense
Affectation
barrie smart, perjink trim, neat

dink prim, precise, yaup speak
affectedly
gabbit fastidious about food, vorax
voracious
bauchle spoil, hairy rough, untidy
boorach muddle, mess, moger mess
Eating habits
Bad workmanship
Shambles
Douglas & Corbett
46
VALUATION
High class
Low class
Liking
Chitchat
Nosiness, slander
digne worthy, far kent widely known

coof lout, landwart rustic, uncouth
belufit beloved, kittle make excited
blether talk foolishly, clype gossip
blaud defame, clash tell tales
It is always difficult to assign members to single, broad semantic

categories in a clear-cut, absolute manner. However, it is evident from
the above that Scots evaluative lexis can be distributed across Martins
categories of APPRECIATION, AFFECT and JUDGEMENT; in
other words, there are terms aplenty in Broad Scots for expressing
impact, aesthetic appreciation, emotion, ethical judgements, and so on.
In the following section, we shall examine how these systems are
realised in the dynamic context of a dramatic text.
Evaluative Language in the SCOTS archive
Facework is the designation given to a host of strategies, some of
them linguistic, designed to negotiate the individuals relationship
with the community.30 For example, an individual will wish to protect
his or her autonomy and wish to be respected by the community for
who he or she is (negative face). The same individual will also wish to
be considered a respectful member of the community, and to be seen
to harmonise with its values (positive face). When our face is
threatened, we may attempt to save face by switching topics, hedging,
disclaiming, paraphrasing, joking, apologising or justifying.
Obviously, some of this activity will involve evaluation. For example,
the term dour is defined in the Concise Scots Dictionary as having
four possible senses, all of them evaluative:
1.
2.
3.
4.
30
determined, hard, stern, severe

obstinate, stubborn, unyielding
sullen, humourless, dull
slow, sluggish, reluctant (to do something)
Cf. Brown and Levinson, op.cit. and S. Ting-Toomey, Intercultural conflict styles:
a face-negotiation theory, in Y. Kim and W. Gudykunst (eds.), Theory in
Intercultural Communication, Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage, 1988, pp. 213-35.
47
In the SCOTS archive, the term occurs several times in a short

story entitled A Gey-Dour Bitch by Sheena Blackhall.31 The story is
a monologue by someone whose character is evaluated by others,
probably as a combination of the first three senses, severe,
stubborn and possibly sullen:
Shes a dour bitch, thats fit I think o her
A damned dour bitch, thats fit I think o her
In response to this evaluation, the main character negotiates face,
not by rejecting the description, but by asserting that her dourness is in
part a result of circumstances, that it is an inevitable part of her
character, that it is only occasional, and that it is justifiable:
Weel, if I was dour afore, I wis ten times waur eftir thon.
yell hae tae pit up wi me, dour bitch or no.
I can be dour fyles. Its a peer pianie that plays nae mair nor
eichtsome reels an cheerie ballants.
Evaluative terms, then, can be related to facework: individuals or
groups anticipate, make and respond to descriptions, whether they are
negative, like dour, or positive, like douce (1. sweet, pleasant,
loveable; 2. sedate, sober, respectable; 3. neat, tidy, comfortable). The
few examples of douce so far collected in the SCOTS archive
tentatively suggest that in Scottish English the second sense is more
prominent (with the added hint of hypocrisy at times), whilst in Broad
Scots the first sense is also still current, particularly in relation to
plants, animals, women and children:
Spittin wild cat, douce blue-bell Fellow-traivellers like yersel
rub yer niv on eir braid foreheids. Douce kinna beasts
a swack an douce-like quine
whiles, the wee ones thats douce Feet together, backs straight
white socks and navy bloomers, Douce quines frae Broomhill
the universal misery of beggardom. Douce, sober citizens
31
S. Blackhall, S., A Gey Dour Bitch in The Fower Quarters: Tales by Sheena
Blackhall. Edinburgh: GKB Books, 2002, pp. 10-18.
[See also http://www.scottishcorpus.ac.uk/]
Douglas & Corbett
48
that was her mothers way. Keeping up a douce front.

Gin we leive mair douce lik an hae a mair hummil style
The availability of corpus evidence for the use of lexical items
allows us to explore in depth some of the issues touched on above.
The discussion of polarity in relation to categories such as
Intelligence and Stupidity assumes that the Scots Thesaurus is an
at least partial index of the expressive resources of the language.
Channell argues that assumptions such as this are inadequate, because
dictionaries and other reference books compiled before the coming of
corpora did not have access to information about lexical meaning that
was not open to introspection.32 Only an analysis of corpus evidence,
she argues, shows that expressions like par for the course, roam the
streets and regime imply negative polarity, while other expressions,
like off the beaten track imply positive polarity. These implications
are not open to introspection because the terms themselves do not
express negative or positive meanings; their evaluative force comes
from their being used consistently in either negative or positive
frames.33 An example from the Scots lexicon is wee, which is
defined thus in the Concise Scots Dictionary:
1. small, tiny, little, restricted in use
2. as intensifier with nouns signifying a small amount
3. football used to describe the reserve team
A list of combinations is then given, the foremost amongst them
wee ane a young child, a little one, an expression that also appears in
the Scots Thesaurus, under Childhood, Infancy (8.5). Douglas
demonstrates that wee is amongst the most widely used Scotticisms in
newspaper texts, and it appears in both the written and spoken
materials in the SCOTS archive.34 At first glance, wee simply refers to
size, although evaluation is also implied in the sense restricted in
use. However, it is clear from its use in context that wee has a number
32
Channell, op. cit.

Sinclair, op. cit.
34
Douglas (2000), op. cit.
33
49
of evaluative functions. It is used 29 times in one of the SCOTS texts,

Refuge, a play by Janet Paisley about victims of domestic violence.35
CHILDHOOD
it minds me ae bein wee, an bein looked efter
a wee boy calls mummy, mummy
whats the wee boys name?
the wee boys two
Shes got a wee boy and a bairn
and wee Timothys demolishin the playroom
CAROLANNE: Shes got children. AGNES: Wee yins?
INTENSIFICATION
a wee bit ae practice
a wee bit ae rejuvenation
a wee bit upset
DRINKS
ah huv a wee can
get a wee drink ae watter doon ye
a wee kick-starter, just
DESCRIPTION OF PEOPLE (NEGATIVE)
Right wee chatterboax, isnt she? Racket dis ma heid in.
Only wee men need tae cut their wimmin doon
DESCRIPTION OF PEOPLE (POSITIVE)
That ma cocoa? Yer a wee lamb
Might just pick up a wee pick-me-up
Just a couplae wee yins. Tae practise oan.
DESCRIPTION OF BEHAVIOUR
gie a wee cough
couple o gills and a wee shufty at the talent
dae ye think ye could see yer wey tae a wee warnin furst
35
Janet Paisley, Refuge, 1997: http://www.scottishcorpus.ac.uk/.
50
Douglas & Corbett
DESCRIPTION OF THINGS
Wee curer the night, but
Ah was that prood ae ma wee hoose
You huv a wee seat, hen
dont bring oot oney wee things
a wee treat
this last wee while
if ye end up wi a bagfu, bring a wee yin back for me
Only in a few instances here is it clear that wee is a neutral

description for small the most obvious is dont bring oot oney wee
things, whereby one character warns another character that small toys
will be unsuitable for a child. The use of wee to refer to children is
partly literal (they are indeed small), but it also carries with it a sense
of vulnerability and intimacy. The senses of intimacy and
vulnerability transfer to some positive descriptions of adults (wee
lamb), but here and in the negative descriptions, there may be an
additional connotation of insignificance (wee pick me up, and wee yin
tae practise oan refer to casual relationships enjoyable but transient
while wee chatterboax and wee men are contemptuous dismissals).
Although the use of wee with different kinds of drink tends towards
the formulaic (in expressions like a wee dram), it is nevertheless
interesting: in this play, expressions like wee can (beer) and wee kickstarter (coffee) downplay, or possibly deny, the importance of alcohol
and caffeine to the speaker by presenting the beverage as insignificant.
The offer of a drink that does not contain stimulants (Get a wee drink
ae watter doon ye) focuses more on the connotations of intimacy and
reduces the social distance between speakers. The same effect is
achieved by the offer of a chair (You huv a wee seat, hen)
presumably not a small chair!
The use of wee to describe things in this play hints at a
developing semantic prosody of the kind described by Sinclair and
Channell.36 Here, wee tends to describe things that are desirable:
curer, hoose, seat, treat, yin. We can appeal to the concept of
facework to explain this apparent pattern: the speaker expresses a
desire for or pride in something but does not wish to appear greedy or
36
Sinclair, op. cit. and Channell, op. cit.
51
selfish. The speaker therefore downplays its significance.

Furthermore, the use of wee with behaviours refers to something the
speaker intends to do (shufty) or wants from others (cough, warnin).
When asking for something the speaker desires but the hearer may not
wish to give, it saves the hearers face to have the act of giving
described as insignificant.
A further issue is how Scots evaluative terms in the systems of
APPRECIATION, AFFECT and JUDGEMENT function in an actual
text. To explore this issue, we shall focus on an exchange in Refuge in
which one of the women in the safe house, middle-class Carolanne,
rises and enters the kitchen after a night on the town. She is met by
another of the residents, working-class Sadie.
SADIE: Oh, great, up in time fur lunch, then? No, dinnae tell
me, let me guess. Eh, a generous wedge of ripe camembert, deep
fried, served with cranberry sauce and crispy salad. Or, the
freshest of fresh mussels cooked to perfection in a creamy white
wine and garlic sauce. Or - would that be toast?
(BEFORE CAROLANNE CAN THROW UP, BETH ENTERS
FROM KITCHEN WITH A BOWL OF FOOD WHICH SHE
PUTS DOWN TO COLLECT TOYS THE CHILDREN HAVE
LEFT BEHIND. SADIE AND CAROLANNE FREEZE AS SHE
ENTERS, WATCHING BETHS PROGRESS AS SHE
JUGGLES TOYS, COLLECTS THE BOWL AND HEADS FOR
UPSTAIRS.)
SADIE: Nae bletherin noo, theres work to be done.
(BETH EXITS. SADIE SHUTS THE DOOR)
SADIE: Right wee chatterboax, isnt she? Racket dis ma heid in.
CAROLANNE: Shes working though.
SADIE: At hauntin the place. A fortnight an shes still creepin
aboot wi nae shoes oan. We should hire her oot. Rentaghost.
(CAROLANNE MAKES A FACE AND TURNS TO HER
COFFEE)
SADIE: Must be catchin. You look gey peely wally.
CAROLANNE: Headache.
SADIE: The mornin efter, huh?
CAROLANNE: Dont know. I never had one before.
52
Douglas & Corbett
SADIE: Bet you never hud a bit ae rough before either.

CAROLANNE: (LOOKS UP TOO QUICKLY) I never. Oww.
SADIE: I dont know sae much. You couldnae huv slid a razor
blade between yeese withoot cutting aff something vital.
(SADIE GOES ON INTO KITCHEN)
CAROLANNE: We danced. Thats all.
SADIE: (FROM OFF) Hey, never heard it cawed that before.
CAROLANNE: Oh, come on. He had (WINCING) tattoos.
SADIE: (FROM OFF) On his teeth.
CAROLANNE: Did he have teeth?
SADIE: (FROM OFF) Mostly. (COMING BACK IN WITH
COFFEE) I think he left them in yer neck.
CAROLANNE: Youre having me on. Is that lunch?
SADIE: A wee kick-starter, just. Good night, but. Dae ye mind
chattin up the lamppost oan the wey hame?
CAROLANNE: Now I know youre exaggerating. Because I
remember that lamppost.
SADIE: So ye should. A sudden but intense attraction. Ye made
a big impression there.
CAROLANNE: I was holding it up.
SADIE: Oh aye.
CAROLANNE: Aye. I mean yes. It was leaning over.
SADIE: Nope. Straight as a die.
Giving an absolute and unequivocal identification of the semantic
nature of the lexis used evaluatively here is problematical, not least
because the meaning of any text and its constituents is always open to
interpretation. Ever since Stanley Fishs counterblasts against
stylistics in the 1970s, there has been an issue about whether meanings
are determined by linguistic constituents or whether they are imposed
by a community of readers and listeners.37 There is a particular danger
in arguing that because a lexical item has been categorised in a
particular way in a thesaurus, its meaning in context will therefore be
determined for all contexts. This is clearly not the case. For example,
the above dialogue contains tattoo, which (if it qualified for entry as a
Scots term) would most likely be categorised in the Scots Thesaurus
37
S. Fish, Is There a Text in this Class? The Authority of Interpretive Communities
Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1980.
53
under Skin (9.8) alongside various terms for epidermal tones, such as
measlet blotched, plouk pimple and sleekit having glossy skin. In
context, though, tattoo is taken as a valuation of social class, and the
literally absurd allegation that he has tattoos on his teeth functions to
intensify the valuation. In sum, meanings cannot be read off a
thesaurus or dictionary. Nevertheless, the dictionary/thesaurus
meanings are relevant to any given use in context. What follows, then,
is not an unambiguous or fixed account of the meanings of this
dialogue, but a record of our engagement with a text as readers,
drawing upon our interpretation of thesaurus categories in relation to
one possible system for modelling evaluative lexis.
The italicised terms from the above dialogue are shown in Table 4
with their polarity, their value in the system of APPRAISAL, and their
likely Scots Thesaurus categorisation (since this is a mixture of
Scottish and English terms, only a few of the terms here are actually in
the Scots Thesaurus).
Table 4: Evaluative lexis in a scripted dialogue (extract from Refuge by
Janet Paisley)
(a) Sadie
Term
great
generous
freshest
cooked to perfection
creamy
bletherin
right wee chatterboax
racket
dis ma heid in
hauntin
creepin
rentaghost
gey peely wally
a bit ae rough
something vital
on his teeth
wee kick starter just
good
chattin up
intense attraction
big impression
straight as a die
Polarity
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
APPRAISAL value
valuation
composition
composition
composition
composition
valuation
valuation
reaction
reaction
reaction
reaction
reaction
capacity
valuation
valuation
composition
valuation
valuation
valuation
reaction
reaction
valuation
ST Category
Misc. positive
Misc. food
Misc. food
Misc. food
Misc. food
Chitchat
Chitchat
Uproar
Uproar
Fear, disgust
Fear, disgust
Fear, disgust
Bad health
Low class
Parts of body
Parts of body
Misc. food
Misc. positive
Chitchat
Strong emotions
Strong emotions
Skill
54
(b) Carolanne
Term
tattoos
having me on
exaggerating
leaning over
Douglas & Corbett
Polarity
-
APPRAISAL value
composition
truth
truth
valuation
ST Category
Skin
Mockery
Weakness of character
Bad workmanship
This activity highlights the dialogic flow of this exchange. The

character of Sadie is given much more evaluative vocabulary than
Carolanne; she is the one who dominates this excerpt using a variety
of linguistic strategies commenting interrogating and contradicting
while it is Carolannes role largely to respond and justify. If we
concentrate on the evaluative lexis, we see Sadies initial turn
sarcastically using the culinary language of the middle-class to taunt
hungover Carolanne. Sadie then directs her sarcasm against the silent
Beth, whom she characterises using Scots as an empty chatterbox
(right wee chatterboaxracket dis ma heid in). When Carolanne
defends Beth, Sadie expresses the fear and disgust that Beths
behaviour arouse in her. She then directs her attention towards
Carolanne again, linking her appearance with Beths (both are pale)
but evaluating Carolanne as in bad health, again using Scots (peely
wally). Her next evaluation concerns Carolannes recent choice of a
sexual partner, whom Sadie characterises again in class terms (a bit ae
rough). Carolanne and Sadie then engage in bantering around how far
Carolannes relationship has gone with someone whom both
characterise as being of a lower social class, symbolised by
tattooson his teeth. Carolanne accuses Sadie of exaggerating, and
attempts to redirect the conversation towards the inadequacy of
Sadies lunch, a cup of coffee. Sadie responds by evaluating this as an
insignificant stimulus (a wee kick-starter, discussed above) and she
counter-attacks by directing the exchange towards Carolannes
inebriation the previous night. The excerpt ends with further banter
about the nature of Carolannes behaviour the previous night. Each
contradicts the other about the valuation given to the lamp-post that
Carolanne was holding onto was it leaning over (an example of bad
workmanship) or straight as a die (a product of skilled
workmanship)? By this point Carolanne is more of an equal partner in
the exchange, entering into the fantasy that Sadie is constructing on
her own terms.
55
This description of the flow of the dialogue shows the importance of

evaluation in the process of bonding what we called earlier the
establishment and maintaining of social relations. Evaluative language
is used in conversational gambits to orient participants in respect of
in-groups and out-groups. Sadie here is the key player: her initial
evaluations (in English) mock Carolanne by appropriating the
language of her class to nauseate her. Then her evaluations (in Scots)
invite Carolanne to share her negative perceptions of Beth; when
Carolanne refuses the invitation, she evaluates Carolannes health, a
common expression of empathy. In the ensuing banter, Sadie
constructs a fantasy in which Carolanne has enjoyed sexual relations
with a person of low class, and got drunk enough to attempt to seduce
the lamp-post that was holding her up; Carolanne denies the
accusation and constructs a counter-fantasy in which she is supporting
the badly-constructed lamp-post. The exchange works to construct the
character of Sadie as someone who needs to challenge others
middle-class Carolanne and silent Beth and orient them towards her
own working-class garrulity. That her strategy is at least partly
successful with Carolanne is signified by the latter temporarily
adopting markers of Sadies speech community: Aye. I mean yes.
Conclusions
It has been our intention in this chapter to raise more questions
than we attempt to answer. We have argued that the evaluative nature
of much Scots lexis has been often commented on; yet it remains
under-researched as a pragmatic resource for in-grouping and outgrouping. There remains the difficult issue of how we define
evaluative lexis, across the Broad Scots Scottish-English continuum,
bearing in mind that, in specific contexts, technically descriptive lexis
can be given evaluative force. We have attempted to manage this issue
by relating semantic categories used in the Scots Thesaurus to
pragmatic functions offered by Martins model of APPRAISAL, and
using these combined resources to interpret the way characters in a
scripted dialogue use evaluative text to establish and maintain social
relations. The example is offered as a case study for a series of much
broader and deeper analyses of the nature and function of evaluative
texts across a range of genres of Scottish speech and writing.
56
Douglas & Corbett
Given the space at our disposal, this sketch can only begin to
show the kinds of applications that can be made of resources such as
dictionaries, thesauri and corpora the kind of resources to which
Christian Kay has devoted much of her professional career. Kay
argues for a larger Scots Thesaurus, one that incorporates all the data
in the Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue and the Scottish
National Dictionary within a framework supplied by the Historical
Thesaurus of English.38 Ten years after this suggestion, DOST and
SND have been combined in an electronic version the Dictionary of
the Scots Language, and HTE nears completion. An amalgam of
available resources, plus updated lexical material, would make the
kinds of analysis attempted here much subtler and more revealing. As
she heads towards what we hope is a long and productive retirement,
we continue to look to Professor Kay for inspiration and leadership in
the lexicography of English and Scots, and in its wider applications.
38
Kay, op. cit.
Lexical splits and mergers:

some difficult cases for the OED
Philip Durkin
Christian Kay and Iren Wotherspoon have in a recent article looked
at some of the complicated issues surrounding orthography and
homophony that can exist within a lexical set.1 Here I will examine
the related issue of lexical splits and mergers, i.e. cases where two or
more words of distinct etymology converge, and also cases where
what is etymologically a single word diverges, giving two or more
lexical items distinct in spelling or pronunciation or both. I will look
in particular at the challenges that dealing with such words can pose
for a historical dictionary, where complex changes must be
accommodated within a diachronic account of individual word
histories. I will take examples from entries which have been revised
for the third edition of the Oxford English Dictionary (on OED3 see
the online Preface to the Third Edition of OED, www.oed.com
/about/oed3-preface).2 Words which have split will require two
distinct dictionary entries under the usual modern forms, but splits
which have occurred in historical times pose some problems in
assigning data to the respective entries. At mantle and mantel, or
ordnance and ordinance, from a modern synchronic perspective the
split is (largely) complete, but the earlier evidence requires some
difficult decision-making. Complete mergers, such as mare female
horse, are largely unproblematic, but examples of partial merger, as is
1
Christian Kay and Iren Wotherspoon, Wreak, wrack, rack, and (w)ruin: The
history of some confused spellings, in Teresa Fanego, B. Mndez-Naya and E.
Seoane (eds.), Sounds, Words, Texts and Change. Selected Papers from 11 ICEHL,
Santiago de Compostela, 7-11 September 2000, Amsterdam: Benjamins, 2002, pp.
129-43.
2
James A. H. Murray, Henry Bradley, Sir William A. Craigie and Charles T. Onions
(eds.), The Oxford English Dictionary, 1884-1933; Robert W. Burchfield (ed.),
Supplement, 1972-86; John A. Simpson and Edmund S. C. Weiner (eds.), 2nd edition,
1989; John A. Simpson, Edmund S. C. Weiner and Michael Proffitt (eds.), Additions
Series, 1993-97; John A. Simpson (ed.), 3rd edition (in progress) OED Online, March
2000- , Oxford: Oxford University Press.
58
Philip Durkin
probably the case with certain of the senses of mean ungenerous,

ignoble (of Germanic origin) and mean intermediate, average (of
Romance origin), are much harder to deal with, and require explicit
comment from the lexicographer.
The modern English words mantle (loose sleeveless cloak and
related senses) and mantel (ornamental structure of wood, marble,
etc., above and around a fireplace and related senses) show a process
of split in the written form of the word.3 In Old English, classical and
post-classical Latin mantellum is borrowed as mentel in the sense
long sleeveless cloak (with i-mutation probably resulting from suffix
substitution). In Middle English this persists, coalescing with
borrowing of mantel, the Anglo-Norman and Old French reflex of the
Latin word (and perhaps also reborrowing of the Latin word itself) to
give Middle English mantel, mantle (and other related spellings).
From the thirteenth century in British sources the Latin word also
shows the sense piece of timber or stone supporting the masonry
above a fireplace, and this is shown also by the Latin words AngloNorman and Central French reflexes from the fourteenth century, as
also by the English word. Middle English thus has, not particularly
unusually, a borrowed word showing polysemy which broadly reflects
polysemy in the donor languages. For a dictionary on historical
principles such as the OED the methodology for such a word is
straightforward: an identical word-form which shows a range of
senses of a common origin will be treated under a single dictionary
entry. (This is not to disregard the problems that polysemy can pose
for many models of both diachronic and synchronic linguistics, but
simply to note that the traditional methodology of historical
lexicography demands that such material should be treated under a
single dictionary headword, thus ensuring an approach which is
consistent, even if from the synchronic standpoint it may sometimes
3
It is doubtful whether there is any consistent corresponding distinction in the spoken

form. To take a sample from pronouncing dictionaries, Clive Upton, William A.
Kretzschmar, Jr., and Rafal Konopka, The Oxford Dictionary of Pronunciation for
Current English, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001, here followed by OED3,
gives identical realisations in British English for both words, but for U.S. English
gives 'mn(t)l for mantle but 'mn(t)l for mantel, while Daniel Jones, English
Pronouncing Dictionary, 15th edition, ed. Peter Roach and James Hartman,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997, gives (regardless of variety) 'mn.t
for mantle and 'mn.tl for mantel.
Lexical splits and mergers
59
seem somewhat arbitrary.) The modern reflexes of Middle English

mantel, mantle, however, pose a problem for the historical dictionary,
as in the modern written language loose sleeveless cloak and
ornamental structure of wood, marble, etc., above and around a
fireplace and their related senses and compounds (e.g. mantelpiece,
mantelshelf) are now usually distinguished in spelling, as mantle and
mantel respectively. (A very few examples of the spelling mantle are
still found in modern use for the fireplace word, but they are hugely
outnumbered by the spelling mantel, which must be regarded as the
usual modern spelling in these senses.) They are thus treated as two
distinct words by general dictionaries of the modern language
(regardless of the extent to which their methodology is otherwise
influenced by historical lexicography), albeit with cross-references or
notes in some cases acknowledging that either spelling can still more
rarely be found for each word.4 The situation is more difficult for a
historical dictionary, especially for one with the time depth of the
OED: a way must be found of representing Old English mentel,
Middle English mentel, mantel, mantle, and the distinct (late) Modern
English words mantel and mantle, together with all of the intermediate
points and varied actual spellings represented by these abstractions.
The solution for OED is determined by the policy of placing material
under headword forms which are decided by the majority usage of
modern standard written English (in so far as the materials available to
us enable us to determine what this is). This suggests that the reflex of
Middle English mentel, mantel, mantle yields two distinct modern
word forms, mantel and mantle. The divergence runs along semantic
lines, with the groups of senses related to or developed from
respectively loose sleeveless cloak and piece of timber or stone
supporting the masonry above a fireplace gradually coming to be
distinguished in (written) form, and this divergence is therefore
reflected in the structure of the two OED entries, with material being
divided between the two entries on semantic grounds, regardless of
the form of the word. Each entry shows historical examples with both
-le and -el types, and each entry has a separate list of historical
4
Thus both Judy Pearsall (ed.), The Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 10th edition,
revised, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002, and Judy Pearsall (ed.), The Oxford
Dictionary of English, 2nd edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003, note that
mantle also occurs as a spelling of mantel mantelpiece.
60
Philip Durkin
spellings, compiled from the OEDs slip collections (including the

fruits of targeted reading of historical sources for spelling variation as
well as for semantic data), from the evidence of period dictionaries,
and from an extensive diachronic sampling of electronic resources.5
The results may be illustrated by the variant form lists, extracts from
the etymology, and the definitions of the first senses from each entry
(for reasons of space, the illustrative quotations are omitted):
mantle n. Forms: OE-ME mentel, ME mantal, mantille, manttell, mantyl,
mantyle, mauntel, mauntell, mayntell, mayntelle, mentell, mentil,
mentile, (perh. transmission error) manntel, ME-15 mantell, mantelle, ME16 mantel, mantil, mantill, mantyll, mantylle, mauntil, ME- mantle, 15
mauntelle, 16 mantoll; Eng. regional 18- mentle, 19- mantel; Sc. pre-17
mantale, mantel, mantell, mantill, mantyl, mantyll, pre-17 17- mantil,
mantle. [Partly < classical Latin mantellum cloak (see below), and partly a
reborrowing in early Middle English < its reflex Anglo-Norman mantel,
mantelle, mantle cloak, Old French mantel (c980; Middle French mantel,
manteau, French manteau). In Old English (as also in Old Frisian) showing imutation, prob. arising from suffix substitution (see -EL). With classical
Latin mantellum cf. mantica (see MANTICULATE v.); further etymology
uncertain (see below).
Classical Latin mantellum is attested only in Plautus; in post-classical Latin a
4th-cent. grammarian has the form mantelum (citing the Plautus passage) by
confusion with classical Latin mantle hand-towel: the two words are no
longer thought to be etymologically related. Post-classical Latin mantellum is
attested more freq. from 9th cent.; freq. in British sources from 12th cent.
...
Cf. also MANTEL n. and MANTEEL n.1]
I. A protective garment or blanket, and related fig. uses.
...
1. a. A loose sleeveless cloak.
mantel n. Forms: ME- mantel, 15 mantalle, mantell, 15- mantle. [Orig. a
variant of MANTLE n., now usu. distinguished in form in the senses below.
Cf. Anglo-Norman mantle (1370 or earlier in sense 1a), Old French, Middle
French mantel (1332 in sense 1a); post-classical Latin mantellum (from 13th
cent. in British sources in sense 1a): see further discussion s.v. MANTLE n.]
5
For more detail on this area of the OEDs work see Philip Durkin, Root and branch:
revising the etymological component of the OED, Transactions of the Philological
Society, 97 (1999) 1-50, and again the online Preface to the Third Edition of OED, op.
cit.
61
I. Simple uses.
1. a. A piece of timber or stone supporting the masonry above a fireplace; =
MANTELTREE n. 1. Obs. Recorded earliest in mantel-stone, sense 3.
b. An ornamental structure of wood, marble, etc., above and around a
fireplace; the manteltree of a fireplace together with its supports. Cf.
MANTELPIECE n. 1.
c. A shelf formed by the projecting surface of a mantelpiece; =
MANTELSHELF n. 1.
A similar split, in this case showing a distinction in both the

written and the spoken form in modern English, is shown by the OED
entries ORDINANCE n. and ORDNANCE n., where a Middle
English borrowing of the semantically complex Anglo-Norman and
Middle French ordenance shows a subsequent split, with the form
ordnance coming to be associated solely with senses related to and
developed from military materials, artillery for discharging
missiles, the government department responsible for this, etc. A
similar approach is thus adopted for OED to that shown at MANTLE
n. and MANTEL n., with the historical material being divided on
semantic grounds, with an etymology at ORDNANCE n. making clear
that the two are originally the same word: Orig. a variant of
ORDINANCE n., now distinguished in form in the senses below.
(In a different category, and outside the scope of this article, are
cases where the division of material between entries is on a formal
rather than a semantic basis. This is commonly the case where
developments of a word form in different varieties of English are
treated in separate entries, normally where the form in another variety
has come to have some currency (perhaps as a marked regionalism or
colloquialism, or perhaps with a specific range of meanings) in
standard (written) English, for instance in OED3 MAAM n. and
MARM n., or MAYBE adv. and MEBBE adv.)
Turning now to mergers, the OEDs policy of listing material
under its present-day reflex (if one exists) again determines the
approach taken, and with mergers which have been completed in the
past the procedure is thus relatively simple, even if the detail may be
complex. For instance, the modern English word mare female horse
shows a semantic and formal blend of two originally distinct Old
English words, mearh horse, which gives rise to the modern
standard English form, and (West Saxon) mre, mre, (non-West
Saxon) mre female horse (the reflex of a Germanic feminine
62
Philip Durkin
derivative of the Germanic base of mearh), from which the modern

sense has arisen. As there is a single modern output word, the full
history of both words can be treated under a single dictionary
headword, with a breakdown of the forms into their historical types, a
full etymological account of the origin and subsequent history of each
type, and (not shown here for reasons of space) a selection of
illustrative quotations for each form type under each sense:6
Forms: . OE mearh, (rare) mearg, (Anglian) merh. . OE (West Saxon)
mire, myre, (non-West Saxon) mere, (Anglian, rare) mre. . ME maar,
maire, ME-15 maare, ME, (18- Eng. regional) mar, ME- mare, 15 marre,
mayre, 15-16 mayer, 16 maer; Sc. pre-17 maer, mair, mar, mayr, pre-17
17- mare. . ME-15 mere, ME meere, mer, meyre, mure, ME-15 meare,
ME, (18- Irish English (north.)) meer, 15 (Eng. regional (north.)) myer, 18
(Eng. regional (south-west.)) mere; Sc. pre-17 meire, mer, meyr, meyre,
miere, pre-17 17- mear, meare, meir, mere, 18- meer, 19- meere, mehr.
[A merging of two distinct words: Old English mearh horse and Old English
mre, mre mare.
(i) (Represented by the forms) Old English mearh (strong masculine,
inflected forms mar- or, by analogical replacement, mear-) horse, whose
surviving instances occur chiefly in poetry, is cognate with ... < a Germanic
base, cognate with ...; further etymology uncertain: perh. ult. cognate with
Sanskrit marya- young man, stallion (cf. discussion s.v. MARRY v.).
(ii) (Represented by the forms) Old English (West Saxon) mre, mre
(weak feminine) mare, is cognate with ... < a Germanic feminine derivative
of the base of Old English mearh. Whereas the masculine word has all but
died out in the various Germanic languages, its feminine derivative retains its
vigour.
The forms represent later reflexes of Old English mearh and (in inflected
forms, with loss of -h and compensatory lengthening) mear- (giving and
respectively in Middle English); the forms represent a mixture of reflexes
from different sources: Old English mar- (the regular inflected form of
mearh; giving long open in Middle English); Old English (Anglian) merh
and (in inflected forms) mr-, mer- (smoothed forms of mearh; giving , long
close , and long open respectively in Middle English); Old English
(Anglian) mre (giving long close in Middle English); and Old English
(West Saxon) mre (giving occasional spellings with -u- in Middle English).
6
An early draft version of this same material was included in Durkin (1999), op. cit.,
and the reader may be interested to compare the two to see an illustration of how
OED3s style and procedures have developed between the early stages of work for the
new edition and the actual publication of revised material online.
63
In current British regional use pronunciations with base vowel /(/ are
general in southern and central England (Surv. Eng. Dial. also records a few
isolated examples with diphthongized /D,/ in Hampshire: perh. a reflex of
Old English (West Saxon) mre), while in the north of England, Scotland, and
Northern Ireland pronunciations with base vowel /L/ are common.
In Middle English, from at least the 13th cent., forms occur in the sense
female horse, while forms occur in the generic sense horse. The latter
sense (irrespective of form) died out at the end of the Middle English period
(cf. note at sense 1 below). By the end of the 16th cent. the form mare had
wholly supplanted the forms in standard English.]
Partial mergers are more difficult to reflect in a historical

dictionary like the OED. Such a case is probably shown by OEDs
MEAN a. and MEAN a. The first of these is the reflex of Old
English mne, an aphetic variant of gemne, having senses grouped
in OED under the branches I. Held commonly or jointly, II.
Inferior in rank or quality; unpleasant, and III. With approbative
connotation. MEAN a. is a Middle English borrowing from AngloNorman (and hence ultimately from classical Latin medinus that is
in the middle), with senses grouped in OED under the branches I.
Intermediate, intermediary and II. Moderate, middling; average. It
is at branch II in each entry where difficulties arise. The senses at
each, with dates of first attestation, are:
mean a., OED3, branch II, definitions and first dates:
II. Inferior in rank or quality; unpleasant.
2. Of a person or body of people, a person's condition, etc. (In early use freq.
in the comparative.) a. Of low social status; spec. not of the nobility or
gentry. Cf. COMMON a. 12. Now rare exc. in the superlative (chiefly
hyperbolically), as the meanest . a1375
b. Inferior in ability, learning, perception, etc. Now chiefly in the superlative
and as in sense 4. a1387
c. Poor, badly off. Obs. c1400
d. Of a political body, authority, etc.: weak; comparatively powerless. Now
rare. c1524
e. Abject or debased. Obs. rare. c1680
f. U.S. colloq. In low spirits; unwell or in a poor state of health. 1845
b. Petty, insignificant, unimportant; inconsiderable. Now rare. ?c1430
64
Philip Durkin
c. Undignified, low. Of literary style, etc.: lacking in elevation or adornment;

unambitious (not always with depreciative connotations). Now rare. c1450
d. Unimposing or shabby; characterized by poverty; humble. Used esp. of a
building, place of habitation, etc. 1600
4. no mean : denoting something very good or noteworthy of its kind.
Now used chiefly to express approval or admiration. 1580
5. a. Of a person, a person's character, etc.: lacking moral dignity, ignoble;
small-minded. Now rare or passing into sense 6. 1665
b. U.S. colloq. Of a horse, etc.: vicious or hard to control. Sometimes also in
extended use, of a person when drunk: uncontrollable, violent. 1835
c. U.S. colloq. to feel mean: to feel ashamed of one's conduct; to feel guilty
of unfairness or unkindness. 1839
d. colloq. (orig. U.S.). Of a person, a person's actions, etc.: disobliging,
uncooperative; unpleasant, unkind; vicious, cruel. 1841
6. Niggardly, miserly, stingy; not generous or liberal. 1840
mean a., OED3, branch II, definitions and first dates:

II. Moderate, middling; average.
7. Not much above or below the average; moderate, mediocre, middling. a.
Moderate or middling in size, stature, or age. Obs. a1387
b. Moderate or middling in quality or strength. Obs. ?1440
c. Moderate in amount, or in degree of excellence; tolerable, mediocre. Later
used only disparagingly (and so in some cases not readily distinguished from
MEAN a.1). Obs. a1500
d. Of soil or land: moderately fertile. Obs. 1523
8. Math. a. Of a value: so related to a given set of values that the algebraic
sum of their differences from it is zero; that is the arithmetical mean (MEAN
n.3 9a) of a set of values; average. Hence used before the name of a variable
quantity to express the mean average value of that quantity (as in mean
diameter,
distance,
motion,
temperature,
etc.).
Cf.
MEAN
PROPORTIONAL n. a1450
b. Mil. mean point of impact, the centre of a cluster or pattern of impact
points made by bombs or bullets, calculated as an average of their
coordinates (see quot. 1973). 1945
9. Using moderation; temperate. Obs. rare. a1500
The semantic overlap is thus readily apparent, and both the nature
of the problem and the solution arrived at are explained in the
etymologies of the two entries:
65
mean a., OED3, etymology:

[Aphetic < I-MENE a. Cf. Old Frisian mne shared, common (West Frisian
mien).
In Old English (and in the earlier stages of other Germanic languages)
substantially the only sense of I-MENE a. and its cognates was possessed
jointly, belonging equally to a number of persons; however, already in Old
English there existed a spec. sense of ecclesiastical orders: minor, inferior in
degree, which, although it did not survive into Middle English, may have
informed the development of mean.
The semantic development shown by the Old English spec. sense of IMENE a. was carried further with Middle English mene, mean (as with
Dutch gemeen and German gemein; cf. COMMON a.), so that the word
acquired the general senses of ordinary, not exceptionally good, inferior.
In English this development was aided by the fact that the native word
coincided in form with MEAN a.2, which was often used in a disparaging or
reproachful sense. The uses in branch II might be referred almost equally
well to the native or to the foreign adjective; the truth is probably that the
meanings of two originally quite distinct words have merged.
It has sometimes been supposed that the sense development of the word
has been influenced by Old English mne false, wicked (cognate with MAN
n.2 and MAN a.); but this seems unlikely, as this adjective did not survive
into Middle English, while the moral senses of mean only appear in modern
English.]
mean a., OED3, etymology:

[< Anglo-Norman mene, men, meen intermediate, middle, middle-sized (cf.
Old French meien (first half of the 12th cent.), moien (c1260), Middle
French, French moyen (c1330)) < classical Latin medinus (see MEDIAN
a.2). Cf. Spanish mediano (1070), Occitan mejan (13th cent.), Italian mezzano
(14th cent.), Portuguese mediano (17th cent.). Cf. MESNE a. and MOYEN a.
Among parallel senses of the word in Old and Middle French are: situated in
the middle (first half of the 12th cent.; cf. sense 1a), moderate or middling
in size or age (c1260; cf. sense 7a), ordinary, mediocre (1273; cf. senses
7b, 7c), of a number in a proportion: that is a mean (1377; cf. sense 8a), of
a verb: middle (1530; cf. sense 5).]
The solution adopted is etymological, placing at MEAN a. those

senses which closely parallel those of the Anglo-Norman and Old and
Middle French words, while placing at MEAN a. the main group of
senses which can be put under the general heading inferior in rank or
66
Philip Durkin
quality; unpleasant, citing as support for this the similar pejoration

shown by cognates in other West Germanic languages, and also the
apparent precursor sense of ecclesiastical orders: minor, inferior in
degree shown by gemne in Old English. That this solution is a
pragmatic one is however acknowledged by the explicit statement
The uses in branch II might be referred almost equally well to the
native or to the foreign adjective; the truth is probably that the
meanings of two originally quite distinct words have merged.
Thus far, the question has been where to assign in the larger
structure what are nonetheless fairly coherent individual senses. The
situation becomes more difficult still where the assignment of
individual quotations to a particular sense is doubtful, and here
recourse must be made to a note at the sense in question drawing
attention to the difficulty:
mean a., OED3, sense 7c:
c. Moderate in amount, or in degree of excellence; tolerable, mediocre. Later
used only disparagingly (and so in some cases not readily distinguished from
MEAN a.1). Obs.
a1500 (a1460) Towneley Plays 12 My wynnyngis ar bot meyn, No wonder if
that I be leyn. 1516 R. FABYAN New Chron. Eng. (1811) VI. cxciv. 197 She
was..but of meane fayrenesse as other women were. 1546 Certificates
Commissioners County of York (1895) II. 213 Of honest qualities and
condicions, and meane lerenyng. 1551 R. ROBINSON tr. T. More Vtopia II.
sig. Kivv, The resydewe they sell at reasonable and meane price. 1580 J.
LYLY Euphues & his Eng. in Euphues (new ed.) f. 43v, Let thy apparell be
but meane, neyther too braue.., nor to base. 1600 P. HOLLAND tr. Livy
Rom. Hist. XLII. lxvi. 1155 The Consull contenting himselfe with a meane
good hand..retired with his forces into the campe. 1604 E. GRIMESTON tr.
J. de Acosta Nat. & Morall Hist. Indies IV. xxxiii. 299 In that countrie it is
but a meane wealth. a1628 J. PRESTON New Covenant (1634) 24 It is better
for thee..to have meane gifts, than to have high gifts. 1719 D. DEFOE
Farther Adventures Robinson Crusoe 41 My own House..where I should see
there had been but mean Improvements.
This is perhaps the most frustrating situation of all for the

lexicographer, but is also perhaps the most interesting indicator of an
area for further study by the specialist in historical semantics.
Of fderan and eamas:

avuncularity in Old English
Andreas Fischer
We begin with two aspects of Old English kinship terminology and
Anglo-Saxon family structure. It is a well-known fact that the kinship
terminology of Old English, like that of other early Germanic dialects,
is of the so-called bifurcate-collateral type, which tends to have
different words for maternal and paternal relatives: thus we have fadu
fathers sister and modrige mothers sister, fdera fathers
brother and eam mothers brother.1 It is equally well known that in
early Germanic society families are held to have been of the
patrilineal extended type, defined by Anderson as a residential unit
composed of the males of a paternal lineage, their wives, and the
unmarried females begotten by the members.2 When women married,
they left this residential unit and joined that of their husbands. In
families of this type, maternal uncles (in contrast to paternal ones),
had a very special role: a woman who married out was potentially
isolated, and if her husbands family for some reason turned against
her or her children she depended on the help of her nearest male
relative, i.e. her brother. This mothers brother was thus expected to
be a protector of his sister and her children, and there was a special
bond of mutual obligation and affection between a maternal uncle
(eam, avunculus) and his nieces and especially nephews. The
name, in modern scholarship, for this phenomenon is avuncularity.3
1
The same goes for Latin, where we find amita fathers sister, matertera mothers
sister, patruus fathers brother and avunculus mothers brother. The Old English
words are often, but not always, used as translations of the Latin ones.
2
R. T. Anderson, Changing kinship in Europe, Kroeber Anthropological Society
Papers, 28 (1963), 1-48, 4.
3
Alexander Callander Murray, Germanic Kinship Structure: Studies in Law and
Society in Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, Studies and Texts 65, Toronto:
Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1983, pp. 60-64; S. Graf von Pfeil,
Avunkulat, Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde, Vol. 1, Berlin and New
York: Walter de Gruyter, 1973, pp. 525-27.
68
Andreas Fischer
Avuncularity, like so many features attributed to early Germanic

culture and society, is based on a passage in Tacituss Germania,4 but
its actual importance is a matter of doubt: there are literary examples
showing the special position of the maternal uncle, but none of the
surviving laws document it. Pfeil thus concludes his discussion by
stating that the special position of the mothers brother was probably a
social reality, but had no legal basis.5
The two phenomena just sketched, bifurcate-collateral kinship
terminology on the one hand and avuncularity on the other, are linked,
if only loosely. Different terms for paternal and maternal relatives
may, but need not, mean that these relatives play different roles in the
extended family. As a concept, avuncularity is of course more tangible
when it goes together with a special word for the maternal uncle, but it
does not depend on it. This loose connection between kinship
terminology and avuncularity could be re-phrased in the form of two
questions: Do societies that have avuncularity always (or: usually)
have a special word for the maternal uncle, and is the word for
maternal uncle more prominent in these societies than the word for
paternal uncle?
The first question can only be answered through a comparative
study of kinship systems and kinship terminology in different
societies.6 It is, therefore, the second question which I shall address in
this paper, by investigating the way in which the two words fdera
paternal uncle and eam maternal uncle are used in Old English
texts.7
Josef Lindauer (trans. and ed.), Cornelius Tacitus: Germania / Bericht ber
Germanien: lateinisch und deutsch, Mnchen: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 1975.
5
Pfeil, op. cit., p. 526.
6
See, for example, William A. Foley, Kinship, Anthropological Linguistics: An
Introduction, Language in Society 24, Oxford and Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell,
1997, pp. 131-49.
7
On kinship in Anglo-Saxon England and kinship terminology in Old English see, for
example, Andreas Fischer, Notes on kinship terminology in the history of English,
in Katja Lenz and Ruth Mhlig (eds.), Of dyuersitie & chaunge of language: Essays
Presented to Manfred Grlach on the Occasion of his 65th Birthday, Anglistische
Forschungen 308, Heidelberg: C. Winter, 2002, pp. 115-28; Lorraine Lancaster,
Kinship in Anglo-Saxon society, British Journal of Sociology, 9 (1958), 230-50,
359-77; H. R. Loyn, Kinship in Anglo-Saxon England, Anglo-Saxon England, 3
(1974), 197-209.
Of fderan and eamas
69
Healey and Venezkys Microfiche Concordance8 and the entries

for the two words in the Dictionary of Old English (henceforth DOE)9
reveal that fdera and eam appear to have been used with about equal
frequency: according to the DOE the corpus of surviving Old English
texts contains ca. 40 occurrences of the former and ca. 45 of the
latter. Numbers are not everything, however, and it is necessary to
examine the evidence in more detail. I shall do this by looking at some
representative texts, moving from simple cases (seen from the point of
view of the question to be studied) to more complex ones.
A very simple case is constituted by glossaries, which are
essentially lists of Latin words with Old English translation
equivalents. Such glossaries document Old English lexis, but they do
not reveal much, if anything, about life in Anglo-Saxon England. Two
of these glossaries, Antwerp Glossary 610 and lfrics Glossary11
contain lists of kinship terms with fdera as a translation of patruus
and eam as a translation of avunculus.
Unlike the glossaries, the Old English Orosius12 is a coherent
text, but, the Latin original being a history of the world written by a
Spaniard in the early 5th century, it is not concerned with AngloSaxon England either. If we look at its kinship terminology, then we
do so mainly to check how successfully the translator has rendered the
wording and the meaning of the Latin text. The Orosius contains two
examples of fdera and eleven examples of eam. While the two
examples of fdera mean fathers brother, eam does not consistenly
render Latin avunculus maternal uncle, but also occurs in places
where the Latin has either no equivalent or the term avus
grandfather; the immediate source [of these problematic instances]
may be either a gloss or commentary, or a Latin MS with a scribal
error, though carelessness or deliberate emendation on the part of the
8
Antonette diPaolo Healey and Richard L. Venezky, A Microfiche Concordance to

Old English, Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1980.
9
Angus Cameron et al., Dictionary of Old English, Toronto: Pontifical Institute of
Mediaeval Studies, 1986- .
10
L. Kindschi, The Latin-Old English Glossaries in Plantin-Moretus MS. 32 and
British Museum MS. Additional 32246, Stanford diss., 1955.
11
Julius Zupitza (ed.), lfrics Grammatik und Glossar, Sammlung englischer
Denkmler in kritischen Ausgaben 1, Berlin: Weidmannsche Buchhandlung, 1880.
12
Janet Bately (ed.), The Old English Orosius, Early English Text Society ss 6,
London: Oxford University Press, 1982.
70
Andreas Fischer
translator cannot be ruled out (DOE s.v. eam 2). It is risky to draw
conclusions from so little evidence, but the inconsistent use of eam in
the Old English Orosius may indicate that it was a semantically less
stable word than fdera. This difference in semantic stability may be
connected with the etymology of the two words: Old English fdera
is derived from fder (compare Latin patruus < pater), i.e. a family
member of the same generation, whereas eam (< West Germanic
*awa-heim-) contains *awa grandfather (compare Latin avunculus <
avus grandfather), i.e. a member of the generation above.13 I will
come back to this point at the end of my paper.
We now turn to two texts concerned with matters Anglo-Saxon,
namely Bedes Historia Ecclesiastica and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.
Authors of fact-based, historical texts like these are, of course,
constrained by the reality they record. If a persons paternal, rather
than maternal, uncle dies, for example, they will record this fact
irrespective of the lesser role the fdera may have played in AngloSaxon society in general. At the same time it must be remembered that
a chronicler or historian is free, within certain limits at least, to refer
to a person, variously, as As son, Bs father, Cs husband, Ds
fdera, Es eam, Fs nephew, Gs cousin, and so on, depending on the
relationship the writer wants to foreground. Differences in the use of
words like fdera and eam, therefore, may be attributed to cultural or
textual rather than strictly historical factors. Bedes Historia
Ecclesiastica14 only contains one instance of eam, translating
avunculus (hyre eames sunu < filius auunculi sui) and two instances of
fdera translating patruus (his fderan sunu < filius patrui eius, wi
his fdran < contra [...] patruum suum).15 In the Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle, however, eleven annals contain references to an uncle. I
quote the respective passages from Swantons translation,16 but I have
13
Avunculus literally means little grandfather.

Thomas Miller (ed.), The Old English Version of Bedes Ecclesiastical History of
the English People, 4 vols., Early English Text Society os 95 and 96, 110 and 11,
London: Oxford University Press, 1890-98.
15
The three passages are to be found, respectively, in book V, ch. 17 (Miller, op. cit.,
p. 452, l. 22), book III, ch. 1 (ibid., p. 152, l. 6) and book III, ch. 18 (ibid., p. 236, ll.
9-10).
16
M. J. Swanton (trans. and ed.), The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, London: J. M. Dent,
1996. Swantons translation follows the layout of the comparative edition by Earle
and Plummer (p. xxx). I have adopted his method of giving the scribal manuscript
14
Of fderan and eamas
71
added the actual words used in the Old English annals from Earle and
Plummers edition:17
E 737 Here [...] King Ceolwulf received Peters tonsure; and granted his
kingdom to Eadberht, the son of his paternal uncle [fderan sunu];
[...].18
A 901 [899] Then thelwold, his fathers [Alfreds] brothers son
[fderan sunu] rode and seized the manor at Wimborne and at
Twinham without leave of the king [Edward] and his councillors.19
D 1049 [1048] Here [...] Harald, the paternal uncle [fdera] of Magnus,
went to Norway after Magnus was dead [...].20
C 1046 [1049] But Harold, his relative [mg], fetched [Earl Beorn]
from there and led [him] to Winchester and there buried [him] with
King Cnut, his uncle [eam].21
D 1050 [1049] [...] then Earl Swein came with treachery, asked Earl
Beorn, who was his uncles son [eames sunu], [...]22
D 1050 [1049] He [Beorn] was [...] interred with King Cnut, his uncle
[eam].23
E 1066 [T]he king gave to St Peter and him [Leofric, abbot of
Peterborough] the abbacy in Burton, and that of Coventry which the earl
Leofric, who was his uncle [eam], had made earlier, and that of
Crowland and that of Thorney.24
dating first and, where necessary, the adjusted dating afterwards, in square brackets
(p. xvi).
17
John Earle and Charles Plummer (eds.), Two of the Saxon Chronicles Parallel. A
revised text, edited, with introduction, notes, appendices and glossary by Charles
Plummer on the basis of an edition by John Earle, 2 vols., Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1892-99. I have normalised spelling and morphology.
18
Swanton, op. cit., p. 45.
19
Ibid., p. 92, also p. 93 [D]. Reference is to a conflict between the two cousins
thelwold and Edward, Edward being the son of King Alfred and thelwold the son
of Alfreds elder brother and predecessor thelred I.
20
Ibid., p. 167.
21
Ibid., p.168, also p. 171 [E].
22
Ibid., p. 169.
23
Ibid., p. 170.
24
Ibid., p. 198.
72
Andreas Fischer
D 1079 Here Robert, the son of king William [I], ran from his father to
his uncle [eam] Robert in Flanders, because his father would not let him
govern his earldom in Normandy [...].25
E 1094 Also in this year the Scots trapped and killed Duncan [II], their
king, and afterwards for a second time took Donald [Donald Bn], his
paternal uncle [fdera], as their king, through whose instruction and
instigation he was betrayed to death.26
E 1126 In this same year the king [Henry I] had his brother Robert
taken from the bishop Roger of Salisbury, and committed him to his son
Robert earl of Gloucester, and had him led to Bristol and there put in the
castle. That was all done through the advice of his daughter [Maud] and
through her uncle [eam], David, the king of Scots [brother-in-law of
Henry I].27
E 1137 This year the king Stephen went across the sea to Normandy,
and was received there because they imagined that he would be just like
the uncle [eam, i.e. Henry I] was, and because he still had his treasury;
but he distributed and scattered it stupidly.28
All instances, four of fdera and seven of eam, are motivated by

historical facts and not, it seems, by cultural preference or textual
factors.29 When, for example, earl Beorns eam is mentioned in the
annals for the year 1049 (D 1050), this is not because there is special
emphasis on the relationship between nephew and maternal uncle, but
because that uncle, Cnut, had been king. Nevertheless, two passages
quoted may perhaps be seen in the light of avuncularity and its
opposite, i.e. a hostile relationship between paternal uncle and
nephew. In the first (D 1079) Robert, son of king William I, runs away
from his father and seeks refuge with his eam (note that uncle and
25
Ibid., pp. 213-14.

Ibid., p. 230.
27
Ibid., p. 256.
28
Ibid., p. 263.
29
The explicit complex expressions fderan sunu (E 737, A 901) and eames sunu (D
1050) may have been chosen because single-word alternatives such as nefa may have
been semantically ambiguous. On the meaning of nefa in Old English charters see
Kathryn A. Lowe, Never say nefa again: problems of translation in Old English
charters, Neuphilologische Mitteilungen, 94 (1993), 27-35.
26
Of fderan and eamas
73
nephew here even have the same name!), while in the second (E 1094)
Duncan II of Scotland is betrayed by his fdera Donald Bn. It should
be remembered, however, that both passages refer to events in the
11th century, whereas avuncularity has been postulated for early
Germanic society.
I will devote the rest of this paper to the poetry, which yields two
examples of fdera (in Genesis) and three of eam (two in Beowulf,
one in Riddle 46).30 The two occurrences of fdera in Genesis (ll.
1900 and 2080) are unremarkable. Reference in both cases is to
Abraham and to Lot, who according to Genesis 12.27 and 14.12 are
(paternal) uncle and nephew. In ll. 1900-01 Abraham says, stressing
the mutuality of their blood-relationship: Ic eom fdera in /
sibgebyrdum, u min suhterga [I am your paternal uncle / through
blood-relationship, you are my nephew]31 and in l. 2089 Abraham is
referred to as fdera Lothes.
The two instances of eam in Beowulf (ll. 889 and 1117) are much
more interesting with regard to the way family relationships are
referred to. I begin with the second, from the so-called Finn episode,
which the scop recites in Heorot during the festivities following
Beowulfs victory over Grendel (Beowulf ll. 1063/68-1159).
Hildeburh, a woman from the tribe of the (Half-)Danes has been given
in marriage to Finn, leader of another tribe, the Frisians. On the
occasion of a visit by her brother Hnf and his men, enmity breaks
out and both Hildeburhs son and her brother, the boys eam, are
killed. Later in the story, the Danes, now led by a man called Hengest,
take revenge, kill Finn and finally take Hildeburh, who has lost her
husband, her son and her brother, back to her own tribe. The passage
in question describes the burning of Hildeburhs sons and Hnfs
bodies:
30
Genesis is quoted from George Philip Krapp (ed.), The Junius Manuscript, The
Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records: A Collective Edition I, New York: Columbia
University Press, 1936, Beowulf from Fr. Klaeber (ed.), Beowulf and the Fight at
Finnsburg, 3rd edition with First and Second Supplements, Lexington, Massachusetts:
D. C. Heath and Company, 1950, Riddle 46 from George Philip Krapp and Elliott van
Kirk Dobbie (eds.), The Exeter Book, The Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records: A Collective
Edition III, New York: Columbia University Press, 1936.
31
My translation.
74
Andreas Fischer
Het a Hildeburh t Hnfes ade
selfre sunu sweolode befstan,
banfatu brnan, ond on bl don
eame [emended, the MS. has earme] on eaxle. (ll. 1114-1117)
[Then Hildeburh commanded at Hnfs pyre
that her own son be consigned to the flames
to be burnt, flesh and bone, placed on the pyre
at his uncles shoulder;]32
Hildeburhs situation is a prototypical example of a young woman in a

society which has a family organisation of the patrilineal extended
type. She has been married into a tribe which is not her own, and both
she and her son might have to rely on her brothers (his maternal
uncles) support. Part of the tragedy of the Finn story lies in the fact
that it is the visit of that very uncle which causes, or contributes to, the
boys, his uncles and his fathers death. Note that eam in this passage
is emended from earm,33 but it is undoubtedly the word intended by
the Beowulf poet: the mentioning of eam here evokes what might be
called avuncularity ex negativo: maternal uncle and nephew are
united, but only in death, and the sister / mother is left without her
brother and her son.
The other passage in Beowulf where the word eam occurs is
entirely different in nature. It is also part of a so-called digression, a
story told by one of Hrothgars men during the ride back from
Grendels mere (Beowulf ll. 875-900). Reference is made to Sigemund
and his deeds, his distant voyages / obscure, unknown to all the sons
of men, / his feuds and crimes except for Fitela, / when of such
things he wished to speak to him, / uncle to nephew for always they
were, / in every combat, companions at need;:34
[...] buton Fitela mid hine,
onne he swulces hwt secgan wolde,
eam his nefan, swa hie a wron
t nia gehwam nydgesteallan; (ll. 879-882)
32
R. M. Liuzza (trans.), Beowulf: A New Verse Translation, Peterborough, Ontario:

Broadview Press, 2000, p. 87.
33
The obviously erroneous earme arm in the manuscript may have been prompted
by eaxle shoulder in the same line.
34
Liuzza, op. cit., p. 80.
Of fderan and eamas
75
In this passage the close relationship between Sigemund (l. 875) and
Fitela (l. 879) is emphasized twice: they are called nydgesteallan
friends in need and they are explicity referred to as eam and nefa.35
This may not be the whole story, however. In his note, Klaeber points
out that according to the version of the story in the Vlsungasaga,
Sinfjtli (Fitela) is not only Sigmundrs (Sigemunds) nephew, but
through incest also his son: The fact that Fitela is referred to as
Sigemunds nefa only (881), might perhaps be held to betoken
Sigemunds own ignorance of their true relation, or it may be
attributed to the Christian authors desire to suppress that morally
revolting motive.36 There is even a third possibility, namely that the
poet did not mean to suppress anything, but used eam and nefa as
darkly ironic references to incest. This interpretation is not as farfetched as one might think when one looks at the third and last
instance of eam in poetry, in Riddle 46:
Wer st t wine mid his wifum twam
ond his twegen suno ond his twa dohtor,
swase gesweostor, and hyra suno twegen,
freolico frumbearn; fder ws r inne
ara elinga ghwres mid,
eam ond nefa. Ealra wron fife
eorla ond idesa insittendra.37
[A man was sitting at wine with his two wives
and his two sons and his two daughters,
gracious sisters, and their two sons,
freeborn and firstborn children. The father of each of these
noble youths was in there with them,
uncle and nephew. There were in all five
men and women sitting within.38]
The solution of this riddle, by general consent, is Lots family, Lots

two wives being his own daughters. According to the story told in
35
Pfeil, op. cit., p. 526, mentions this passage as one of the literary examples which
document avuncularity.
36
Klaeber, op. cit., p. 159 (Klaebers emphasis).
37
Krapp and Dobbie, op. cit., p. 205.
38
S. A. J. Bradley, Anglo-Saxon Poetry: An Anthology of Old English Poems in Prose
Translation, London: Dent, 1982, p. 380.
76
Andreas Fischer
Genesis 19:30-38, Lot, having left Sodom before its destruction, fled
into the mountains with his daughters, who subsequently had a son
each by him through incest.39 This short text being a riddle, the phrase
eam ond nefa is clearly used as a means to mystify the reader and may
be decoded in two ways. As Williamson points out in his commentary,
both Lots daughters and sons are all by definition siblings. Taking
one son as Ego 1, his mothers brother (eam) is the other son or Ego 2.
If each son is eam to the other, then each must also be nefa, as that is
the reciprocal relation (son of egos sister).40 However, since Lots
sons, as sons of his daughters, are also his grandsons, the phrase eam
ond nefa may also conjure up eam meaning grandfather and nefa
meaning grandson.41 However eam and nefa may be understood in
this passage, it is clear that the expression does not evoke the positive
relation of avuncularity, but something darker and altogether less
wholesome.
The question asked at the beginning of this paper was whether in
societies that have avuncularity the word for maternal uncle is more
prominent than the word for paternal uncle, or, more specifically,
whether in the surviving Old English text eam is used more frequently
and/or more prominently than fder. The answer, to a large extent, is
no: Healey and Venezkys Microfiche Concordance and the respective
entries in the DOE show that fdera and eam are about equally
frequent in the surviving corpus of Old English and my study of some
selected, representative texts has revealed hardly any really unusual
occurrences of the two terms in question, fdera and, especially, eam.
The big exception are the three examples from Beowulf and Riddle 46:
not only are they the only three passages in the whole corpus that
emphasize the role of the eam and the special relationship between
eam and nefa, but they do so in a peculiar, inverted way: in the Finn
episode in Beowulf, Hnf and his nefa are united (only) in death and
in the other two examples there are intimations of an unnatural form
of avuncularity. The evidence, admittedly, is scanty, but it suggests
39
Lots wife, it will be recalled, had looked back upon the destruction of Sodom and
had been turned into a pillar of salt (Genesis 19:26). Note that the incest in Genesis 19
happens between father and daughters, whereas the incest in the Vlsungasaga
happens between brother and sister.
40
Craig Williamson (ed.), The Old English Riddles of the Exeter Book, Chapel Hill:
University of North Carolina Press, 1977, pp. 283-84.
41
See my remark, above, on the etymology of eam and note 29 on nefa.
Of fderan and eamas
77
that in the cultural memory of the Anglo-Saxons represented by Old

English poetry avuncularity lingered on as a negative rather than a
positive concept.
$ho:fian{*}/vK2: a LAEME-based lexical

study1
Roger Lass & Margaret Laing
As well as its primary function as the basis for a linguistic atlas, the
LAEME database can serve as a quarry for many other kinds of
historical linguistic research. In a volume honouring Christian Kay, a
scholar who appreciates more than most both the tribulations and the
rewards of long-term and large-scale scholarly enterprises, we offer
this extract from ours. In recognition of her thesaurean interests and
expertise, we have chosen to illustrate LAEMEs utility as a source for
historical lexicography and semantics. The paper is designed to show,
in a modest way, how the Protean nature of the LAEME database
enables interdisciplinary investigations: our sources are the LAEME
Corpus of Tagged Texts and the Etymological Corpus and the Corpus
of Changes2.
1. The data
1.1. The following quotations from the LAEME corpus contain a verb
which we have lemmatised as $ho:fian{*}/vK23 equivalent to MED
1
LAEME = Margaret Laing and Roger Lass, in preparation, A Linguistic Atlas of

Early Middle English. This is one of the two major linguistic atlas projects being
undertaken at the Institute for Historical Dialectology, University of Edinburgh. The
other is Keith Williamson, in preparation, A Linguistic Atlas of Older Scots (cf. also
the closely related Corpus of Scottish Correspondence, Anneli Meurman-Solin,
University of Helsinki). The work of IHD is being supported by funding from AHRB
for which we are very grateful. We are also grateful to Keith Williamson for very
useful comments on this paper.
2
For descriptions of the different corpora (still in preparation) and the links between
them see M. Laing and R. Lass, forthcoming, Early middle English dialectology:
problems and prospects, in A. van Kemenade and B. Los (eds.), Handbook of the
History of English. Oxford: Blackwell.
3
Our lemmatisations in the present LAEME-internal format have the following
patterns. $ introduces the item being identified. The identifier may belong to a number
of types. In this case the unattested OE item is qualified by the usual asterisk; though
in this format, for internal computational reasons, it follows the item and is placed in
braces. The / divides the lexical element of the label from any identifying
80
Lass & Laing
hven v. The semantic range covered by this word is complex: it

appears to be a verb with both locative and motional components
referring to air, or sea or land. MED divides the senses of hven v.
into three main clusters. The first involves suspension, hovering,
being poised and other stationary or locational properties. The second,
not entirely distinct, involves waiting, expectation, residing and
standing still. The third is motional, consisting of the senses move
onward, proceed, go, ride. This paper attempts to reassess these
clusters at a finer level of semantic resolution. Our lemma choice, an
unattested Old English Class II weak verb, is also suggested as a
possible etymon by OED and MED. This raises some interesting
historical questions. We will attempt first to establish the shades of
meaning in this verbs usage within the LAEME corpus; then we will
examine its possible etymology, and relation to an interesting class of
Old English deverbal formations.
We will present as examples all instances of this verb occurring in the
LAEME corpus so far. Our first three appear in London, British
Library, Arundel 292: The Bestiary,4 which dates probably from the
last quarter of the thirteenth century and has been assigned to West
Norfolk. We will translate each quoted passage leaving our verb in its
original form for reference. In each case we will discuss its possible
meaning in relation to MEDs definitions for these particular passages
and to what our independent readings elicit.
1.2. Our first quotation (fol. 4v) comes from a passage that describes
the eagle seeking out and circling above a well before ascending
through the planetary spheres to the heaven.
A elle he seke at springe ai . boe bi nigt a
bi dai . er-ouer he flege . a up he te . til-at he e heue
ne se . urg skies sexe a seuene . til he cume to heuene .
So rigt so he cunne . houe in e sunne . e sunne si
grammatical information: here, v = verb, K2 = class II weak.

4
See C. Brown and R.H. Robbins (eds.), Index of Middle English Verse, New York:
Columbia University Press: 1943, 3413. For editions see J. Hall (ed.), Selections from
Early Middle English 1130-1250, 2 vols., Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1920: 1, XXI, 2,
pp. 579-626, J.A.W. Bennett, G.V. Smithers and N. Davis (eds.), Early Middle
English Verse and Prose, 2nd. edn., Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968: XII, R. Morris,
An Old English Miscellany, EETS OS 49, London: Trbner, 1872, pp. 1-25.
A LAEME-based lexical study
81
de al his fligt . a oc it make his egen brigt . Hise feres

fallen for e hete . a he dun mide to e ete . Falle in at
elle grund . er he urde heil a sund .
A well he seeks that always springs both night and day. He flies over it
and up he rises until he sees the heaven, through the sixth and seventh
spheres5 until he comes to heaven. As straight as he can [he] houe
in(to) the sun. The sun burns up his wings and also it makes his eyes
bright. His feathers fall because of the heat and he [falls] down with
them to the wet. He falls into the bottom of the well where he becomes
whole and sound.
The citation of this passage in MED comes under the following

list of definitions: hven v. 1. (a) To remain suspended in the air; of
birds: hover; be poised high in the air, soar (cf. also OED s.v. Hove,
v.1, sense 1). This choice of possible meanings for houe does not
suggest directional motion; we are forced into a translation of the type
soars/hovers in the sun. Once the sun has burnt the eagles flight
(i.e. wings) his feathers fall, causing him also to fall to the earth. The
obvious picture given by this contrast is two contrary directional
motions like Icarus, the eagle flies too high (albeit deliberately)
and suffers a consequent fall. The question is, does the verb houe
indicate part of the upward journey? It is true that the eagles ascent
through the sixth and seventh skies to the heaven has already
occurred. He could be in a position to remain suspended in the air in
the burning heat of the sun. But what are we to do with the
introductory clause of our passage So rigt so he cunne? The simplest
translation for this is as straight/directly as he can which would
Here we follow MEDs definition s.v. sk (e n. 1, (b) a sphere of the celestial realm.
This interpretation is similar to that of Hall (op.cit., p. 597) whose note explains that
he flies through seven to the highest eighth, heaven, following an astronomical
definition from the South English Legendary. Bennett (in Bennett, Smithers and Davis
op. cit., p. 356) takes a different view. He notes that cosmologically speaking the sun
was supposed to be in the fourth sphere. This leads him to gloss skies as clouds and
he then takes sexe a seuene as probably a mere tag, which he takes to mean
whatever clouds may chance to come his way. This explanation takes no account of
the exegesis in the Significatio following the allegory. Here it states quite clearly that
the sun in the context of the story represents God and therefore His rightful location
would be above the highest celestial sphere.
82
Lass & Laing
imply continued linear motion6; in other words "in" may be illative not
locative in this context and houe would then be a verb of motion
implying rising toward a goal.
1.3. The next two passages (fol. 8r) concern the whale. The first
describes the whale tricking fish into becoming his prey.
is fis at is vn
ride . anne him7 hungre he gape ide . Vt of
his rote it smit an onde . e setteste ing at is
o londe . er-fore ore fisses to him dragen . an he it
felen he aren fagen . he cumen a houen in his mu .
of his sike he arn uncu . is cete anne his chaueles lu
ke . ise fisses alle in suke .
This fish that is monstrous, when he is hungry he gapes wide. Out of
his throat there issues a breath, the sweetest thing that is on land.
Therefore other fishes are attracted to him. When they sense it they are
glad. They come and houen in(to) his mouth and of his trickery are
unaware. This whale then locks his jaws, and sucks in all these fishes.
MED places this citation in the following category: hven v. 2.

(b) to remain, stay, linger. Although the context suggests that these
definitions are indeed apposite8, the verb here is arguably also
ambiguous with respect to illative and locative senses. Part of the
interpretation depends on how the sequence come and houen in is
to be bracketed. The question is whether the motional component
inheres entirely in the verb come with houen providing a
subsequent locative element, or whether come and houen
together constitute an illative semantic unit. Which of the following
forms should our interpretation take: [come and [houen in]] or [[come
and houen] in(to)]? The MED classification appears to be
semantically too tightly specified, though evidently the fish have
6
Note that the glossary to Bennett et al. s.v. rilt translates rigt here as straight in
front. This appears to take no note of so...so and denies the possibility of forward
motion which the construction most naturally implies.
7
MS him him
8
Though there seems no reason in principle why it could not equally well have been
listed in MED s.v. hven v. 1. (c) to float; see the next quotation.
83
stopped moving of their own volition by the time they are sucked
from the whales mouth into his gullet. However, not all contexts are
ambiguous. Our verb is used in connection with the whale a little later
in a passage describing how he behaves when the sea is upset by
storms. This usage strongly reinforces the claim for a locative
component.
is fis une i e se-grund .
a liue er eure heil a sund . til it cume e time . at storm
stire al e se . anne sumer a inter innen . ne mai it unen
er-inne . So droui is te sees grund . ne mai he unen er at
stund . oc stire up a houe stille . iles ar eder is so ille .
This fish dwells on the seabed and lives there ever whole and sound,
till the time comes that a storm stirs up the sea. When summer and
winter struggle it may not remain there. So troubled is the seabed that
he cannot stay there at that time, but moves up and houe still, while
the weather there is so ill.
In MED, this citation is listed s.v. hven v. 1. (c) to float; also,

rise to the surface of the water. The following stille makes it clear that
float is the correct interpretation. The deliberate contrast of stire up
and houe stille accentuates the distinction in type between the two
verbs here.
1.4. Our next set of quotations comes from Cambridge, Corpus Christi
College 145 (C), a copy of the South English Legendary9, dating
probably from the first quarter of the fourteenth century and placed in
NW Berks.
1.4.1. The first passage (fol. 72v) is from the life of St Brendan10. The
story describes how seafarers mistake the whale for an island and go
ashore. They light a fire and begin to heat a cauldron whereupon the
whale starts to move and they quickly depart. Our passage tells of
their return visit to the whale.
9
C. dEvelyn and A.J. Mill (eds.), The South English Legendary, EETS OS 235,
London: Oxford University Press, 1956.
10
See IMEV 2868, M. Grlach, The Textual Tradition of the South English
Legendary, Leeds Texts and Monographs 6, Leeds: The University of Leeds School
84
Lass & Laing

is holymen wende uor . and godes grace nome
So at to e grete viss . wel sone sue hicome .
And alond ar hi houede . hor caudron hy fonde ere
As hi leuede uppon is rug . of an oer lere
Louerd crist t such abest . houi ssolde so stille
And soffri men er-uppe gon . and don al hore wille .
These holy men went forth and had gods grace, so that to the great fish
they came very soon afterwards. And on land where they houede, their
cauldron they found there as they had left [it] upon his back the
previous year. Lord Christ that such a beast should houi so still and
suffer men to go upon him and do all their will.
MED does not cite this quotation from the C text. Instead it uses
the version of St Brendan in Oxford Bodleian Library, Laud Misc 108
(L)11. For LAEME the sample that has been tagged from L does not
include the Brendan story. The two versions differ slightly, affecting
the sense of the first example of our verb. The L text is quoted in
MED as follows: SLeg.Brendan (Ld) 373: To is grete fischse .. huy
come, at houede ase it were a lond. Ibid. 375: Louerd crist, at swch
a best scholde houi so stille!12 Both these contexts indicate a meaning
that matches the locative sense (float) in The Bestiary.
The first instance in the C text above is, however, rather different.
What does it mean? The context, alond, is something we have not met
before. Whatever it means here, it cannot be either soar or float.
The sequence of events is that first the holy men approach the whaleisland, then they land on it and then they find their cauldron: hi come
... hi houede ... hy fonde. houede appears to mean landed or came
of English, 1974, 167-68, dEvelyn and Mill, op.cit., pp. 180-204.
11
C. Horstmann (ed.), The Early South English Legendary, EETS OS 87, London:
Trbner, 1887, pp. 220-40.
12
Note that this passage is on fol. 106r of L. There are three other early 14th-century
versions of SEL samples from which will in due course also be added to the LAEME
corpus: Oxford Bodleian Library, Ashmole 43 (A), London, British Library, Egerton
2891 (E) and Harley 2277 (H). For the first citation in this passage, A, E and H all
have: As alond t houede. For the second citation A has: houy scholde so stille but E
and H lack our verb here. E has: hym scholde holde so stille; H has: scholde beo so
stille. All these readings clearly carry the locative sense as does a further example (in
L only) a few lines further on: And eueuere [sic] houede is muche fichs = stille so
eny ston. A, C, E and H all have simply was in this line.
85
ashore and thus contains both motional and locative components, i.e.
it is allative13. The second occurrence (as in the L version) is quite
clearly consonant with the established meaning float.
1.4.2. Our next example (C fols. 92r-v) occurs in the Life of St John
the Baptist14. The Baptists head has been hidden and the secret of its
location lost. The Baptist wishes his head to be found and he comes to
the Abbot Marcel in a dream and tells him where to find it.
is godeman sone aros him up . a ne abod nolt forte day

He openede is celle dore . a biheld aboute
A sterre he fond biuore e dore. houi ere-wi-oute .
e cleroste t milte be[o] .
[...]
For wende e sterre forte he com . ouer ulke place .
er is holy heued lay . oru oure louerdes grace .
o he com ouer ulke place . he houede ere astonde
This good man soon arose and did not wait until day. He opened his
cell door and looked about. He saw a star houi there outside the door,
the brightest that could be. [...] Forth went the star until it came over
that same place where this holy head lay, through our Lords grace.
When it come over that same place it houede there a while.
Another version of the same text is found in L, fols. 33v-34r15:

we include this because it gives a grammatical form of the verb not
found in the other examples16.
is guode man a-ros up sone and ne a-bod noult forto day
Ake he openede is celle-dore and bi-heold a-boute
13
Though it is arguable that houede here refers back to the previous sojourn of the
holy men on the back of the fish. We have translated the verb leuede as a pluperfect
because it unambiguously refers back to the abandonment of the cauldron the
previous year. The verb houede could also have pluperfect sense: and on land where
they had stayed they found their cauldron as they had left it. In this case houede
would have to be categorised with the senses in MED s.v. hven v. 2. (b) to remain,
stay, linger.
14
IMEV 2945, Grlach, op. cit., p. 176, dEvelyn and Mill, op.cit., pp. 241-46.
15
Horstmann, op.cit., pp. 29-33.
16
Note that versions A, E and H match Cs text in this example.
86
Lass & Laing

Ane steorre he fond bi-fore e dore houinde are-with-oute
e clereste steorre at milhte beo
[...]
Forth wende e steorre forto huy comen ouer at-ilke place
are his holie heue lay oru ore louerdes grace
o heo cam ouer ulke place heo houede are ane stounde
MED lists only the second citation from the L version and places
it under sense 1. (a) To remain suspended in the air. These usages
relating to the star seem unproblematic. It is floating in the air,
apparently at eye level (bi-fore e dore). First it is still, waiting for
the abbot, and then in motion (wende), as a guide to the location of the
head, then still again (houede), marking the spot. This type of usage
might be seen to form the basis for assigning the related senses of
soaring in air or floating in water.
1.4.3. Our next example (Corpus fol. 87r) occurs in a miracle story of
the Virgin Mary (the Miracle of Sir Emmery)17, told as part of the life
of St Theophilus. The tale concerns a rich man fallen on hard times.
The Devil tempts him with a promise of a return to his former wealth,
and in exchange requires the knight to bring his wife to meet him. The
knight, not realising it is the Devil, is delighted with the riches he has
regained and duly brings his wife to meet his benefactor. On the way
the wife (who is in ignorance of the agreement) asks to stop at Our
Ladys Chapel to pray. Here, unknown to the knight, Our Lady
changes places with his wife and in her likeness goes with him to meet
the Devil.
Ac o e deuel oure leuedi sei . he gan to grede heie
False trichour he sede to e knilt . wy bi-traistou me so .
Ssel ich habbe is for me godhede . t ich habbe e ido
Ne holde ich forward qua e knilt . war-of destou mene
u luxt loude qua e deuel . ou brecst forward al clene
ou bringst mid e mi meste uo . a ssost me i wif lede
17
IMEV 59, Grlach, op.cit., pp. 173-74, dEvelyn and Mill, op.cit., pp. 231-34. Note
that the A version of SEL lacks the Life of Theophilus altogether and that the L
version lacks the miracle story. The E and H versions of the relevant line match the C
version except that H has al witles instead of as witles.
87
is knilt houede as witles . he nuste hou he it sede

ou luer ing qua oure leuedi . wy wostou so fawe
t he e hadde is wif ibrolt . ou wost it nere nolt lawe
But when the devil saw Our Lady he began to shout loudly. False
traitor, he said to the knight why do you betray me so? Is this what I
get for the goodness that I have done for you? Do I not keep to the
agreement? said the knight, What are you talking about? Youre
clearly lying, said the Devil, You are breaking the agreement
completely. You are bringing with you my greatest foe and you should
be bringing me your wife. This knight houede as if he were witless; he
didnt know how he [the Devil] could say it. You wicked thing said
Our Lady, Why did you think so readily that he would have brought
his wife? You knew it would not be lawful.
MED places this citation in the same category as the fishes in the
whales mouth, namely sense 2. (b) to remain, stay, linger. Here,
however, there seems to be implied a behaviour associated with a
specific state of mind. The knight is characterised as witless and
unknowing. Given the previous usages we assume that this one is
metaphorical: there is no indication that the knights feet are off the
ground. Like the fishes with the whale or the whale in the storm, his
situation has deprived him of the possibility of voluntary motion.
Remained, stayed or lingered all seem a little colourless here.
The sense needed is clearly stood motionless, was paralysed, was
unable to move. If a metaphorical translation is preferred, perhaps the
best would in fact be floated or hung there.
1.4.4. Here it is worth mentioning another citation of our verb in MED
s.v. hven v. 2. (c) ~ stilleliche, remain motionless, come to a stop.
MED quotes from the L version of SELs Life of St Mary of Egypt18.
This text has not yet been tagged for the LAEME corpus from any
manuscript version. Here, meantime, we give a fuller context than
MED, taking the text from the L version (fols. 119v-120r)19:
A-non so heo bi-gan hire oresun wonder men milten i-seo
18
IMEV 2990, Grlach, op. cit., 158-59, dEvelyn and Mill, op. cit., pp. 136-48,
Horstmann, op. cit., pp. 260-71
19
Horstmann, op.cit., p. 266.
88
Lass & Laing

Fram e eore heo was op i-houe e heilte of fet reo
are heo houede stilleliche as ei heo were with-oute bree
Heo ne wawede leome non bote hire lippene vnnee
[...]
is Monek stod and bi-oulte him gret wonder he hadde and fere
He ne heold hire no womman ake treouwede at hit sum gost were
For heo houede so a-boue ake after hire oresun
is holi ing wel stilleliche to e eore alilte a-doun
As soon as she began her orison, men could see a miracle. She was lifted up
from the earth the height of three feet. There she houede motionless as though
she were without breath. She did not move a limb; except only her lips [...] This
monk stood and pondered he had great wonder and fear. He considered her
not to be a woman but that she was some kind of ghost because she houede so
above [the ground]. But after her orison this holy thing very quietly alighted
down to the earth.
The verbal collocations in this example are quite explicit: St Mary is

lifted up20 to the height of three feet and remains motionless.
Unlike the knight in the previous example, her feet are certainly off
the ground exactly three feet off. This example clearly belongs
more properly under MEDs sense 1. (a), along with St John the
Baptists star, and may be translated hover, remain suspended in the
air.
Given the commentary above, MEDs three sense clusters appear
to have a different set-theoretical structure than the three separate
definitions would suggest. There are two major independent sense
clusters and also a significant overlap between the two. Confining
ourselves here to the LAEME examples, we give to the locative sense
the mnemonic float (whether in air, water or land), we assign to the
motional sense the mnemonic land, and to the intersection of the
motional and locational sets the mnemonic soar. In summary:
MOTION
land
soar
float
LOCATION
20
i-houe is a the strong past participle from OE hebban directly related to our verb
see the following discussion.
89
Investigation of the etymology may give some indication as to

why these apparently disparate senses co-occur. Indeed, OED
lemmatises the two main sets of meanings separately under two
homophonous but apparently historically unconnected head words,
neither of which is provided with a firm etymology. The OEDs
Hove, v.1, which is described as derivation unknown covers
mainly the locational senses but also overlaps with the motional ones.
Its Hove, v.2 entry lacks any derivation and is given the primary
sense raise, lift. In the following section we will attempt to connect
the two senses and suggest a common etymology.
2. Etymology
We can find no evidence for our verb in the standard Old English
dictionaries or the Microfiche Concordance To Old English
(R.L.Venezky and A di P. Healey, 1980). The only attempt to connect
it with an attested Old English word is a suggestion in MED: ?OE
*hfian; ?a new formation in ME based on hf(on, p. of OE hebban.
This etymology seems very likely to be right, but the supporting
argumentation needs to be made explicit.
Given the lack of attestation, why are we so sure (a) that there
was an ancestral Old English verb at all and (b) that if there were it
would have been a Class II weak verb? We need to ask question (a)
because there are not only no pre-Conquest attestations, but there
appear to be none before the early 13th century. The reason we
assume an actual Old English verb rather than a Middle English
secondary formation is the geographical distribution of the forms. Its
occurrence in texts originating from places right across the country
Robert of Gloucesters Chronicle21, The South English Legendary and
The Bestiary is less likely to be the result of convergent invention
than of inheritance. This is essentially a methodological rather than a
purely empirical argument.
Assuming then that there was an ancestor why should we
characterise it as Class II weak? Firstly, the ancestral verb must have
been weak since there is no evidence of any strong forms but there are
multiple instances of the weak past tense. That being the case, the verb
must have belonged to Class II for the following reasons:
21
See the citations in MED s.v. hven v.
90
Lass & Laing
(1) It has a back root vocalism; this excludes weak Class I

whose vowels are always front because of the ancestral *-jan
suffix.
(2) It does not have a geminate versus non-geminate alternation
anywhere in the paradigm, which excludes the characteristic
Class III type (libban, habban).
(3) At least one of the Middle English forms show the
characteristic marker of Class II: the -i- formative in the
infinitive, houi.
Let us assume OE *hfian to have existed. As a Class II verb, it
was almost certainly derived, as Class II consists mostly of
denominal, deadjectival and deverbal secondary formations. It is in
fact historically the same class as that to which Latin denominal -re
verbs belong, e.g. am-or > am-re22. The source suggested by MED is
a reasonable one for a verb of this shape. Since Class II formations
leave the root untouched, suffixation of the past root of hebban (strong
Class VII) would give *hf-j-an > *hf-jan > *hfian.
The remaining problem is semantic: how do we get from the past
tense of heave to the rich collection of senses we have been
discussing? As a Class VII strong verb the expected ablaut series for
hebban would be a / / / a. The unexpected e-vocalism in the
present is due to an original *i formative like that seen in its almost
certain cognate Latin cap-i-. The best story of the complex semantic
development, which is still incomplete, is outlined in the OEDs entry
s.v. Heave v. Here it is with expansions where necessary: the IE root
must be of the shape *kap-, which would by Grimms Law have given
Gmc *xaf-; this, with following standard changes, is clearly the shape
underlying hebban. According to the OED, the original sense as
evidenced by ... derivatives, as well as by L capre, was take,
whence, through take up, came that of lift, raise, already developed
in Com. Teut. A similar sense development could very well take us
from lift to float and thence to float in the motional sense. The
history and the attested senses would then account for why
$ho:fian{*}/vK2 is both locative and motional.
22
For detailed discussion see R. Lass, Old English -ian: Inflectional or

derivational?, Vienna English Working Papers 2.1, 1993.

Caroline Macafee
Some of my happiest memories of teaching at the University of
Glasgow are of the course I shared with Christian, entitled Meaning,
Form and Style. I particularly enjoyed, and learnt a great deal from,
her handouts on formal poetics. This paper harks back to those days,
and also picks up her interest in ripping out dictionaries and knitting
them up again.
It has always seemed to me a pity that there is no rhyming
dictionary of Scots. A dictionary of rhymes is one of the standard
reference tools available to the writer in English, but no such tool
exists for Scots, despite writers more and more turning to reference
books to remind them of the riches of the language, and to confirm
and broaden their personal knowledge, as the language becomes less
used in speech. A rhyming dictionary would be useful to poets and
song-writers in Scots, and to teachers and students using Scots for
creative writing in the classroom. It would also promote the
appreciation and understanding of Scottish literature, by recovering
poets intentions with regard to rhyme, and might even improve
accuracy in the recitation and performance of Scots verse and song.
The core material for such a dictionary already exists in the
pronunciation entries1 in The Concise Scots Dictionary (CSD).2 At
present, this material, which constitutes a considerable enlargement,
revision and systematisation of the pronunciations in The Scottish
National Dictionary (SND), is underused, because it demands an
acquaintance with phonetic symbols.3 There is further relevant
material in The Linguistic Atlas of Scotland, vol. 3 (LAS3),4 in Ulster
1
By A. J. Aitken.
Mairi Robinson (ed.), The Concise Scots Dictionary, Aberdeen: Aberdeen
University Press, 1985; now published Edinburgh: Polygon.
3
William Grant et al. (eds.), The Scottish National Dictionary, Edinburgh: Scottish
National Dictionary Association, 1931-1975; now published Edinburgh: Polygon.
4
James Y. Mather and H. H. Speitel (eds.), The Linguistic Atlas of Scotland, vol. 3,
London: Croom Helm, 1986.
2
92
Caroline Macafee
sources5 and in sources for Orkney and Shetland.6 Standard English

overlaps with Scots; such material (words like cat, the, bus, narrative
and ode) would also have to be included.
Even with the addition of the shared material, a pocket dictionary
would suffice to cover the active, current Scots vocabulary of most
speakers. But the more comprehensive the dictionary was, the more
useful it would be to writers of dialects whose rhyme potential is
radically different from mainstream literary Scots. It would also be
satisfying to give writers better access to the recessive and less wellknown vocabulary.
Much of the impetus for a thoroughly inclusive treatment would
really be scholarly, however, rather than utilitarian. A fuller rhyming
dictionary would incorporate vocabulary back to 1700 (the starting
date of SND), and would benefit scholars of Scottish literature by
making it possible for the first time to see the relationship between a
poets rhyme choices and the full rhyme potential of the language at a
particular point in time.
A rhyming dictionary could also be presented in such a way as to
give it a valuable secondary function as a pronouncing dictionary. An
analysis of the vocabulary by rhyme sets is, after all, precisely an
analysis by phonemes. The general user (and the literature student)
could be spared an engagement with the International Phonetic
Alphabet (IPA), by identifying the pronunciation of a given word in
terms of what it rhymes with. A full index (after the fashion of The
Scots Thesaurus7 or the Penguin edition of Rogets Thesaurus8) would
be space-consuming, but very direct and reliable in use were it not
for the vagaries of Scots spelling. Alternatively, the user might be
directed to work down a list of keywords, arranged in some quasi-
James Fenton, The Hamely Tongue. A Personal Record of Ulster-Scots in County

Antrim, 2nd edition [no place of publication]: Ullans Press, 2000; Caroline Macafee
(ed.), A Concise Ulster Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996.
6
Such as Gregor Lamb, Orkney Wordbook. A Dictionary of the Dialect of Orkney,
Birsay: Byrgisey, 1988; and John Graham, The Shetland Dictionary, Stornoway:
Thule, 1979. Material unique to the Northern Isles was omitted from CSD as a spacesaving measure.
7
Iseabail Macleod et al., (eds.), The Scots Thesaurus, Aberdeen: Aberdeen University
Press, 1990; now published Edinburgh: Polygon.
8
Robert Dutch (rev.), Rogets Thesaurus, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1966.
93
alphabetical way by stressed vowel (echoing the arrangement of the

rhyme lists themselves) in search of the right category of rhyme.
It would be possible to extend the coverage backwards in time,
because CSD does give pronunciations for obsolete vocabulary. The
beginning of Modern Scots at 17009 is probably as far back as it
would be reasonable to go. For one thing, Older Scots is too far back
for the modern writer to go in search of rhymes: the literature is not
well enough known to modern readers, whereas with the eighteenth
century, we are into a Burnsian and ballad vocabulary (though I am
perhaps being wildly optimistic in regarding these as common cultural
reference points). For another thing, there are very few people who
have occasion to read aloud in carefully reconstructed Older Scots,
and those who would attempt it can no doubt handle IPA, and can
therefore refer directly to CSD, and to other, more specialised,
resources.10
The question arises of how accurate and complete our knowledge
is of the pronunciation of words that did not survive into the era of
modern dialectology. In fact, we can reconstruct the pronunciation of
most words with some confidence, within a robust and detailed
reconstruction, based on spellings (including dialect variants),
etymologies, and knowledge of rhymes in Older Scots. The biggest
source of uncertainty is the break in the written tradition at the end of
the Older Scots period. On one level, there is the discontinuity in
orthography; on another, there is the much narrower range of genres
and registers being written in early Modern Scots. These changes
make it look as if much of the variation that existed in Older Scots had
disappeared by the eighteenth century. But many alternative forms,
the results of minor sound-changes whose geographical spread is not
always clear, may in fact have lingered on in speech. The study of
9
Also the dividing date between SND and A Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue.
In particular A. J. Aitken, How to pronounce Older Scots in A. J. Aitken et al.
(eds.), Bards and Makars: Scottish Language and Literature, Medieval and
Renaissance, Glasgow: Glasgow University Press, 1977, pp. 1-21; revised Caroline
Macafee, incorporating material by the late A. J. Aitken, The phonology of Older
Scots, in John Corbett et al. (eds.), The Edinburgh Companion to Scots, Edinburgh:
Edinburgh University Press, 2003, pp. 138169; and A. J. Aitken, The Older Scots
Vowels: A History of the Stressed Vowels of Older Scots from the Beginnings to the
Eighteenth Century, ed. Caroline Macafee, Scottish Text Society, 2002, with its
substantial index of Scots words with their stressed vowels indicated.
10
94
Caroline Macafee
early Modern Scots rhymes might even bring some of these to light.
First of all, though, we need a set of expectations, a first
approximation, such as a rhyming dictionary would provide.
Any discrepancies from the expected patterns of rhyme warrant
attention. To give a small example, it seems to have gone unremarked
that the rhyming of joy as /A;e/ is an anglicised rhyme (/A;e/ being
an alternative, now obsolete, form in English). The first instance
mentioned in SND (s.v. joy) is Burns in The Brigs of Ayr (ll.219,
220), but he is in any case writing English at this point: Then,
crownd with flowry hay, came Rural Joy, And Summer, with his
fervid-beaming eye. (The Scots for eye is, of course, ee.) The two
subsequent nineteenth-century examples mentioned by SND may or
may not derive from Burns. Burns also has an internal rhyme of joy
with cry in Song, composed in August. But at least once elsewhere,
he rhymes joy with expected /@i/:
The best laid schemes o Mice an Men,
Gang aft agley,
An leae us nought but grief and pain,
For promisd joy!
(from To a Mouse11)
That /@i/ rather than /A;e/ is the expected vowel in joy is not noticed by
SND, nor, surprisingly, by CSD. In current speech, it has been
replaced by /oi/;12 but with its original vowel, Vowel 10 (to use
Aitkens numbering system), it should be /@i/ and indeed rhyme with
word-final Vowel 8 as in agley.13 It is possible that /@i/ and /A;e/ were
still phonetically close enough at this time to make a decent nearrhyme. A study of rhymes amongst Vowels 1, 8 and 10 in Burns and
other eighteenth-century poets would be interesting.14
11
Quotations from Burns are from James Kinsley (ed.), Burns Poems and Songs,
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969.
12
Perhaps itself a partial anglicisation, as being the Scots realisation of /OI/.
13
The diphthongal reflex of ai and ei word-finally.
14
It is remotely possible that Vowel 10 shared with Vowel 1 (as in Fife versus five,
etc.) the split into /@i/ and /A;e/ according to the environments of the Scottish VowelLength Rule. There are so few examples in Scottish Vowel-Length Rule long
environments that it is hard to draw any conclusions. However, poison has /@i/,
suggesting that there was no such split in Vowel 10. That the split had already
occurred in Vowel 1 is shown by the merger of the short alternative with Vowel 8.
95
The Scots in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century texts presents the

problem for the reader that it is often disguised by Standard English
spellings. There are several examples in the early Burns piece, Song,
composed in August. The spelling is almost entirely English, but
swallow (read swalla) rhymes scottice with yellow (read yalla), and
Nature (read naitur) with creature (read craiter); and there are good
internal rhymes of winds (read wuns) with guns, and join (read jine)
with combine; and a near-rhyme of bush (read buss) with thrush.
(Recordings by the Voice Squad15 and by the Old Blind Dogs16 both
closely follow the misleading spellings of the published text.)
It would be pleasing to think that a rhyming dictionary could help
scholars and performers of verse and song to recover the Scots rhymes
in Burns, though there have been two attempts to enlighten the public
with full transcriptions of the poems,17 and yet the horse will not
drink. Perhaps accuracy in delivering rhymes is something that only
matters to hopeless pedants. I have needlessly allowed my enjoyment
of folksongs to be spoiled by noticing, for instance, that a singer of
My Harry was a gallant gay rhymed gay and awa why not sing
away, perfectly good Central Scots variant? Or, in True Thomas,
ahint : wind if not the ballad Scots behind : wind (with /@i/) then
surely ahin : win? And what has got into a singer of Logie o
Buchan who normally gives awa the North-Eastern /A/ vowel but
adopts a Central Scots /O/ every time she renders the chorus: Think
nae lang, lassie, though Im far awa, An Ill come back an see ye, in
spite o them a? And I wont even mention the effect it has on me to
hear shoon rhymed as it is spelled, with moon or whatever.
Perhaps it is too much to expect from the tradition bearers that
they should direct their attention to pronunciation. The resulting selfconsciousness might be counter-productive. In an interview filmed by
Doc Rowe,18 the late Willie Scott talked about giving words their
right expression, by which he meant pronouncing them as spelled,
and indeed in the same interview he sang Hame fareweel with
disown us as /dIsVun Vz/.
15
Manys the Foolish Youth, Tara Music Co, Dublin, 1987.

New Tricks, Klub Records, Glasgow, 1992.
17
James Wilson, Scottish Poems of Robert Burns in his Native Dialect, London:
Oxford University Press, 1925; Robert Pate, 120 Scotch Poems of Robert Burns in his
own Dialect, Wigtown: G. C. Book Publishers, 1997.
18
Shown at the Songs and Singing event in Auchtermuchty, 17 October, 1998.
16
96
Caroline Macafee
Folk performers may feel comfortable with an unexamined

compromise amongst their own Scots (if any), the Scots of the
singer(s) they learned the song from, and the pronunciations suggested
to them, naively, by any written versions that they have seen. Perhaps
it does not matter that John Strachan, for instance, in his traditional
rendering of Clydes Water19 sang:
The horse that Im to ride upon
Cost me twice thirty poun
An Ill pit trust in ma ain horse heels
An hell cairry me safe an soon
Oh, Clyde, ye Clyde, ye rollin Clyde,
Your waves are wondrous strong;
Mak me a wreck as I come back,
But spare me as I gyang.
/pVun/
/sun/
/stroN/
/gjaN/
Willies brother stands on the bank:

Oh, how can Willie droon?
Oh, turn ye tae your high horse heid
An hell learn ye how tae sweem.
Oh why could I turn to my high horse head
An learn how tae swim?
Its the deepest pot in aw the Clyde,
An here that I maun droon.
whereas he could have rhymed poon : soon, strang : g(y)ang and, as a

near-rhyme, droon : soom.
In the ordinary way of things, a performer cannot be expected to
revive an archaic pronunciation in order to mend a rhyme, and even
moribund rhymes are an obstacle to comprehension, so we do not
necessarily expect to hear, for instance, the Central Scots /I/ vowel in
croon : afternoon : shoon : tune in a Burns Supper rendition of The
Holy Fair.
But as Aitken said about the pronunciation of Older Scots,20 we
do expect scholars and students to prepare their readings carefully.
19
Scottish Tradition 5: The Muckle Sangs: Classic Scots Ballads, School of Scottish
Studies, University of Edinburgh and Tangent Records, London, 1975.
20
Aitkin (1977), op. cit.
97
The intended pronunciations in early Modern Scots works are

knowable: the less readers need specialised training to get at that
knowledge, the more chance, one hopes, of its being applied. As with
Older Scots, there are decisions that have to be made, and problems
that have to be thought out in advance of attempting a reading. So, for
instance, in Burns Song: Tibby I hae seen the day, there is a rhyme
moor : stoor : poor, which can only be made to work by reading moor
and poor as English:
Yestreen I met you on the Moor
Ye spakna but gaed by like stoor
Ye geck at me because Im poor
But fien a hair care I.
In To the Rev. John McMath, Inclosing a copy of Holy Willies

Prayer, which he had requested, mouth and skouth must be given
their Scots pronunciations, but truth and ruth, which would take /I/,
must be given their English pronunciations:
They take religion in their mouth;
They talk o mercy, grace an truth,
For what? - to gie their malice skouth
On some puir wight,
An hunt him down, oer right an ruth,
To ruin streight.21
There are times, however, when we must admit ourselves

defeated by an eye-rhyme, as in:
In thae auld times, they thought the Moon,
Just like a sark, or pair o shoon,
Woor by degrees, till her last roon
Gaed past their viewin,
Ah shortly after she was done
They gat a new ane.
(from Burns, To W. S*****n, Ochiltree)
21
The spelling <streight> suggests that a near-rhyme /wIxt : strExt/ was intended.
98
Caroline Macafee
Moon, shoon, done will all rhyme, in /I/, but roon is an eye rhyme
with the <oo> spellings. There is no combination of Scots and English
pronunciations that will make all four of these words genuinely rhyme
with each other.
One of my own main interests in a rhyming dictionary is that it
would make clear, for the first time, the different rhyme potentials of
different dialects. Numerous sound-changes separate the Central,
Southern, Northern and Insular dialect groups, some of which go back
at least six centuries. The vocabulary may be shared, but the rhymesets have been extensively reshuffled, presenting poets and songwriters with quite different linguistic resources.
Some dialects, including an eastern bloc that extends northwards
from Fife, and parts of the South-West, have /e/ as the normal reflex
of Vowel 3, as in meat, head, etc. For these dialects, as for the Fife
makar, David Lyndsay, Vowel 3 rhymes with Vowel 4, as in mate,
rather than Vowel 2, as in meet.
Only the most conservative dialects, now mainly Orkney and
Shetland, keep Vowel 7, as in spune spoon, use, puir poor, separate
as a front rounded vowel. In most it has unrounded to merge with /I/ in
the short enviroments of the SVLR, /e/ in the long ones, giving
rhymes such as spune and tin, puir and hair. In Angus, the traditional
reflex of Vowel 7 is /e/ even in SVLR-short environments though
this may now be moribund thus spune spoon would rhyme with
stane stone.
In Southern Scots, the diphthongisation of final /u/ leads in some
localities to a merger with /Vu/, making you and pu pull rhyme with
growe grow, how hoe etc. It is noticeable, however, that the word
zoo, one of the test words in LAS3, was never given with a diphthong:
evidently *zow would not be acceptable. There are other instances
where English word-forms have, in effect, been borrowed into Scots,
one of the earliest being boat, which existed alongside the expected
bate (now obsolete) from the late fifteenth century (spelled <boit>).
Door is another very ordinary word that has been present in its
English form since the sixteenth century (and dure is also now
obsolete, without apparently having yielded a /der/ form to parallel
flair, or flure, floor). The recent large-scale obsolescence of Scots
word-forms in favour of their English cognates, is, of course, a
phenomenon of language death, so there is a case for presenting the
dictionary user with the historically correct forms, giving the
99
necessary indication, of course, that they are, or are believed to be,

obsolete. But, despite the detailed coverage in CSD, there are items
where the predictable dialect form might never have been attested, and
might not, in practice, be acceptable to speakers, e.g. grue melting ice
on water is recorded as a lexical item, from Southern Scots, but with
no record of a dipthongal form, in contrast to grue shudder, where
the expected Southern form is attested.
The North-Eastern dialect has had its rhyme potential enlarged by
the falling together, as /i/, of Vowel 7 (as in puir poor, spune
spoon) with the already merged Vowels 2 and 3 (like English as in
meet and meat, and also, unlike English, as in heid head, pear pear)
and Vowel 4 before /n/ (as in stane stone). This feature of the dialect
is the subject of an anecdote told by Dieth:
A rather fantastic story, associated with the name of a well-known
Scottish judge of a former generation, is told of an Aberdeen woman
who made a verbal will bequeathing her money to the peer o
Aiberdeen. A legal decision was wanted as to what she had meant. The
possible claimants were (I) the town authorities for the relief of the
poor, (II) the Earl of Aberdeen, (III) Aberdeen Harbour authorities, then
constructing a pier. It was wittily suggested that there was a fourth
possibility, that she meant the money to be spent in encouraging the
cultivation of a new kind of pear-tree to be called the peer o
Aiberdeen. The four words, poor, peer, pier, pear are all pronounced
alike.22
The North-Eastern poet, J. C. Milne, showed great facility with

the rhyme potential of the dialect. In Dominie Dandie (Two),23 for
instance, he produced twelve different rhymes for skweel school.24
As a basis for comparison, The Penguin Rhyming Dictionary offers
the following rhymes for school in English:25
22
Eugen Dieth, A Grammar of the Buchan Dialect, Cambridge: Cambridge
23
Quoted from Leslie Wheeler (ed.), Ten Northeast Poets, Aberdeen: Aberdeen
University Press, 1985, pp. 10102.
24
With a /w/ glide after the velar.
25
Rosalind Fergusson (ed.), The Penguin Rhyming Dictionary, Harmondsworth:
Penguin, 1985.
100
Caroline Macafee
boulle (denoting type of marquetry) Boole cool, fool, ghoul,
Goole , joule, wholl,26 pool, Poole, pul (Afghan coin), spol, rule,
drool, shul (synagogue), tool, stool, yule, youll, mule, mewl, pule ,
tulle, babul (type of acacia), Stambul cagoule ampoule ferrule
spherule
and some others, mainly compounds of the words above, and many
more ending in -ule.
So we turn to Milne:
Ive been te skweel and college and hae taen a gweed degree,
And noo I think Im thinkin its a teacher I wid be!
And in twa-three years Ise warrant, gin the warlds waggin weel,
Theyll mak me Dominie Dandie wi a couthy country skweel!
And ilka Sunday mornin te the kirk Id walk in style,
Wi a muckle black umberella and a swagger and a smile,
And Id nivver miss a sermon for widder, sark or peel,
Gin I were Dominie Dandie wi a couthy country skweel.
With no feeling of strain or recherch ingenuity, he goes on for

sixteen stanzas in this vein, repeating only weel (twice) and chiel
(once). To list his rhymes, they are: weel well, chiel fellow, peel
pill, creel, tattie-dreels potato drills, reel (fishing), feel fool, Deil,
reel (the dance), Eile Yule, queel cool, spiel climb, heel. Of
these, only feel fool, Eile Yule, and queel cool also figure in the
English list.
As with many aspects of the Scots language, its rhyme potential
is in danger of being lost without ever having been fully appreciated.
Sadly, a rhyming dictionary is a tool that might have been of more use
a couple of generations ago, when a wider range of people knew a
broader canon of Scots. Hugh MacDiarmid might have found
inspiration in it, as he did Wilsons The Dialects of Central
Scotland.27 But at the end of the day, no lexicographer could anticipate
26
This would not work in Scottish English, as the vowel is long before a morpheme
boundary.
27
James Wilson, The Dialects of Central Scotland, London: Oxford University Press,
1926.
101
the flights of someone like George Bruce Thomson,28 steeped in the

genuine idiom of a vibrant dialect, and with his own original genius
for rhyme:
He said that he was able for tae play at coup-the-ladle,
Wi a laidder ower a tricle cask, an ca the churn forby;
Anidder o his winers wis that sawdust mixed wi ciners
Wis their spice for feedin hens at Birnieboosie.
An educatit ostrich fae the wilds o Timbuctoo,
He hid for scrattin up his neeps an hidna them tae pu;
I never heard the like o that come oot o ony mou
But Macfarlans o the Sprotts o Birnieboosie.
(from Macfarlan o the Sprotts29)
28
Thomson died young, and left only a few pieces, including the two marvellous
comic songs, Macfarlan o the Sprotts and McGintys Meal an Ale.
29
Quoted from James Alison (ed.), Poetry of Northeast Scotland, London and
Edinburgh: Heinemann Educational Books, 1976, pp. 9899.

Terttu Nevalainen & Heli Tissari
Introduction
English speakers have not always been polite. The adjective was first
attested in English around 1400 with reference to smoothed or
polished objects, and it continued to be associated with materials like
glass and stone until the eighteenth century. What interests us in this
paper is the transition of polite from the material sphere to the social,
and the ways in which this process can be contextualized. We shall
begin by considering some corpus linguistic evidence in order to trace
the process across time how and when being polite became a human
property. The information provided by the Historical Thesaurus of
English shows the lexical company polite words keep, and gives us
access to the metaphors associated with good behaviour and
courtesy. We will conclude by discussing how this Thesaurus
information could feed into scripts for typical polite behaviour in
English between 1500 and 1800.1
1. Sources and uses of polite adjectives
The present-day use of the adjective polite is restricted to humans,
their actions, or the results of their actions. In the British National
Corpus (BNC), polite typically collocates with nouns such as
conversation, society, smile, applause, way, letter(s), interest, words
and company, and takes human complements with the verb to be.2
Examples (1) to (4) illustrate these uses:
1
Our research for this paper was supported by the Academy of Finland Centre of
Excellence funding for the Research Unit for Variation and Change in English at the
Department of English, University of Helsinki. We would like to extend our heartfelt
thanks to Professor Christian Kay for the advice and support she has given VARIENG
over the last six years.
2
The corpora referred to in this study include the following four collections: (1) the
British National Corpus (BNC web online created at the University of Zurich, see
<http://www.natcorp.ox.ac.uk/>); (2) the Early Modern English section of the
104
Nevalainen & Tissari

(1) He could dance as well as fight, and he could make polite
conversation. (BNC, EVF 354)
(2) I have now received a polite letter from the B.T. together with a
phone card worth 30 p. (BNC, CH5 3047)
(3) I always had to be polite and caring. (BNC, AJK 131)
(4) When they visit I expect my husband to be polite to them. (BNC,
AC3 1592)
The adjective polite is more frequent than its near-synonym courteous

but less frequent than civil. The most common noun collocates of
courteous in the BNC are manner, letters, man, staff and way, partly
overlapping with the principal collocates of polite. The polysemy of
civil accounts for its overall frequency: its primary senses relate to the
citizens or people of a country in contrast to military or religious
institutions. The principal collocates of civil in the BNC are war,
servants, service, rights, aviation, liberties, society, engineering, law
and disobedience, none of which have the polite sense of the word.
The three polite adjectives date from different periods and have
different source domains. Courteous goes back to Middle English and
is associated with courtly behaviour: manners such as befit the court
of a prince; polite, kind and considerate. Civil, by contrast, pertains
to citizens; dictionaries suggest its civilized, educated, and wellbred senses appeared in the sixteenth century, giving rise to polite,
obliging and uneffusively courteous in the early seventeenth
century. Polite is the latest of the three; besides its literal sense, it had
two extended senses at the turn of the sixteenth century: cleansed,
neat, orderly used with reference to material entities, and refined,
elegant, cultivated used about intellectual pursuits such as the arts.
Helsinki Corpus of English Texts (for HCE compilers and lists of texts, see Matti
Rissanen, Merja Kyt and Minna Palander-Collin (eds.), Early English in the
Computer Age: Explorations through the Helsinki Corpus, Berlin and New York:
Mouton de Gruyter, 1993); (3) the Corpus of Early English Correspondence (CEEC)
and its 18th-century Extension (CEECE) (for compilers and lists of texts, see Terttu
Nevalainen and Helena Raumolin-Brunberg, Historical Sociolinguistics: Language
Change in Tudor and Stuart England, London: Longman, 2003, and Mikko Laitinen,
Extending the Corpus of Early English Correspondence to the 18th Century,
Helsinki English Studies Vol. 2, 2002, <http://www.eng.helsinki.fi/hes/>); and (4) the
English Drama collection in the Chadwyck-Healey Literature Online database (for
LION, see <http://lion.chadwyck.co.uk/> [accessed January 2004]).
105
The latter sense is attested with humans from the seventeenth century
onwards. It was not until the mid-eighteenth century that it acquired
its current senses courteous, treating others with consideration,
having or displaying good manners. The noun politeness appears in
the sense of polished manners and courtesy in the early eighteenth
century, as in example (5) cited in the OED (politeness n3).3
(5) 1702 Eng. Theophrast. 108 Politeness may be defined a dextrous
management of our Words and Actions whereby we make other
people have better Opinion of us and them~selves.
2. Politeness in corpora
2.1 Early Modern politeness
Electronic corpora largely confirm the dictionary information on
polite: no instances of its polite sense proper occur in the three Early
Modern English corpora we examined. The Corpus of Early English
Correspondence (CEEC, 14101680) has no instances of either polite
or politeness. The noun does not appear in the Early Modern English
section of the Helsinki Corpus (HCE, 15001710), and there is only
one instance of the adjective, cited in (6). It comes from Thomas
Elyots Gouernour (1531), which sets requirements for the pronunciation of nurses and other women attending on a noblemans son. The
sense is refined or cultivated.
(6) Semblably the nourises and other women aboute hym, if it be
possible, to do the same: or, at the leste way, that they speke none
englisshe but that which is cleane, polite, perfectly and articulately
pronounced, omittinge no lettre or sillable, as folisshe women
often times do of a wantonnesse, (HCE, Thomas Elyot, The Boke
Named the Gouernour, 1531, pp. 223)
Before 1700, the use of polite in the large LION English drama
database is limited to the elegant and refined senses of the
adjective. Apart from a single reference to a most neate fine street in
3
These dates are provided by The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, edited by
Lesley Brown (1993), and the online version of the new edition of the Oxford English
Dictionary (http://dictionary.oed.com/).
106
Rome in the literal sense of polite, it is typically applied to nouns such

as method or rules of courtship, oratory, conversation, phrase(s), way
of expression, garniture and parts in the sense of qualities. Except
the occasional polite companion and (most compleat) gentleman, it is
the behaviour of people, and verbal behaviour in particular, rather than
the people themselves that are characterized as polite. Philip
Massingers comedy The Picture (1630) makes polite into an adverb
in She speakes well Polite, and courtly (III.ii). Polished occasionally
takes similar referents including thoughts, speech and poesie, but is
mostly used in concrete contexts with reference to materials such as
steel, stones and ebony.
There are no instances of the adjective courteous in the HCE, but
the sense appears in the noun courtesy, which is more frequent than
civility. Courtesy and courteous lose ground with time in the CEEC,
while civil and civility become more frequent. The early seventeenthcentury illustration in (7) describes the Japanese as curteous people.
(7) They wear theyre hare longe, bownd upp like the Chines, with a
bodkin thrust through, but it is made up on the right side of theyre
heades, & are a very gentle & curteous people. (CEEC Supplement, Richard Wickham, 1614, p. 274)
The various modern uses of civil were already common in the

Renaissance, but the polite sense was also prominent in all the three
databases examined. The HCE has some thirty instances of civil, one
third of the polite kind, as in (8). As an aside, the case in (9) is a
sixteenth-century view of the civil service.
(8) in some places beyond Seas, 2500. are taught in one Schoole)
without any noise, in a pleasing & profiting manner, & in their
playing years; not onely the English, Latine, and Greek Tongues,
(together with the Duties of Piety, and civil behaviour) but also the
Easterne, and other needful forreign Languages, (HCE, Charles
Hoole, A New Discovery of the Old Art of Teaching Schoole, 1660,
pp. 21819)
(9) he left soch a companie of fellowes and scholers in S. Iohnes
Colledge, as can scarse be found now in some whole vniuersitie:
which, either for diuinitie, on the one side or other, or for Ciuill
seruice to their Prince and contrie, haue bene, and are yet to this
107
day, notable ornaments to this whole Realme: (HCE, Roger

Ascham, The Scholemaster, 1570, p. 280)
2.2 Post-Restoration politeness

The diversification of the notion of politeness appears from our
eighteenth-century material, the Corpus of Early English Correspondence Extension (CEECE, 16801800). The polite senses of civil still
outnumber those of polite in the corpus, but the proportion of polite
and its derivatives increases noticeably. Personal correspondence
closely reflects the cultural focus on politeness in post-Restoration
Britain. Polite sociability became the hallmark of the Age of
Enlightenment, raising self-consciousness about manners. This polite
urbane lifestyle could be taught by education and learnt through
practice, as shown by the personal letters of the upwardly mobile
Verney family. Susan Whymans analysis4 of the forms of social
interaction they engaged in includes financial and social favours, giftgiving and patronage, visiting and dining; visiting in London
specifically meant social calls in a coach, which was interpreted as a
symbol of power.
The notion of politeness as refinement and elegance became
common with human referents in the eighteenth century. In example
(10), Eliza Pierce contrasts polite people and the beau monde with
rustics, and Edward Gibbon regrets the degradation of the once polite
Royal Court in (11).
(10) when I want something pour passer le tems & beleive I shall find
more entertainment in them then I even did in Mr. Fieldings
Amelia. tho you probably and the rest of the polite people will
laugh at the Rusticity of my Tast, but how can you expect a better
from A Country Girl that has seen nothing of the beau Monde for
allmost 7 Year ... (CEECE, Eliza Pierce, 1752, p. 65)
(11) Every thing follows the example of the Court which from one of
the most polite in Europe is become bigotted, gloomy and
covetous. (CEECE, Edward Gibbon, 1764, p. 172)
4
Susan E. Whyman, Sociability and Power in Late-Stuart England: The Cultural
Worlds of the Verneys 1660-1720, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.
108
This idea of refined politeness was often satirized in comedies of

manners. David Garrick writes about his role in The School for Lovers
(12):
(12) I have Spoke the Prologue, & dont appear in ye Play till the
beginning of the 2d when Sr John Dorilant (thats ye Name) makes
his Entrance and a fine, polite, Sentimental, Windling Son of a
Bitch it is a great favourite of ye Ladies (CEECE, David
Garrick, 1762?, p. 354)
Mary Wollstonecraft is more serious in her criticism of false politeness (13):

(13) Vanity in one shape or other reigns triumphant and has banished
love in all its modifications and without it what is society? A
false kind of politeness throws a varnish over every character
neither the heart nor sentiments appear in their true colours.
(CEECE, Mary Wollstonecraft, 1786?, p. 117)
As suggested by the seventeenth-century collocations of polite listed

above, language made up an integral part of the refined sense of
politeness. Lawrence Klein notes that [i]n the polite idiom, the
standard for language was appropriateness to a certain social practice,
the urbane conversation of gentlemen and ladies5. Language is also
included in the definition of politeness dating from the beginning of
the eighteenth century in (5), above. A shift in emphasis can, however,
be detected in the description of politeness William Pitt gives to his
nephew Thomas in 1754:
(14) Now as to politeness; many have attempted definitions of it: I
believe it is best to be known by description; definition not being
able to comprise it. I would however venture to call it,
benevolence in trifles, or the preference of others to ourselves in
little daily, hourly, occurrence in the commerce of life. A better
place, a more commodious seat, priority in being helped at table,
5
Lawrence Klein, Politeness as linguistic ideology in late seventeenth- and early

eighteenth century England, in Dieter Stein and Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade
(eds.), Towards a Standard English, 1600-1800, Berlin and New York: Mouton de
Gruyter, 1994, pp. 31-50.
109
&c. what is it, but sacrificing ourselves in such trifles to the

convenience and pleasure of others? And this constitutes true
politeness. It is a perpetual attention, (by habit it grows easy and
natural to us), to the little wants of those we are with, by which we
either prevent, or remove them. Bowing, ceremonious, formal
compliments, stiff civilities, will never be politeness: (CEECE,
William Pitt, 1754, pp. 356)
This description downplays purely formal stiff civilities, and

stresses the idea of positive acts of politeness being performed for
others. We would hence like to suggest that this orientation towards
others marks the semantic extension of polite to considerate and
courteous. In the CEECE data, polite begins to be associated with
grammatical complements (prepositional and infinitive constructions)
in the second half of the eighteenth century. There are also cases
where the beneficiary of the polite action can be deduced from the
context. These various uses of the courteous sense of polite are
illustrated by the letter excerpts (15) to (17).
(15) I should have spoken louder, & concluded him to be deaf: but
finding him very amiable & very elegant, & very polite to me ; &
very unlike an old Man ; I never thought about his being deaf ...
(CEECE, Hester Piozzi, 1779, p. 354)
(16) I never saw Mr. Ferguson but twice, and know little of him, but as
he was polite enough to ask my commands I recommended your
Letter to his care. (CEECE, Mary Wortley Montagu, 1758, p. 152)
(17) in respect to my last indeed, desiring you to sign your Consent to
the Navigation, your fulfilling my Request was the politest answer
you could give me. (CEECE, Erasmus Darwin, 1766, p. 38)
As a synonym of polite, civil can similarly take a prepositional

complement indicating the beneficiary, as in (18).
(18) I already understand almost all that is said and can ask for any
common things I want. with regard to other things the people here
are extremely civil to strangers and endeavour to make this town
as agreable as possible. (CEECE, Edward Gibbon, 1753, p. 2)
We may conclude this brief survey of corpus evidence by noting that

polite continued as a polysemous adjective throughout the eighteenth
110
century. It lost its concrete sense polished, smoothed, but retained

its abstract elegant and refined sense, which came to share the
meaning potential of the word with the more other-oriented senses of
civil and courteous in the course of the eighteenth century. But the
source domain of politeness remained transparent to writers such as
Anthony Ashley Cooper, the 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury, who summed it
up by saying: We polish one another, and rub off our corners and
rough sides by a sort of amicable collision (cited in Porter6).
3. Politeness in the Historical Thesaurus
How do the adjectives polite, civil, and courteous and their corresponding nouns relate to other words in the lexical field of politeness?
In the following we sketch a model for this field in the vein of
Kvecses7, suggesting conceptual metaphors which help to construct
the concepts of good behaviour and courtesy, as represented by
data in the Historical Thesaurus of English.8 We provide a prototype
for both good behaviour and courtesy, and a general script for
meeting people, based on the same data, but more in the vein of
Abelson.9 Our sample from the data is restricted to vocabulary dated
between 1500 and 1800, including both new lexical material and older
expressions still in use.
3.1 Good behaviour: metaphors and prototype
Beginning with good behaviour, we suggest a central metaphor
SOCIETY IS A STRUCTURED COMPOSITION, which implies that
EVERY PERSON HAS THEIR OWN PLACE IN IT. Correspondingly, GOOD BEHAVIOUR IS STAYING IN ONES PLACE or, to
provide more mobility, GOOD BEHAVIOUR IS MAKING THE
6
Roy Porter, Enlightenment: Britain and the Creation of the Modern World, London:
Allen Lane, Penguin Books, 2000.
7
Zoltn Kvecses, Metaphors of Anger, Pride and Love: A Lexical Approach to the
Structure of Concepts, Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1986.
8
This data was kindly provided to us by Flora Edmonds on 16 February 2004. The
data in the thesaurus was still incomplete in regard to both sections.
9
Robert P. Abelson, Psychological status of the script concept, American Psychologist Vol. 36, No. 7, 1981, 715-29. The two prototypes modelled on Kvecses (1986,
p. 59, pp. 956, pp. 1034) are also scripts, but of a slightly different kind.
111
RIGHT MOVEMENTS. The latter idea can be further illustrated

through a dance, such as the seventeenth-century favourite, minuet.
One needed some patience to learn the right movements, including the
small steps. Since models of behaviour spread from the court (in the
case of the minuet, the French court10), it was no wonder that good
behaviour had such near synonyms as punctuality and exactness.
Consider also the phrases comme il faut and just so.
Any government of or co-operation among people requires, at
least to some extent, the idea that SOCIETY IS A STRUCTURED
COMPOSITION. A good example is the Early Modern court, where
everyone knew their place. One of the earlier senses of the noun
civility, civil organisation and government (OED civility n5), testifies to the close metonymic relationship between politics and good
behaviour.
There was a tension between the medieval belief that everyone
was born to their right place and occupation, and the Early Modern
opportunities for social aspirers. This tension is apparent in the
concept of good behaviour as well. While the word manner(s)
originally implies distinct types or kinds (OED, manner n1), such as
the four estates, learning decorum suggested a way of resembling the
nobility. Similarly, children could be brought up to behave like their
own kind, or to achieve more than their parents. Such near synonyms
of good behaviour as (good) breeding reflect the metonymy
CAUSE FOR EFFECT.11
Metonymy is also at work if ones poise or good looks are
interpreted as signs of wealth, and consequently of nobility and good
behaviour. In terms of conceptual metaphors, one might say that THE
BODY IS THE INSTRUMENT OF GOOD BEHAVIOUR (which
accords very well with dancing), and that GOOD BEHAVIOUR IS
GOOD LOOKS. Consider such near synonyms for good behaviour
as good abearance, carriage, comeliness, and handsomeness, or the
phrase set/put a good/better face (up)on. The adjective polite and the
noun politeness fall most naturally into this set of vocabulary, having
their origins in shiny, smooth, good-looking objects.
10
See StreetSwing.com/Dance History Archives, 1999, accessed 30 June 2004, at

http://www.streetswing.com/histmain/z3minuet.htm.
11
Gnter Radden and Zoltn Kvecses, Towards a theory of metonymy, in KlausUwe Panther and Gnter Radden (eds.), Metonymy in Language and Thought,
Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 1999, 38.
112
The first sense of the adjective proper in the OED is Belonging

to oneself or itself; (ones or its) own; owned as property; that is the,
or a, property or quality of the thing itself, intrinsic, inherent. When
proper is applied to behaviour, it seems to confirm that GOOD
BEHAVIOUR IS STAYING IN ONES PLACE. It even seems to
suggest that good behaviour may exist in someone as an innate,
permanent attribute or quality (OED inherent a3), especially if they
do not let themselves fall below their estate or attempt to rise above it.
However, there is another tension between claims about peoples
innate faculty of goodness (and good behaviour) and the necessity to
regulate peoples actions evidenced by such words as civility (one
cannot help thinking about Rousseau in this context, although many
English names are relevant as well). This tension can be seen either in
terms of humankinds possessing or not possessing a free will
(Erasmus, Luther), or in terms of form as against matter consider the
OED definition of ceremony (n1), another near synonym for good
behaviour at the time (italics added): An outward rite or observance
the performance of some solemn act according to prescribed form
The metaphors THE BODY IS AN INSTRUMENT FOR GOOD
BEHAVIOUR and GOOD BEHAVIOUR IS GOOD LOOKS allow
for a difference between a persons real self and the outward manifestations of the self.
We suggest the following prototype for good behaviour:12
1. A person is born, or raised through either education or his/her own
achievement (including marriage), to a certain place in society. This
person knows what place s/he occupies in relation to other people.
2. S/he behaves and dresses according to his/her position. It looks
good (everything is in order) and, in this way, s/he helps to construct a
good society (an orderly composition).
Caveat: People would often like to occupy a more important place in
society.
12
We have freely adapted Kvecsess idea of prototypes for emotion concepts (1986,
p. 59, pp. 956, pp. 1034), omitting physiological effects and adding the caveat. The
same applies to the prototype of courtesy offered later in this study.
113
3.2. Courtesy: metaphors and prototype

Let us then move on to courtesy, paying special attention to
distinguishing it from good behaviour. The interaction between
these two concepts should be self-evident from the beginning, among
other things because many ideas concerning good behaviour spread
from the place that inspired the word courtesy. Our basic answer to
the question of what the concept of courtesy adds to the model
above is nevertheless that courtesy is something extra. Although this
something may be a virtue, it also serves the caveat in the prototype
for good behaviour.
Courtesy is thus more on the value scale than good behaviour
but it can also reach a critical point when it becomes too much (overcivility). The word civility is included in both sections of the
Thesaurus, but in the context of courtesy, we might emphasize that
it is not only associated with good order, but also with freedom from
barbarity, culture, and refinement (OED civility n1011). It is
possible to interpret the near synonym of courtesy, humanity, in
similar terms. The adjective urbane in its turn draws a line between
cultural refinement and uncivilized vulgarity.
Language is an important element of the cultural refinement
inherent in courtesy. A near synonym of good behaviour, honesty,
suggests that good behaviour requires that one speak the truth.
Courtesy makes one speak well (fair-spoken, soft-spoken).
In terms of conceptual metaphors, we suggest that whereas
GOOD BEHAVIOUR IS KNOWING ONES PLACE, COURTESY
IS MAKING OTHER PEOPLE MORE COMFORTABLE IN THEIR
PLACES. A quote from Hobbess Leviathan touches the meeting
point of the two concepts (OED complaisance n): Compleasance:
that is to say, That every man strive to accommodate himselfe to the
rest. One cannot know ones own place without relating to other
people. However, it is under courtesy that we find such expressions
as management and accommodation for conciliatory behaviour, and
moreover, agreeability, pleasance, douceur, plausibility, geniality,
and affability. The OED defines comity as kindly and considerate
behaviour towards others (comity n1). That such behaviour is
associated with nobility is evidenced by the older nouns gentrice and
hendeness/hendiness (also see MED entries for hend*). Ones high
position allows one to stoop without losing ones dignity and
114
authority. The nouns easiness and ease underline the comfort provided
by courtesy, while a person who makes other people comfortable is
winsome and clever. A special case of courtesy which deserves to be
mentioned here is gallantry, making women feel good about themselves.
A more minor metaphorical aspect of the data could be phrased
in the following way: while GOOD BEHAVIOUR IS THE NATIVE
HABITAT, COURTESY IS THE CLIMATE. An example is make
fair weather.
We suggest the following prototype for courtesy:
1. A person A knows another person or certain peoples B (,C)
social status in relation to himself/herself. Motivated by either love or
ambition, A wants to make B (,C) feel more comfortable in their
place(s) and, optionally, respond to As needs.
2. Consequently, A speaks very nicely to B (,C) and accommodates
himself/herself to B (,C) more than required by the norms of good
behaviour.
Caveat: devaluation of courtesy: If courtesy is the norm, courtesy
becomes (a form of) good behaviour.
3.3 A script for meeting people
The Thesaurus data also allows us to offer a very general script for
meeting people. The relevance of this script is that one needs to be
familiar with it in order to behave in a polite, civil, or courteous
manner. Abelson (op. cit., p. 715) defines script as one type of
schema: Scripts embody most of the conceptual issues raised by
other types of schemata, but are simple and well-structured enough to
permit more focused analysis and experimentation.
The following script, meeting people, is divided into three
major stages. In the first stage, one acknowledges the presence of the
other. In the second, one exchanges information, complements, and/or
services, while in the third, one signals the approaching departure. The
terms equifinal and free behaviours are borrowed from Abelson.
The term equifinal indicates that several different actions may
accomplish the same result, whereas free behaviours are those
activities that may plausibly and commonly intermix with the ongoing
115
script (op. cit., pp. 72324). In a strict interpretation, free behaviours

probably cannot form a stage in a script, but as regards the one below,
we also have to take into account Abelsons own remark that it is
probably naive to expect a linear process (op. cit., p. 718).
In other words, people meeting each other might also omit any stage
in the script or change their order.
Here is the script for meeting people:
1. Equifinal (/complementary) actions: greeting with words, by slight
movement of cap, nod, bow, or handshake, welcoming. Addressing
each other in Courteous forms of address/title.
2. Free behaviours (/optional?): remembrances/greetings sent, introducing someone else, (exchanging) compliments, kisses, (exchanging)
courteous actions, services, information.
3. Equifinal (/complementary) actions: good wishes, leave-taking /
bidding farewell.
We have added the explanatory term complementary to suggest
that the actions listed often go together rather than alone, and the
term/question mark optional? to suggest that good behaviour or at
least courtesy may require some of the actions listed as free
behaviours. English has both words to be used in and words for
(describing) the events and actions in the script.13 The former include
how-dye do and au revoir, not to mention such courteous titles as
signor, sir, and maam. The latter include reversion return of a
courtesy, and wring, shrug, and hand-gripings for hand-shake.
Polite, civil or courteous behaviour in Early Modern England and
especially the eighteenth century required that one master not only this
general script but also more specific scripts for all the important and
even further situations. In a more focused analysis, which would
require more data from the period than is possible to treat here, one
could, for example, divide the more specific situations according to
time (time of day, season, a persons age), place (street, home, court,
13
We do not attempt to distinguish between events and actions. As can be seen in
Abelsons table 1 (op. cit., p. 716), this may get quite complicated.
116
club, theatre etc), and even form (letter-writing as against meeting in

person).14
4. Conclusion
The corpus data on polite(ness) discussed in this article agreed with
historical dictionaries in first-dating reference to humans in the seventeenth century. Corpora also provided more detailed information on
the semantic diversification of polite. In the Corpus of Early English
Correspondence Extension (CEECE, 16801800), the adjective polite
gained ground at the cost of the polite senses of civil, showing that
the notion of politeness as refinement and elegance in people and their
behaviour predominated in the eighteenth century. The syntactic
patterning of polite in the corpus data however also suggested that,
from the mid-eighteenth century onwards, politeness was increasingly
motivated by consideration for others.
Returning to our examples (13) and (14), it is now possible to
note a correspondence between the prototypes for good behaviour
and courtesy and the corpus data: people tend to differentiate
between outward forms of good behaviour (bowing, ceremonious,
formal compliments, stiff civilities, false kind of politeness) and
the sources of true politeness (the heart, sentiments, sacrificing
ourselves). Our study suggests that the Historical Thesaurus of
English could be used to model many other concepts as well, and even
behavioural patterns, such as meeting people, while the scripts
presented above could be checked against more data, such as contemporary conduct books, novels and diaries.
14
For conventions of letter writing, see Terttu Nevalainen, Continental conventions
in early English correspondence, in Hans-Jrgen Diller and Manfred Grlach (eds.),
Towards A history of English as a History of Genres, Heidelberg: C. Winter, 2001,
pp. 203-224.

Michiko Ogura
The Oxford English Dictionary cites two major senses of doubt (v.),
i.e. to doubt and to fear. For the latter sense, part of the
etymological explanation reads: Branch II to fear, to be in fear, a
development of the verb in OF, was an early and very prominent sense
of the vb. and its derivatives in ME.1 We find the same sense in
redoubt (v.) and adoubt (v.). Dread (v.), on the other hand, shows a
sense to doubt, though obsolete and rare.2 The noun dread also has a
sense doubt, risk of the thing proving otherwise.3 Phrasal
expressions are also ambiguous: e.g. withouten dout undoubtedly or
without fear; without dread means without doubt, doubtless but no
dread no fear or no doubt. This paper aims at investigating the
semantic and syntactic overlapping of a native verb dreden and a loan
verb douten, together with their prefixed cognates and their synonyms
and Old English counterparts.
OE ondrdan is the most ordinary verb denoting to fear, often
occurring with a coreferential dative pronoun. In the Gospels it
translates Latin timere, though Ru1 chooses forhtigan,4 e.g.:
(1) Mt 10.31 [nolite ergo timere multis passeribus meliores estis
uos]
Li: nella ge foron ondrde of monigum rowungum y
betro 7 y sellra gebion iuh
Ru1: ne foron forhtiga mongum ge sindun bettra
onne as spearwas
OED, s.v. doubt v., II. 5

OED, s.v. dread v., 2 c.
3
OED, s.v. dread sb., 3
4
Editions used for this survey are listed with abbreviated titles in the references. For
Old English poetry see under Krapp and Dobbie (eds.), ASPR. Examples of those
works with editions not given in the references are cited from OED, MED and MC.
2
118
Michiko Ogura
WSCp: Ne ondrde ge ge synt selran onne

manega spearuan
WycEV: Therfore nyle e drede; e ben better than
many sparwis.
(AV: Feare yee not therefore, ye are of more value then
many Sparrowes.)
When used as renderings of other Latin verbs of fear, other words are
chosen from among the Old English synonyms. In the next example
an infinitive timere and two passive infinitives conturbati and
conterriti are rendered by different lexemes, i.e.:
(2)
Lk 24.36-37 [pax uobis ego sum nolite timere conturbati uero

et conterriti existimabant s spiritum uidere]
Li: sibb iuh ic am nalla ondrede efne-gestyredo
woeron uutedlice 7 gefyrhtedo weron wendon
hine gst ote hia gesego
Ru2: sib iowih mi ic am nalla geondreda efne-gistyrede
werun wutudlice 7 fyrhtede werun woendun hine gast o
gisege
WSCp: sib sy eow ic hit eom ne on-drde ge eow a
wron hig gedrefede 7 afrede 7 hig wndon o hig gast
gesawon
WycEV: Pees to ou; I am, nyle e drede. Sothli
thei troublid and agast, gessiden hem to se a spirit.
WycLV: Pees to ou; Y am, nyle e drede. But thei
weren affraied and agast, and gessiden hem to se a spirit.
(AV: Peace be vnto you. But they were terrified,
and afrighted, and supposed that they had seene
a spirit.)
In the Psalter we find a similar choice in rendering timere, as in

(3) where PsG1E has ondrdan with a coreferential pronoun, and in
(4) where a noun timor is translated ege.
(3)
119
Ps 48.17 [Ne timueris cum diues factus fuerit homo. et cum

multiplicata fuerit. gloria domus eius]
A: ne ondred u onne weolig geworen bi mon 7 onne
gemonigfaldad bi wuldur huses his
D: ne andrd u onne weli eworden bi mann onne
emnifyld bi wuldur huses.
E: Ne ondred u e onne welyg geworden bie mon 7 onne
gemonifalded bi wuldor hus his.
WycEV: Ne thou shalt dreden, whan riche a man shal be maad;
and whan shal be multiplied the glorie of his hous.
WycLV: Drede thou not, whanne a man is maad riche; and the
glorie of his hows is multiplied.
(AV: Be not thou afraid when one is made rich, when the glory
of his house is increased.)
(4)
Ps 118.120 [Infige timore tuo carnes meas. a iudiciis enim tuis

timu]
B: efstna mid inum ee mine flsc from domum solice
inum ic ondred
D: onfstna ee inum flsc mine fram domum solice
inum ic adrd
F: onfstna ege inum flsc mine fram dome solice inum
ic adrde
WycEV: Pricke with thi drede my flesh; forsothe fro thi domes
I dradde.
WycLV: Naile thou my fleischis with thi drede; for Y dredde
of thi domes.
(AV: My flesh trembleth for feare of thee: and I am afraide of
thy Iudgements.)
Ondrdan frequently occurs with a coreferential pronoun and

often in a negative construction. Typical are such poetic formulas as
Michiko Ogura
120
Jul 210 Ne ondrde ic me domas ine I do not fear thy judgments5

and GenA 1037 Ne earft u e ondrdan deaes brogan Thou
needest not fear the terror of death.6 Forhtian and afran, on the
other hand, are often used in the past participle, as in And 1339-40
wurdon hie a acle on am ofenge, forhte, afrde, ond on fleam
numen then they became dismayed by the defence, terrified, afraid,
and put to flight7 and JDayII 125-6 stent hergea mst heortleas and
earh, amasod and amarod, mihtleas, fred the greatest of troops
will stand disheartened and timid, confused and confounded,
powerless and afraid.8 No conflict or rivalry seems to be found
among these synonyms in the Old English period.
Another prefixed synonym ofdrdan is used distinctively, often
in the past participle, showing no obvious conflict with onddan: e.g.
CP(H) 35 239.6-7 t is onne t hie eallneg rswa & ondrda
t hi mon tlan wille, & beo eallneg mid m ymbeoncan
abisgode & ofdrdde That is, then, that they always suspect and fear
that one should intend to blame them, and are always occupied with
the thought and afraid.
OE tweo(ga)n is used with or without ge-, showing no dialectal
conflict with other verbs, as seen in the Gospel, i.e.:
(5)
Mt 28.17 [quidam autem dubitauerunt]

Li: sume onne getwiedon
Ru1: sume onne tweodun
WSCp: Witodlice sume hig tweonedon
WycEV: sothli summe of hem doutiden
(AV: but some doubted)
Boethius, Gregorys Dialogues and some homilies use this verb

rather often, especially in negative constructions. Here are some
examples:
Also in Jul 134 Nfre ic me ondrde domas ine, but cf. JDayII 15 Ic ondrde me
eac dom one miclan.
6
Also in ChristB 779 Ne earf him ondrdan deofla strlas.
7
Also in ChristC 892a forhte afrde.
8
The translation is quoted from Graham D. Caie (ed.), The Old English Poem
Judgement Day II, Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2000, p. 91.
121
(6)
Bo 16.38.3, 5
Hwt, we gen[og georne] witon t nanne mon s
ne tweo o se sie strong on his maegene e mon
gesih o stronglic weorc wyrc; ne on ma, gif he
hwt bi, ne tweo nnne mon o he hwt ne sie.
Lo, we understand very well that no one will doubt
this, that he is strong in his might who is seen to do a
strong deed; no more than that, if he is able, no one
will doubt that he is able.
(7)
Bo 34.93.25
Ne earft u no tweogan [ymbe o] e u r
tweodest, o is be [ ge]sceaftum e nane
sawle n[abba];
Thou needest not doubt about what thou had
doubted, that is about these creatures which
have no soul.
(8)
Bo 37.113.21
Form ne earf nnne wisne mon tweogan o a
yflan nbben eac ecu edlean hiora yfles; o bi ece
wite.
Therefore no wise men need to doubt that the evil
also have the eternal reward of their evil, that is,
eternal punishment.
(9)
HomS14 (BlHom4) 58
Foron ne earf s nanne tweogean, t seo
forltene cyrice ne hycgge ymb a e on hire
neawiste lifgea.
Therefore no one needs to doubt this, that the
forsaken church will not think of those who live
in the neighbourhood.
Michiko Ogura
122
(10)
HomU11 (VercHom7) 72
Nu sio idelnes swa swie am lichoman dere, ne
tweoge e na t hio re sawle ne scee,
When the idleness will harm the body so greatly,
do not doubt that it will not injure the soul
(11)
HomU3 (Belf12) 94
Ne earf us na tweogean t he us nle eft are
lna munegin s e he us her on weorlde to
forlt.
We need not doubt that he will remind us again
of the loans of what he allowed us here in this
world.
As seen in the examples, tweo(ga)n often takes a t-clause, as well

as the genitive s and a coreferential pronoun e in the imperative
construction. Still the negative particle ne in (6) (in the o-clause
following the second tweo), nbben in (8) and nle in (11) are not
necessary. A verb of negative import often takes a t-clause which
contains an expletive ne, as explained by Mitchell (OES, 2044): e.g.
Hom 9.182 and him swie forbudon t hi nan ing ne bodedon be
am Hlende nahwr.9
ME tweonen occurs in the same syntactic environment of
negative constructions, and at times an expletive negative appears
in the subordinate clause.
(12)
Vesp.D.Hom.Fest.Virg. 137.27 (Warner)

Ne tweonige nane mn, o seo gedrefde moder
nolde beon gescild wi re (ge)drefednysse
Bo 37.113.21 is quoted in Mitchell (OES, 2039) as an example of the expletive

negative. The noun tweo also occurs in a similar context as he quotes: e.g., GD
213.20 7 ne uhte nanum men s tweo, t gif t stanclif feolle, t hit ne
ofsloge t scrt.... He asks whether the idiomatic piling up of negatives can be a
factor of the occurrence of the expletive negative. I have no doubt that the excessive
use of negatives may trigger the occurrence of an expletive ne, but we should also
be mindful of the fact that this happens at times only with nouns or verbs of the
negative import in the subordinate clause following and appears only too
unpredictably.
123
No one doubts that the troubled mother would

be protected from the trouble
(13)
Bod.Hom.Dom.2 Quadr. 52.21 (Belfour)

ne sceal he him tweonign t he ne mage Godes
mildheortnesse bigitn
he shall not doubt that he can obtain Gods mercy
A coreferential pronoun occurs in (13), which was not an Old English

feature. Another new trend of the verb is an impersonal construction,
which is also found in Vespasian D.XIV and Bodley 343 homilies.
(14)
Vesp.D.Hom. 76.31
ac us tweone hweer ge mugen mare deopnysse r
on earlice tocnawen
but we doubt whether ye can recognize much
profundity therein strictly
(15)
Bod.Hom.Evang. 16.2
7 gyf him na ne tweon o he s tye bo, ac ilyf
on heortan, sw hwt swa he cw hit bicyme 7
iwur
and if he has no doubt that he is granted of this but
believes in his heart, whatever he says will come true
Tweogan means to doubt and ondredan to fear, and the two

verbs show no conflict in sense.10 But one may fear because one
doubts. Doubt bears fear, hence Satans speech:
(16)
10
Vesp.D.Hom.Nicod. 84.12
Sathanas a, re hellen ealder, andswerede 7 cw,
Hwt tweonest u of e? Hwt ondrdest u e
one Hlend to onfone, minne wierwinne?
In TOE, ondrdan appears mostly under 8. Emotion and tweo(ga)n under 6.

Mental Faculties.
Michiko Ogura
124
Then Satan, the prince of hell, answered and said,

Why doubtest thou about thyself? Why fearest thou
for taking hold of the Lord, my adversary?
Ondrdan, ofdrdan and adrdan do not simply give way to
the non-prefixed dreden. Through the transitional period to early
Middle English, ME adreden takes two syntactic environments, i.e.,
constructions with a coreferential pronoun (e.g. PMor(Lamb) 6 ful
sare ic me adrede) and the be + past participle (e.g., Lag Brut(C)
27962 for heo weoren adradde). ME dreden shares the first feature
(e.g. Orm 151 Ne dred te, Zacarige, nohht, Noff me, noff mine
wordess!), but the second feature is shared with ofdreden, which is
found in the variant reading of the following context: PMor(Jes-O) 94
Hwat schulle seggen oer don, er engles heom drede [vr. be
ofdrade]. In the course of Middle English, the non-prefixed dreden
keeps taking a coreferential pronoun, especially in verse (e.g., Cursor
(C) 3665 I dred me sare and Gen & Ex 767 He dredde him to leten is
lif), but at the same time comes to be used as an alternative of or in
parallel with be(n) dredful or be(n) afered (e.g. Wycl.Lantern 16/6 I
quake, I drede, & vgli I am aferde). Adjectival forms and nouns can
also be found as manuscript variants, as in the following:
(17)
Cursor 17665
C: And war we for e dredand sare
G: And war we for e dred-ful sare
F: And for the dred we alle in care
ME aferen (< OE afran) is used in two major constructions,

i.e., with direct object (e.g., Lag Brut (C) 25553 feorlic wes at
sweouen; ene king hit auerde marvellous was the dream; it
frightened the king) and in the past participle (e.g., Lag Brut (C)
26084 and neoeles ns ic nauere; of Ardure afred sre and
nevertheless I was never afraid of Arthur sorely). ME affraien (<OF
esfrer, effrer) joins as a synonym denoting to frighten (e.g., Guy
(1) 1646 Now go Gij sore desmaid, His woundes him han iuel
afreyd) and to be afraid (of) (e.g., Mannyng Chron. Pt. 1 7812 So e
barons em nought mispaye, Ne e comun folk affraye), besides the
major meanings to attack and to awaken. Syntactic and semantic
125
similarities make the two verbs used in similar contexts by the same
author, e.g.,
(18)
Chaucer CT.Kn.A. 1518

Soore afered of his deeth was he
Chaucer CT.NP.B. 4475
Be ye affrayed of me that am youre freend?
(19)
Gower CA 4.600
Were thou afered of hire yhe?
Gower CA 4.3400
So that withinne his herte affraied, ... he wissheth
after deth.
ME douten (<OF do(u)ter) comes in to supersede OE

tweo(ga)n, without showing apparent conflict, but because of the
twofold meaning of the original Old French verb it comes to be partly
synonymous with dreden.
OF do(u)ter has two senses, to doubt and to fear. In La
Chanson de Roland it is used in a pair with crembre to fear: e.g.,
Roland 3580: Mult est vassal Carles de France dulce, Li amiralz, il
nel crent ne ne dutet Charles of fair France is very courageous, but
Emir neither fears nor stands in awe of him. In Yvain we find
examples of two senses: e.g., 4330 Cortois ne sages ne seroit, Qui de
rien nule an doteroit There would be neither courtesy nor wisdom if
one doubts anything of it and 998: Nest mie prodon, qui trop dote
It is not at all a brave knight who fears too much.11
It is no doubt, therefore, that ME douten means to doubt and
to fear. In the lines of Cursor Mundi, for instance, we find examples
of the sense to doubt (e.g., (G) 22809: Ne dute right na man in his
dede) and of the sense to fear, e.g.,
(20)
11
Cursor 3000
C: Parfai for i me vm-bithoght Yee war men at godd
duted noght;
For editions of the texts I have used see the references.
Michiko Ogura
126
G: Parfay for i me vmbi-thoght, at

goddes au ge douted noght.
F: parfay for I. me wele be-ogt ge ar
men doutes god rigt nogt.
T: Sir he seide I me biougt at goddes
awe dredde ge nougt
where a later MS. T has dreden with a slight alteration of the context.
Douten is often used in the sense to fear or be afraid,
especially when co-occurring with dreden or the noun drede: e.g., e
grace of ihu 24 e children wi in e moder wome Wel sore sul dute
and drede er for and Chaucer CT.Mel.B. 2517: I sey nat thow shalt
be so coward, that thow doute ther wher as is no drede. Douten
means to fear as a rendering of L timere, especially in the midfourteenth century MPPsalter. e.g., 3.6: Ich ne schal nougt doute [L.
timebo] ousaundes of folk at bysetten me and 144.20 He shal do e
wil e doutand hym [L. timentium se].
MED cites two obvious examples of douten and dreden as
manuscript variants:
(21)
SLeg.Becket (Hrl) p. 73
Ac ich douti [Ld: drede], for mi wrecche gult,
that wors schal beo the ende
(22)
PP1.C (Hnt) 21.314

That is so .. bote ich me sore doute [B: drede]
Because both douten and dreden take a subordinating at-clause or

occur with a coreferential pronoun, it is quite likely that they may
share some syntactic environments. When ones knowledge is
limited, one may doubt and then fear, and so the two verbs can be
synonymous and at times can be alternative. Dreden is, therefore, used
in the sense to be in doubt: e.g., MPPsalter 76.15 e wicked ben
trubled, dredand wheer ou be God oer non. (See the next
paragraph for manuscript variants.) Dredeles, as an adverb, may mean
either fearlessly (e.g., Chaucer Bo.3.m.l2.11: The poete of Trace,
127
Orpheus, ... hadde maked the hertes and the hyndes to joynen dreedles
here sydes to cruel lyouns for to herknen his song) or without doubt
(e.g., Chaucer TC 1.1048: And dredelees, if that my lyf may laste, ...
som of hem shal smerte).
As has been seen, douten and dreden appear as manuscript
variants. The EETS edition of The Earliest Complete English Prose
Psalter, based on BM. Additional MS. 17376 and Trinity College,
Dublin A.4.4, shows a remarkable contrast in the lexical choice Table
1 shows the number of some words of emotion which occurred as
manuscript variants.
Doute(n) (noun and verb forms) in Add. corresponds to
drede(n) in Dublin twelve times, while the reverse occurs only once.
Examples are:
(23)
Ps 111.1
Blisced be e man at doute [D: drede]
our Lord; he shal wil greteliche in his
comaundementg.
(24)
Ps 30.23
Ha Lord, ful michel his e multitude of y
swetnes, atou hidest to e doutand [D: men
dredyng] e.
(25)
Ps 76.15
Ha God, men segen e, and dreden; and e wicked
ben trubled, dredand wheer ou be God oer non
[D: douted wheer ou wer Godd or nogt and e w.
be sturbled].
Michiko Ogura
128
Table 1: MS Variants in Add. / Dublin12

drede(n)
doute(n)
doute(n)
dreden
glorie(n)
ioye(n)
gladen
mild(nes)
welelikand
pite
reuful
ire
/
/
/
/
/
/
/
/
/
/
/
/
drede(n)
doute(n)
drede(n)
douten
ioye(n)
ioye(n)
ioyen
meke(nes)
(wel)plesyng(es)
mercy
peteful
wra
50
20
12
1
38
32
5
10
4
2
2
2
ME douten and dreden showed rivalry during a very limited

time and space. To sum up, they became synonymous because (i)
they were used in similar syntactic structures, (ii) in religious contexts
they shared the senses of fear and doubt which come from lack of
knowledge, (iii) they could be renderings of L timere, (iv) they both
started with d- and were phonetically suitable to be used in pairs or as
alternatives, and (v) douten was derived from an Old French verb of
twofold meanings. Some manuscripts made the most of these features
or some authors used them alternatively, but this rivalry did not last as
long as that between afered and affraied.
Editions and Abbreviations:

Belfour, A. 0. (ed.) 1909, Twelfth-Century Homilies in MS. Bodley
343. EETS, o.s. 137. rpt. London, 1962. [Bod.Hom.]
12
Other correspondences are: blisful/ mekefull (Ps 68.20), de-boner / meke (Ps 85.4),
deliten and gladen / glade and ioie (Ps 66.4), wele-quemand / plesyng (Ps 88.17),
wraen / ben wro (Ps4.5), wreke / auengyng (Ps 98.9), etc.
129
Benson, L. D. (ed.) 1987, The Riverside Chaucer. 3rd ed. Oxford:

Oxford University Press. [Chaucer Bo, CT, TC]
Brenner, E. (ed.) 1908, Der altenglische Junius-Psalter. Anglistische
Forschungen 23. Heidelberg: Carl Winter. [PsGlB]
Blbring, K. D. (ed.) 1891, The Earliest English Prose Psalter. EETS,
o.s. 97. rpt. New York: Kraus Reprint, 1987.
Forshall, J. and F. Madden (eds.) 1850,The Holy Bible, containing The
Old and New Testaments ... by John Wycliffe and his Followers.
Oxford: Oxford University Press. [WycEV, WycLV]
Harsley, F. (ed.) 1889, Eadwines Canterbury Psalter. EETS, o.s. 92.
London. [PsG1E]
Hecht, Hans (ed.) 1900, Bischof Waerferths von Worcester
bersetzung der Dialoge Gregors des Grossen. Bib. ags. Prosa
5. Leipzig: Georg H. Wigand. [GD]
Holt, R. (ed.) 1878, The Ormulum, with the Notes and Glossary of R.
M. White. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press. [Orm]
The Holy Bible, 1611 Edition, The First Edition of the Authorized
Version, rpt. Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1993. [AV]
Kimmens, A. C. (ed.) 1979, The Stowe Psalter. Toronto Old English
Series 3.Toronto: University of Toronto Press. [PsG1F]
Krapp, G. P. and E. V. K. Dobbie (eds.) 1931-53, The Anglo-Saxon
Poetic Records I-VI. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, New
York: Columbia University Press. [ASPR, GenA, And, Jul,
ChristB, ChristC, JDayII]
Kuhn, S. M. (ed.) 1965, The Vespasian Psalter. Ann Arbor:
University of Michigan Press. [PsG1A]
Kurath, Hans, Sherman Kuhn, et al. 1956-2000, A Middle English
Dictionary. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. [MED]
Macaulay, G. C. (ed.) 1900, The English Works of John Gower. 2
vols. EETS, e.s.81, 82. London: Oxford University Press.
[Gower CA]
Madden. Sir F. (ed.) 1847, Lagamons Brut, or Chronicle of Britain. 3
vols. rpt. New York: AMS, 1970. [La]
Mitchell, Bruce. 1985, Old English Syntax. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon
Press. [OES]
Morris, Richard (ed.) 1865, The Story of Genesis and Exodus. EETS,
o.s. 7. rpt. New York: Greenwood Press, 1969. [Gen & Ex]
130
Michiko Ogura
. 1874, Cursor Mundi. EETS, o.s. 57, 59, 62, 66, 68, 99, 101. rpt.
London, 1961.[Cursor]
. 1874-80, The Blickling Homilies of the Tenth Century. EETS,
o.s. 58, 63, 73. rpt. London, 1967. [BlHom]
Pope, J.C. (ed.) 1967, Homilies of lfric. EETS, o.s. 259, 260.
London. [Hom]
Reid, T. B. W. (introd., notes and glossary to Wendelin Foersters
critical edition) 1942. Yvain. Manchester: Manchester University
Press.
Roberts, Jane, and Christian Kay with Lynne Grundy (comp.) 1995, A
Thesaurus of Old English. 2 vols. Kings College London
Medieval Studies XI. [TOE]
Roeder, F. (ed.) 1904. Der altenglische Regius-Psalter, rpt. Tbingen:
Max Niemeyer, 1973.[PsG1D]
Scragg, D. G. (ed.) 1992, The Vercelli Homilies and Related Texts.
EETS, o.s. 300. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
[Verc.Hom.]
Sedgefield, W. J. (ed.) 1899, King Alfreds Old English Version of
Boethius. rpt. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft,
1968. [Bo]
Simpson, J. A. and E. S. C. Weiner. (eds.) 1989. The Oxford English
Dictionary. 2nd ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press. [OED]
Skeat, W. W. (ed.) 1887, 1871, 1874, 1878, The Gospel according to
St. Matthew, St. Mark, St. Luke and St. John. rpt. Darmstadt:
Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1970. [Li, Ru1, Ru2,
WSCp; Mt, Mk, Lk, Jn]
Sweet, Henry (ed.) 1871-72. King Alfreds West-Saxon Version of
Gregorys Pastoral Care. EETS, o.s. 45, 50. London. [CP2]
Venezky, R. L. and A. diPaolo Healey (eds.) 1980, A Microfiche
Concordance to Old English. Newark: University of Delaware.
[MC]
Warner, Rubie D.-N. (ed.) 1917, Early English Homilies from the
Twelfth Century MS. Vesp.D.XIV, EETS, o.s. 152. rpt. New
York, 1971. [ Vesp.D.Hom.]
Whitehead, F. (ed.) 1980, La Chanson de Roland, Oxford: Blackwell.
[Roland]

Jane Roberts
The Old English word insegel ties historians in knots, which is hardly
surprising for the concept SEAL, like DOOR, WINDOW, or LOCK, is
inherently complex.1 In this note I should like to begin by looking at
what meanings the word holds in Anglo-Saxon historical and legal
writings before widening my sights to other examples of its use. I
begin with the historical writings because it is in them that I should
expect to find insegel in its prototypical meaning. In origin its stem is
cognate with Latin sigillum,2 which, Chaplais points out, in its
normal usage could only mean either the matrix of a seal (in the shape
of a signet-ring or of any type of seal-die) or the impression made
from it on wax, lead or some other soft material, though with the
caveat that it is also sometimes used as a synonym of signum, the
cross of a subscribing witness in a charter.3 What I find puzzling is
how discussion of insegel has to a large extent focused on AngloSaxon historical and legal writings in Old English without much by
way of reference to the word insegel in other contexts. Refreshingly,
Heslop does draw attention to the more general use of seals, [t]here
are indications that seals were used for closing boxes, and even for
securing the bandages used after an ordeal by hot iron, but he adds it
1
Christian and I have often mulled over the difficulties presented by just what such
words mean, and I hope therefore to amuse her with my attempts to get to grips with
the meanings held by inseil in its brief history within the English language.
2
No late or medieval *insigillum is to be found. The stem represents sigill-um little
sign, figure, or token, seal, a diminutive of signum. Cf. insigne mark, sign, also in
medL. as seal. The medL. verb insigillare does exist (OED though sometimes as a
rendering of OE inseglian); and OF enseel is common (>enseal). Also OHG
insigilen and ON innsigla. Noun cognates: OFris insigel, -il (MDu inzegel), OHG
insigili (MHG insigele, gil, Ger insiegel), ON innsigli (Da indsegl).
3
Pierre Chaplais, The origin and authenticity of the royal Anglo-Saxon diploma, in
Felicity Ranger (ed.), Prisca Munimenta. Studies in Archival & Administrative
History Presented to Dr A. E. J. Hollaender, London: University of London Press,
1973, pp. 28-42, p. 51 and n. 62 [repr. from Journal of the Society of Archivists 3, 2,
October 1965]. For signum in this sense he points to the Old English hondseten.
132
Jane Roberts
is hard to imagine that the latter were more than occasional

supplementary functions of a class of object made primarily for
closing letters, whether formal or informal.4 For the most part the
historians seem transfixed by the normal usage of an object, a seal
matrix. That is entirely understandable, for if they looked up the word
inseil, they would find that according to the Oxford English
Dictionary (OED) it was in use from a.1000-a.1225 with the
meanings A seal; app. orig. the impression made in wax with which a
letter, etc. is sealed; also the signet or engraved instrument with which
the impression is made. The OED, normally so reliable a guide, stays
firmly with concrete senses (as does the Anglo-Saxon Dictionary of
Bosworth and Toller5), and does not volunteer any also fig. note to
point to some more general meaning such as sign.6
There is agreement that some Anglo-Saxon seals remain in
existence even from before Edward the Confessors introduction of
the patent writ. The earliest matrix extant is the 860s ring of
thilwald, an East Anglian bishop. Two other early seal-matrices are
Edith of Wiltons ring (975 x 984), and lfrics seal (c.980, if the
Hampshire ealdorman), which could have been worn as a pin or
brooch.7 Heslop, both in his 1980 article and in his entry on seals in
the Blackwell Encyclopaedia, gives an excellent overview of these and
other Anglo-Saxon seals.8 However, quite what purposes such seals
were put to in Anglo-Saxon England is hotly debated. Thus, Alfreds
4
T. A. Heslop, Seals, in Michael Lapidge, John Blair, Simon Keynes and Donald
Scragg (eds.), The Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Anglo-Saxon England, Oxford:
Blackwell, 1999, pp. 413-14.
5
T. Northcote Toller (ed.), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary Based on the Manuscript
Collections of the Late Joseph Bosworth, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1898,
Supplement, 1921, Revised and Enlarged Addenda by Alistair Campbell, 1972.
6
James A. H. Murray, Henry Bradley, Sir William A. Craigie and Charles T. Onions
(eds.), The Oxford English Dictionary, 1884-1933; Robert W. Burchfield (ed.),
Supplement, 1972-86; John A. Simpson and Edmund S. C. Weiner (eds.), 2nd edition,
1989; John A. Simpson, Edmund S. C. Weiner and Michael Proffitt (eds.), Additions
Series, 1993-97; John A. Simpson (ed.), 3rd edition (in progress) OED Online, March
2000- . Oxford: Oxford University Press. www.oed.com.
7
Note that fibula is sometimes glossed by sigil, e.g. Erfurt 408 (J. D. Pheifer (ed.),
Old English Glosses in the pinal-Erfurt Glossary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974, p.
22), but OE sigil occurs as a word for seal only in glosses. Cf. also unseglian (a
locan unsegloden) alongside the more usual uninseglian.
8
T. A. Heslop, English seals from the mid ninth century to 1100, Journal of the
British Archaeological Association, 133 (1980), 1-16; and op. cit.
133
reference in his version of Augustines Soliloquies has played an

ambiguous role:
geenc nu gyf ines hlafordes rendgewrit and hys insegel to e cym,
hwer u mge cwean t u hine be am ongytan ne mg, ne hys
willan r-on gecnawan ne mge.9
Now consider whether you can say, if your lords letter and his seal comes to
you, that you cant recognize him by it or you cant understand his bidding in
it.10
Although the linking of rendgewrit and insegel looks very like

brevis et sigillum, the question often debated is whether or not the
letter and seal (whatever seal may denote) in the passage need be
understood as physically joined.11 Harmer argues that Alfred is
writing about a sealed letter,12 as does Whitelock, even though the first
examples of surviving sealed letters are from over a century later.13
Chaplais is less certain, pointing out that we cannot tell whether the
seal was carried loose or whether it was impressed on a loose tie or
actually fastened to the letter itself.14 For Keynes in his monograph
on King thelreds diplomas,15 the placing of hys implies that the
Thomas A. Carnicelli (ed.), King Alfreds Version of St Augustines Soliloquies,

Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1969.
10
Simon Keynes and Michael Lapidge, Alfred the Great. Assers Life of King Alfred
and other Contemporary Sources, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1983, p. 141, translate:
Consider now, if your lords letter and his seal came to you, whether you could say
that you could not recognize him by this means, and could not thereby know his
intention.
11
Carnicelli (1969), op. cit., p. 100 points out that analogically the phrase refers to
the scriptures; see further Milton McG. Gatch, King Alfreds Version of
Augustines Soliloquia: Some Suggestions on its Rationale and Unity, in Paul E.
Szarmach (ed.), Studies in Earlier Old English Prose, Albany: State University of
New York Press, 1986, pp. 17-45, pp. 30-31.
12
Florence E. Harmer, Anglo-Saxon Writs, Manchester: Manchester University Press,
1952, p. 3.
13
Dorothy Whitelock, English Historical Documents c. 500-1042, 2nd edition,
London and New York: Eyre Methuen, 1979, p. 917.
14
Chaplais, op. cit., p. 53
15
Simon Keynes, The Diplomas of King thelred the Unready, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1980, p. 137; and see n. 185, where he draws attention to
arguments put forward by Pierre Chaplais, The Anglo-Saxon chancery: from the
134
Jane Roberts
letter and seal are separate, a position implicit also within his
statement a decade later that: King Alfred refers to a lords written
message and his seal . . . as if it were commonplace in his reign for
the king (and perhaps any other lord) to make known his will by
means of a written document associated with the impression of a
seal.16
That a seal could serve as some form of identification is
undisputed. The Fonthill Letter (Sawyer no. 1445), addressed to
Edward the Elder, Alfreds son, supplies a reference to another early
Anglo-Saxon seal, again possibly to a sealed document:
a gesahte [? for gesohte] `he ines fder lic a brohte insigle to me, a ic
ws t Cippanhomme mit te. a ageaf ic t insigle e. a u him forgeafe
his eard a a are e he get on gebogen hf.17
Then he visited your fathers body and brought a seal to me. And I was at
Chippenham with you. Then I gave you the seal and you allowed him his
land and the possessions in which he has hitherto lived.18
Just what the trouble-prone Helmstans insigle was remains unclear,

as indeed do the circumstances of his visit to Alfreds grave. The letter
is dated to 899 x 924 (i.e. the reign of Edward the Elder) in Sawyer,
and Whitelock thinks it probably early in the reign.19 Keynes,
although uncertain how much faith can be placed in the text as it
diploma to the writ, in Ranger, op. cit., pp. 43-62, pp. 51-54 [repr. from Journal of
the Society of Archivists 3, 4, October 1966].
16
Simon Keynes, Royal government and the written word in late Anglo-Saxon
England, in Rosamund McKitterick (ed.), The Uses of Literacy in early Mediaeval
Europe, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990, pp. 226-57, p. 244.
17
Simon Keynes, The Fonthill Letter, in Michael Korhammer with the assistance of
Karl Reichl and Hans Sauer (eds.), Words, Texts and Manuscripts: Studies in AngloSaxon Culture Presented to Helmut Gneuss on the Occasion of his Sixty-Fifth
Birthday, Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1992, pp. 53-97, p. 88.
18
Keynes (1992), op. cit., p. 88, translates: Then he sought your fathers body, and
brought a seal to me, and I was with you at Chippenham. Then I gave the seal to you,
and you removed his outlawry and gave him the estate to which he still has
withdrawn. Harmer, op. cit., p. 12, translates: Then he made his way to thy fathers
(i.e. King Alfreds) body, and brought an insegel to me, and I was at Chippenham
with thee. Then I gave the insegel to thee. And thou didst give him back his home and
the estates to which he has now returned.
19
Whitelock (1979), op. cit., p. 544.
135
stands,20 nevertheless concludes that the letter was written nearer

c.920 than c.900,21 a conclusion Gretsch supports from her reading of
the documents wording.22 Even so, should insegel in the Fonthill
Letter be understood as referring to some form of documentation
accompanied by a seal, it may also be claimed as adding to the
evidence for use of sealed letters before Edwards reign. It is clear
from Domesday Book that sigillum could on its own mean sealed
writ in 1086,23 but that is some way in the future.
Two references in charters from thelreds reign help little,
viewed on one side as further evidence for the joining of a seal
physically to a document, on the other as inconclusive. In the dispute
over land in Berkshire, described in a chirograph dated 990 x 992 by
Sawyer (no. 1454), thelreds insegel, whatever it was, is given into
the hands of abbot lfhere to take to a meeting at Cuckamsley:
a sende se cyning be luere abbude his insegel to am gemote t
Cwicelmeshlwe a grette ealle a witan e r gesomnode wron24
The king sent his seal to the meeting at Cuckamsley by Abbot lfhere, and
greeted all the councillors who were assembled there
For Chaplais in the 1960s a loose seal was carried at Cuckamsley, and
the royal greeeting to the assembly was conveyed orally by the
abbot.25 However, as Keynes points out: It is possible that this was a
message conveyed orally by the abbot on the kings behalf, supported
by an impression of the kings seal, but it is also possible that insegel
20
Keynes (1992), op. cit., p. 90 and fn. 152.

Ibid., p. 95.
22
Mechthild Gretsch, The language of the Fonthill Letter, Anglo-Saxon England,
23 (1994), 57-102, 94.
23
Chaplais (1973), op. cit., p. 51, n. 67. Pierre Chaplais, English Diplomatic Practice
in the Middle Ages, London and New York: Hambledon and London, 2003, p. 38 and
n. 38, discussing Pope John XVs intervention in the 990 quarrel between thelred II
and Duke Richard I of Normandy as described in a contemporary or early
contemporary manuscript, remarks of the phrase sine sigillo eorum that the seal is
likely to have been a loose impression of a seal-matrix, referring back to 1973, p. 52
and n. 73.
24
A. J. Robertson (ed.), Anglo-Saxon Charters, 2nd edition, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1956, no. 66, p. 136, ll. 9-11.
25
Chaplais (1973), op. cit., p. 56.
21
136
Jane Roberts
in this instance refers to a sealed writ.26 According to another charter,

its drafting dated 995 x 1005 by Sawyer (no. 1446), Archbishop
lfric had the kings gewrit a his insegl at the hearing of a dispute
over land ownership in Kent:
a a him seo talu cu ws a sende he gewrit a his insegl to am
arcebisceope lfrice a bead him o he a hys egenas on East Cent a on
West Cent hy onriht gesemdon be ontale a be oftale.27
When the claim was known to him, he sent a letter and seal to Archbishop
lfric, and gave orders that he and his thegns in East Kent and West Kent
should settle the dispute between them justly, weighing both claim and
counterclaim.
This charter, preserved in the Textus Roffensis, records that the king
sent letter and seal, but need these have been joined? For Keynes,
unwilling to rule either way, this passage is as clear an example of a
reference to an administrative communication in writing as one could
reasonably hope to get.28 More recently, Wormald very sensibly
keeps his eye on the importance of such documents as implying
central supervision of litigation in shire courts, and does not speculate
on how we are to visualize seal and/or letter. 29
Words for writ and seal occur linked once more in Old English,
in the Peterborough Chronicle. Here Sparrowhawk, abbot of
Abingdon, meets the newly installed archbishop of Canterbury. The
events relate to 1051:
1048 a com Sparhafoc abb(od) be weg[e] to him mid s cynges ge write a
insegle. | to an et he hine hadian sceolde to b(iscop) into Lundene. a wi
cwe se arce(biscop). a cw et se papa hit him forboden hfde.30
26
Keynes (1990), op. cit., p. 246; cf. Keynes (1980), op. cit., pp. 136-38.
Robertson (1956), op. cit., no. 69, p. 140, ll. 15-18.
28
Keynes (1990), op. cit., p. 246.
29
Patrick Wormald, The Making of English Law: King Alfred to the Twelfth Century,
Vol. 1 Legislation and its Limits, Oxford: Blackwell, 1999, pp. 153, 544.
30
C. Plummer, Two of the Saxon Chronicles Parallel, 2 vols., London: Oxford
University Press, 1892-99, repr. with additions by D. Whitelock 1952, I, 172.
27
137
Then Abbot Sparrowhawk met him on the way with the kings writ and seal
to the effect that he was to be consecrated bishop of London by the
archbishop. But the archbishop refused and said the pope had forbidden it
him.31
Nevertheless Sparrowhawk, apparently with the kings full

permission, held the bishopric of London for the summer and autumn
before being expelled. Stenton points out that this, the first time a
pope rejected a candidate put forward by a king for a see in England,
was a most remarkable act of papal authority on the part of Leo IX.32
But as actual sealed writs are extant from the reign of Edward the
Confessor,33 this linking of gewrit and insegel does not arouse
controversy. I mention it, however, to point to what looks like a
further example of an established English collocation, however the
elements be interpreted.
Clearly, the issue of whether or not writs were sealed before
Edwards reign is unresolved. By contrast, there seems some measure
of agreement that the diploma was not sealed in Anglo-Saxon
England,34 or at least that royal charters were always unsealed.35 In
being without clear marks of validation, neither seal nor autograph
subscription or signa,36 they were oddly unlike their continental
counterparts. Heslop, discussing the seal-matrices extant from AngloSaxon England, points out that seals were intended originally for
closing correspondence and that this remained their primary
function until at least 1100;37 and in his later entry on seals in the
Blackwell Encyclopaedia he states circumspectly that Anglo-Saxon
practice was unusual in refusing to use seals on charters.38 One
31
Dorothy Whitelock with David C. Douglas and Susie I. Tucker (eds.), The AngloSaxon Chronicle: A Revised Translation, London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1961, p.
117.
32
F. M. Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, The Oxford History of England II, 3rd
edition, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971, p. 467.
33
34
Harmer, op. cit., p. 35.
35
36
Pierre Chaplais, The royal Anglo-Saxon chancery of the tenth century revisited,
in H. Mayr-Harting and R. I. Moore (eds.), Studies in Medieval History Presented to
R. H. C. Davis, London, 1985, pp. 41-51, p. 46.
37
Heslop (1980), op. cit., p. 2.
38
Heslop (1999), op. cit., p. 414.
138
Jane Roberts
piece of evidence for the Anglo-Saxon understanding of sealed

charters has however been overlooked, a passage in the Vercelli Book
tenth homily. Here God speaks to a rich man, asking why he does not
share his wealth with the poor:
To hwan [geagnedest u e anum t ic inc bam sealde. To hwan] feddest u
e nne of am e ic inc bm gesceop, to welan a to feorhnere? To hwan
heold u hit e sylfum a inum bearnum, t meahte manegum mannum
genihtsumian? Unye e ws t u hit eal ne meahtest gefstnigan, ne mid
insigelum eal beclysan. Wenst u t hit in sie t sio eore forbringe,
hio e growe a blowe a [sd lde a] onlif[an] bringe? Eall ic nu afyrre
minne fultum fram e. Hafa t inum gewinne t u mge a on inum
geswince. Ic ofteo mine renas t hie ine eoran ne onhrina, a ic afyrre
fram e mine mildheortnesse, a onne bi sona gecyed a tiewed inra
yrma dl. Gif u wene t hit in bocland sie a on agene ht geseald, hit
onne wron mine wter a e on heofonum wron, anon ic mine gife
dle eorwrum. 39
Why [did you keep for yourself alone what I gave to both of you. Why] did
you feed yourself alone from those things which I made for the support and
well being of you both. Why did you keep for yourself and your children
what could have been enough for many? You found it hard that you could not
secure it all and protect it all with seals. Do you think that it is yours, what
the earth produces, that for you the earth grows and gives breath and [makes
seed grow and] yields food? I shall now take away my support from you
completely. Get what you can from your labour and in your wretchedness. I
shall withdraw my rain showers so that they make no contact with your land
and I shall take away my mercy from you and then straightaway your share
of hardships will be known and seen. If you think that it is your freehold and
made over into your own keeping, then they were my showers of water that
were in the heavens, whence I share out my gifts to the worlds inhabitants.40
39
D. G. Scragg (ed.), The Vercelli Homilies and Related Texts, Early English Text
Society os 300, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992, pp. 205-06, ll. 160-72.
40
MacArthur in L. E. Nicholson (ed.), The Vercelli Book Homilies. Translations from
the Anglo-Saxon, Lanham, New York, London: University Press of America, 1991, p.
77, translates the two sentences in question by It was not easy for you that you might
secure it all, nor with seals enclose (it) all and If you fancy that it is your legal
property [lit. land held by written title] and granted into (your) own possession, they
were then my waters which were in the heavens, whence I dispense My gifts among
earth-dwellers.
139
I have underlined both in the Old English and its translation two
sentences that involve imagery from the granting of charters, present
in all five extant variants of this passage,41 for which the Vercelli
Book, dated to the second half of the tenth century, provides the
earliest witness in English.
There is nothing so explicitly concerned with land tenure in the
nearest witness for the putative source of Vercelli homily X, a pseudoAugustine homily, Sermo CCCX, as it appears in Salisbury, Cathedral
Library 9,42 unless adsignas be thought of as triggering the sentence
that contains the phrase mid insigelum. Because Scragg in his
edition of the Vercelli homilies presents from Salisbury 9 a selective
Latin text in order to indicate words likely to have been available to
the redactor of Vercelli X, he omits sentences not reflected in his
English homily and he has, moreover, made silent emendations where
the Salisbury 9 text has errors or omissions, or is illegible.43 The
text cited below is taken from Crosss edition of the Sermo CCCX text
in Salisbury, Cathedral Library 179, with the variant readings
recorded by Cross from Salisbury 9 and from Vienna, sterreichische
Nationalbibliothek 994:
50 Quid tibi soli uendicas quod ambobus dedi? Quod solus comedis quod
ambobus creaui? Quid te fingis filiis tuis seruare quod potest omnibus
sufficere? Quia quod ego do non potest deficere aut si tuo labori hoc quod
habes adsignas, aut si tuos esse putas ipsos fructus quos terra producit, ecce,
aufero auxilium meum et habeto laborem tuum. Subduce pluuiam et sterilem
41
Five altogether of the nine variants of this homily. The other four are in Cambridge,
Corpus Christi College 419 + 421 and Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 302 (both
more or less complete homilies); and ll. 122-end in Cotton Faustina A. ix and
Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 302 (the latter repeated material within the
manuscript).
42
Scragg, op. cit., p. 203.
43
Italics as in Scragg (op. cit., p. 203). The Latin he supplies for comparison (pp. 20506) signals omissions: Quid tibi soli uindicas quod ambobus dedi? quid tu solus
comedes quod ambobus creaui? Quid te filiis tuis fingis seruare quod potest omnibus
sufficere? . . . Aut si tuo labore hoc quod habes adsignas, aut si tuos esse putas ipsos
fructos quos terra produxit. Ecce aufero auxilium meum, habeto laborem tuum.
Subduco pluuiam meam et arefaciam terram tuam. Aufero misericordiam meam, et
tunc apparebit miseria tua. Si terra tua est, mea est pluuia quae super terram tuam
discendit.
140
Jane Roberts
faciam terram tuam. [fol. 46v] Auferam misericordiam meam et apparebit

miseria tua. Si terra tua est, mea est pluuia.
50 uendicas] V, S9 uindicas. 50-51 Quod solus comedis quod ambobus] S9
Quid tu solus comedis quod ambob . . . [illegible]; V omits. 51 creaui] V dedi
uel creaui; S9 illegible. 52 Quia quod ego . . . deficere] V omits. 53 labori] S9
labore. 54 producit] S9 produxit. 55 pluuiam] V, S9 pluuiam meam. 55
sterilem faciam terram tuam] V afficiam terram tuam; S9 arefaciam terr . . .
[illegible]. 56 apparebit] S9 parebit. 57 pluuia] V pluuia quae super terram
tuam discendit. 44
Cross shows that these three closely related manuscript witnesses to

Sermo CCCX, Salisbury 9 (for Scragg, nearest to Vercelli X), Salisbury
179 (the version cited by Godden as nearest the lfric homily noted
below) and Vienna 994, all have affinities with what must have been
the text type available in Anglo-Saxon England. None of these Latin
texts contains any explicit reference to charters or seals. Yet, the
maker of Vercelli homily X, well aware of the use of seals as a mode
of validating charters, introduces into his text the legal concept
bocland where Old English land on its own would have sufficed to
translate terra. Even though bocland may be thought of here as
figurative, referring to the earth (and its fruits),45 its presence in the
passage reinforces how the earlier phrase mid insigelum is to be
understood. The rich man of Vercelli homily X is clearly concerned to
safeguard his property with seals attached to documentation.46 Thus it
would seem that the securing of charters with seals was not a concept
foreign to Anglo-Saxon audiences at least as early as the 960s to 970s,
the period to which the Vercelli Book is generally dated. The audience
for this homily must have been aware of the greater security of land
tenure afforded by protection mid insigelum.
44
J. E. Cross, A Sermo de Misericordia in Old English prose, Anglia, 108 (1990),

429-40 (text, pp. 431-33).
45
Dictionary of Old English in Electronic Form A - F, Toronto: Pontifical Institute of
Mediaeval Studies, 2003, s.v. boc-land 1.c.
46
Scragg does not discuss these sentences in his commentary, nor are they discussed
in most recent essay I have seen on homily X, Jonathan Wilcox, Variant texts of an
Old English homily: Vercelli X and stylistic readers, in Paul Szarmach and Joel
Rosenthal (eds.), The Preservation and Transmission of Anglo-Saxon Culture:
Selected Papers from the 1991 Meeting of the International Society of AngloSaxonists, Stud. in Med. Culture 40, Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications,
Western Michigan University, 1997, pp. 335-51.
141
It is curious that this Old English passage has not played a part in
discussion of Anglo-Saxon seals and charters, but hardly surprising,
for printed versions of the passage as it appeared in other manuscripts
were available only in scattered publications.47 The whole Vercelli
Book could be consulted in Frsters much used reduced facsimile48
and his edition of Vercelli homilies I to VIII was well known,49 but his
long-awaited edition of Vercelli homilies IX to XXIII never appeared
(already in print, it was lost during Second World war bombing).50
Even so, that material reflecting the pseudo-Augustinian Sermo CCCX
lay behind the passage was first pointed out by Becker.51 This was the
source text that Jost had earlier identified as lying behind a section of
homily VII in lfrics second series of Catholic Homilies (it was
noted also in relation to another lfrician homily).52 Part of this
lfrician homily corresponds quite closely in content to the passage
from Vercelli X discussed above. lfric is discussing how God tests
the rich by giving them more riches than they need:
hw sceal he onne him anum gegnian t him bm is forgifen? Gif u
talast to inum geswince t t u hfst. oe gif u wnst t re
eoran wstmas ine sind. onne cwe se lmihtiga wealdend to e; Efne nu
ic e ofto minne fultum. and hafa e n geswinc; Ic ofteo mine rnscuras.
and ic wyrce in lnd unwstmbre; Gif t land in is. se rn is min;53
Why then must he own by himself alone what is given to them both? If you
ascribe to your labour what you own or if you think that the fruits of the earth
are yours, then the ruler almighty will say unto you: Now behold, I shall
47
A. S. Napier (ed.), Wulfstan, Sammlung englischer Denkmler 4, Berlin:

Weidmann, 1883 [repr. with appendix by K. Ostheeren, 1967], homily XLIX, is
probably the best known of the versions available.
48
Max Frster, Il Codice Vercellese . . . riprodotto in Fototipia . . . con Introduzione,
Rome: Vatican, 1913.
49
Max Frster (ed.), Die Vercelli-Homilien: I-VIII. Homilie, Bibliothek der
angelschsischen Prosa 12, Hamburg: H. Grand, 1932.
50
Scragg, op. cit., p. xxii.
51
Wolfgang Becker, The Latin manuscript sources of the Old English translations of
the sermon Remedia Peccatorum, Medium vum, 45 (1976), 145-52.
52
K. Jost, Wulfstanstudien, Bern: A. Francke, 1950, pp. 246-47; J. C. Pope (ed.),
Homilies of lfric: A Supplementary Collection, 2 vols., Early English Text Society
os 259, 260, London: Oxford University Press, 1967-68, II, 509.
53
Malcolm Godden (ed.), lfrics Catholic Homilies: The Second Series, Text, Early
English Text Society ss 5, London: Oxford University Press, 1979, p. 62, ll. 71-78.
142
Jane Roberts
withdraw my help, and you, keep your labour. I shall withdraw my rain
showers and I shall make your land infertile. If the land is yours, the rain is
mine.
The Salisbury 179 version of Sermo CCCX is deemed the nearest

identified source for this section of the homily, and it is interesting
therefore to look at the extracts drawn from it in Godden and
Clemoess edition of the Catholic Homilies as evidence for lfrics
source:
Quid tibi soli v[i]ndicas quod ambobus dedi? Quod solus comedis quod
ambobus creavi? . . . Si tuo labori hoc quod habes adsignas, aut si tuos esse
putas ipsos fructus quos terra producit, ecce, aufero auxilium meum et habeto
laborem tuum. Subduco pluviam et sterilem faciam terram tuam . . . Si terra
tua est, mea est pluvia.54
The omissions made by Godden, which can be gauged from Crosss

edition of the relevant passage as cited above, are of materials not
reflected in lfrics homily. It is possible that the gaps Godden
signals between lfrics text and the nearest identified source reflect
absences in lfrics actual source. The reference to keeping for ones
self and ones children what God gives for all, probably not a part of
whatever source text was used here by lfric, is a sentence that could
have helped point the maker of the English homily illustrated from
Vercelli X towards his more specifically legalistic interpretation. By
contrast, there is no charter imagery in lfrics passage, although it
stems ultimately from some similar source. As Cross has pointed out,
the Vercelli homilist and lfric were working from divergent Latin
texts, and we cannot be certain of what actually lay before each.
Whereas in the case of Vercelli X the Latin wording available could
conceivably have prompted its author to think in terms of seals and
charters, lfric might have had a redaction more tightly focused on
the pairing of contrasted rich and poor man and without reference to
heirs and the passing on of property. Yet, no matter the degree of
divergence between the two English homilies, let alone the
impossibility of knowing the wording of their actual source texts, it
54
Malcolm Godden, lfrics Catholic Homilies. Introduction, Commentary and

Glossary, Early English Text Society ss 18, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000,
pp. 396-97. The omissions signalled are made by Godden.
143
can be assumed from Vercelli X that tenth-century Anglo-Saxons were

well aware of the use of seals for the authentication of charters.
Similarly, there can be no doubt of the functionality of the seven
seals in a passage in Wrferths translation of Gregorys Dialogues:
a eac Iohannes stefn hewre am ylcan ayte in am ilcan wene, se sde,
t he hesawe boc mid seofon insehlum einselode, a t nni man wre
emeted wyre ne on heofonum ne on eoran ne under eoran, e a boc
moste untynan a hire inselu tobrecan . . . . . a boc swa ehhwere Iohannes
sde, t heo wre fter on untyned urh one leon of Iudan cynne.55
and Johns testimony also accords with that same understanding in that same
expectation, who said that he saw a book sealed with seven seals, and that
that no man of sufficient worth might be found in heaven or earth or under
the earth of sufficient worth who could open the book and break apart its
seals. Nevertheless John said that the book would thereafter be opened
through the lion of the race of Judah.
This is the book in Revelation, the librum, scriptus intus et foris

(book written within and without).56 Where once these seals would
have been understood as applied to a scroll,57 with writing not just on
the inside but on the outside also, the shift in the early Christian world
to the use of the codex for recording Christs teachings and to the
codexs eventual dominance led to changing visualization of the
book. It is impossible to say how Wrferth visualized this boc: van
der Meers Apocalypse collects together many splendid images from
the medieval world, not just of rolls with seven seals but of codexes
55
H. Hecht (ed.), Bischof Waerferths von Worcester Uebersetzung der Dialoge

Gregors des Grossen, Bibliothek der angelschsischen Prosa 5, Leipzig: G.H.
Wigland, and Hamburg: H. Grand, 1872 [repr. Darmstadt, 1965], p. 332, ll. 21-26.
56
Rev 5: 1; compare also Is 29: 11-12 and Ezek 2: 9-10. (Vulgate citations from
Weber, R. (ed.), Biblia sacra iuxta vulgatam versionem, Stuttgart, 1969.) Translations
The Holy Bible translated from the Latin Vulgate diligently compared with the
Hebrew, Greek, and Other Editions in divers languages. The Old Testament first
published by the English College at Douay, A.D. 1609 and the New Testament first
published by the English College at Rheims, A.D. 1582, London, 1899.
57
G. S. Ivy, The bibliography of the manuscript-book, in Francis Wormald and C.
E. Wright (eds.), The English Library Before 1700, London: University of London,
Athlone Press, 1958, pp. 32-65, 32, points out that liber originally denoted a roll, as
did volumen or volume.
144
Jane Roberts
with seven bands also.58 Wrferths emphasis is upon a boc, and he

shifts tenses when reporting what John said, by contrast with
Gregorys wording, which continues in the present tense (in the
edition of the Dialogues cited, biblical passages are helpfully
italicized):
Et Iohannis uox in ea aestimatione concordat. Qui cum signatum librum
septem sigillis uidisse se diceret, quia nemo inuentus est dignus neque in
caelo, neque in terra, neque subtus terra aperire librum et soluere signacula
eius, adiunxit : Et ego flebam multum. Quem tamen postmodum librum per
leonem de tribu Iuda dicit apereri.59
And Johns words accord with this assessment; who when he says that he
saw a book sealed with seven seals, adds, because no-one, neither in heaven
nor on earth nor under the earth, has been found worthy of opening the book
and loosing its seals, And I wept copiously. He says that nevertheless the
book will be opened by a lion of the tribe of Judah.
Where Hecht, the editor of Wrferths translation, signals a gap,

suggesting that he had compared the English with the Latin and found
it wanting, it is possible to argue that Wrferth decided to omit
adiunxit : Et ego flebam multum as extraneous to his purpose. The
book of the Apocalypse and its seals appear also in the gloss to the
tenth-century Durham Ritual:
Dignus es domine deus accipere librum et aperire signacula eius. quoniam
occisus es et redemisti nos deo in sanguine tuo. wyre ar driht' god onfoa
bc a vntyne insiglae his f'on ofslgen ar a gilesdes vsig gode in blode
invm60
Christ, the lion of the race of Judah, is the redemptor who will open
the seals of the book at the end of the world. For Orm, late in the
twelfth century, insegel remains the word to use when writing of an
58
F. van der Meer, Apocalypse: Visions from the Book of Revelation in Western Art,
Antwerp: Mercatorfonds, 1978.
59
Adalbert de Vog (ed.), Grgoire le Grand. Dialogues, 2 vols., Sources
chrtiennes 251, 260, 265, Paris: les ditions du cerf, 1978-80, III, 158, ll. 10-15.
60
A. H. Thompson and U. Lindelf (eds.), Rituale ecclesiae Dunelmensis, Surtees
Society 140, Durham, 1927, p. 29, l. 9.
145
boc | Bisett wi seffne innseless (l. 260) whose seffne inseless

(l. 265) will be opened by Godess Lamb.61
How we are to visualize the sealing devices used in some other
contexts is as foxing as teasing out the meaning of insegel in relation
to early Anglo-Saxon charters. Sometimes we gain a clear image of
the form the seal takes as well as of its purpose. A 1081 diploma of
William I to supporters of Baldwin, abbot of Bury St Edmunds, notes
the validation of a charter seal-impression: 62
& we gefstnodan eac as kartan mid uran agenum hand gewrite. & mid ures
insigeles onryste to am at ara foresprecenan stowe freodom on ecnysse
urhwunie.
and we also confirmed the charter with our own writing and with the thrust of
our seal in order that the aforesaid foundations immunity may continue
forever.
Although the word onryste is not recorded elsewhere,63 it translates

impressione and clearly refers to the impression made by the kings
seal. So too, when lfric describes the sealing of Christs tomb, it is
likely that his words indicate the making of an impression:
Ge habba weardas. fara to & healda; hi a ferdon to; a mearcodon a ruh
mid insegle. a beston a birgine;64
61
Orm uses inseil four times in his dedication, all in reference to the Revelation book
with seven seals (Robert Holt (ed.), The Ormulum, with the Notes and Glossary of Dr.
R.M. White, 2 vols, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1878).
62
D. C. Douglas (ed.), Feudal Documents from the Abbey of Bury St. Edmunds,
British Academy: Records of the Social and Economic History of England and Wales,
8 (1932), 53, ll. 40-42 from no. 7 (fold-out reduced facsimile at end of volume); no. 8
is a brief writ in Latin noting the decision given at trial for Baldwin. For both these
documents and others about the same incident see David A. E. Pelteret, Catalogue of
English Post-Conquest Vernacular Documents, Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1990, no.
28.
63
It is probably related to thrust forms, the verb recorded first in the twelfth century
and the noun from the sixteenth century (T. F. Hoad (ed.), The Concise Oxford
Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986, p. 492), and
cognate with the native word rstan.
64
Peter Clemoes (ed.), lfrics Catholic Homilies:The First Series, Text, Early
English Text Society ss 17, London: Oxford University Press, 1997, p. 299, ll. 12-14.
146
Jane Roberts
You have watches [to keep]. Go to [your positions] and hold [them]. Then
they went to [their positions], and marked the tomb with a seal and guarded
the grave.
This at any rate is what is to be understood by signing the stone in

the closest parallel verse in the gospels, in Matthew 27.66:
illi autem abeuntes munierunt sepulchrum
signantes lapidem cum custodibus.
And they departing, made the sepulchre sure, sealing the stone, and setting
guards.
Figurally however, the marking of the stone might have recalled the
kings marking of the stone that closes the lions den obsignavit rex
annulo suo et anulo optimatum suorum (which the king sealed with
his own ring, and with the ring of his nobles) in the book of Daniel,65
where the specification of agency of rings helps confirm this
interpretation of lfrics phrasing. But is insegle to be understood as
seal impression or seal ring? Again, an insegel is used by St Benedict
in the Old English Dialogues, to secure a loc:
a a a he eseah, t a earfan enoh hfdon, he het one cniht stian of
re wintreddan a beleac t winern a asette his aen insel on t loc. he
forlet hit swa belocen a sona him hecyrde eft to cyrcan.66
and when he saw that the poor had had enough, he ordered the boy to come
up out of the wine press and closed the wine-pantry and placed his own seal
on the lock. He left it closed in this way and straightaway went back to
church.
Here the function of the seal is made explicit: it makes the wine-store
doubly secure. But is this loc a bolt or bar or lock in our terms? How
we interpret loc inevitably affects out interpretation of insegel.
Gregorys words indicate that it is the seals impress here:
65
66
Dan 6: 17, and cf. (in the story of Bel) 14: 10, 13.
Hecht, op. cit., p. 59, ll. 1-8.
147
Quibus cum se idonee satisfecisse pauperum conspiceret, ex calcatorio

puerum iussit ascendere, apothecam clausit, atque inpresso sigillo proprio
munitam reliquit, moxque ad ecclesiam rediit.67
When he saw the poor appropriately satisfied, he ordered the boy to climb up
from the winepress, closed the store-room, and left it protected by the
impress of his own seal, and immediately he went back to the church.
Is Wrferth unwittingly communicating to us his difficulty in

explaining how Boniface secured the wine-store? Or is he carefully
explaining the securing of the door in words he expects will be
understood?
There are quite a few instances of the sealing of a loc in Old
English where the verb used is geinseglian, a verb used also of the
sealing of doors, but there is only one further such context that
includes the noun insegel. In the Old English Gospel of Nicodemus,
great emphasis is placed on the securing of Joseph of Arimathea, and
the Latin source is followed closely. Three passages focus on the
sealing of Josephs prison. Here the texts and translations all come
from the recent edition.68 First, the door is closed fste:69
And Anna and Caiphas t loc geinseglodon and rto hyrdas setton.
and Anna and Caiphas set a seal over the lock and placed guards there.
Signauerunt ostium cubili super clauem Annas and Caiphas, et custodes
posuerunt.
Annas and Caiphas set a seal over the door of the chamber and placed guards.
It is worth noting that the modern English translation of the Latin

gives no direct translation of the phrase super clauem, whereas the
Old English has loc, a word that could more readily be understood as
lever, bar than the Latin clavis. In the second passage, when
Josephs prison is opened, the Old English text does not translate
67
de Vog, op. cit., II, 78, 41-44.

J. E. Cross (ed.), Two Old English Apocrypha and their Manuscript Source. The
Gospel of Nichodemus and The Avenging of the Saviour, Cambridge Studies in
Anglo-Saxon England 19, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
69
Ibid., XII.1
68
148
Jane Roberts
signa directly, but makes it clear that logically both lock and key
needed to be unsealed and door as well:
and hig uninseglodon t loc and a cgan and, a duru geopenigende
and unsealed the lock and the key and, when the door opened
Et aperientes clauem et signa
And opening the [door with the] key and the seals of the door70
Here too the translation of the Latin demonstrates just how tricky such
words as door, lock and seal are: oddly the rationalizing phrase [door
with the] is given square brackets, but not the added of the door.
The third passage, in which insegel is used, comes from questions that
soldiers put to Josephs captors, as to why Joseph had vanished
despite being locked up securely:
ge hyne on fstre clusan beclysdon and t loc myd insegle geinseglodon
you locked him up in a very secure prison and sealed the lock with a seal
inclusistis in cubiculum super clauem signantes
you shut him up in a chamber sealing the entrance above the lock71
The additional explanatory phrase myd insegle gives the impression

of clarificatory detail, but insegel is open to interpretation either as the
sealing implement (by means of ring or whatever) or the applied seal
(with seal, in whatever form). Interestingly, in the alternate witness to
the Old English text the second of these clauses runs a o loc myd
insgle macodon,72 which can be translated very literally as and
made the closure with a seal. Even though the Cambridge manuscript,
on which the recent edition is based, is shown to be nearer generally to
70
Ibid., pp. 174-75, XIII.2.

Ibid., XIII.1.
72
W. H. Hulme, The Old English version of the Gospel of Nicodemus,
Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, 13 (1898), 457-542,
487, ll. 5-6.
71
149
the Latin original,73 perhaps this clumsier reading, with its unusual
correlation of macian with loc,74 reflects the original translation, for
which the simpler myd insegle geinseglodon is a substitution. On
balance, it is likely that myd insegle is to be understood as with a[n
impressed] seal, given that signa occurs in the second passage
translated.
When the translator of the Seven Sleepers encountered the first
description of the sealed casket, scribentes litteras, et sigillantes
deposuerunt secrete [they wrote the document and sealed it and
deposited it secretly],75 he included at this point a more explicit
reference to the box in which the document is placed: and hi t
gewrit mid twam sylfrenan inseglum on anre teage geinsegledon.76
The translation in Skeats edition, in suggesting that silver seals are
attached to a document, is misleading, and they sealed up the writing
with two silver seals in a casket, where the elements in the clause are
wrongly ordered. They should instead be read in the order and they
sealed the written statement in a casket with two silver seals, as is
made clear from the later finding of the casket: ane teage, seo ws
geinsgled mid twam sylfrenan insglan (a casket, which was
sealed with two silver seals) [loculum sigillatum duobus sigillis
argenteis 88-89, ll. 324-25 a box sealed with two silver seals].77
With the addition of a new detail in cross-reference to the earlier
sealing of the casket, the seals are given emphasis: t a insgla
wron eft to swutelunge hwt man rinne funde, onne se tima
gewure eall swa God wolde t a gewuran sceolde [that the
seals were to reveal afterwards what should be found inside when the
time should come just as God wished].78 It is possible that insegel
here is used as a more general term for lock, bolt, etc., but more
likely that the silver seals on the outside of the casket bore the stamp
73
Cross (1996), op. cit., p. 97.

The words correlate otherwise of the making of an agreement, in Peterborough
Chronicle 1094 (Plummer, op. cit., I, 229).
75
Hugh Magennis (ed.), The Anonymous Old English Legend of the Seven Sleepers,
Durham: Durham Medieval Texts, 1994, 80-81, l. 159.
76
Walter W. Skeat, lfrics Lives of Saints. Early English Text Society, OS 76, 82, 94
and 114, London, New York, Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1881-1900; repr.
1966, 508-09, ll. 343-44 = Magennis 43, ll. 313-14.
77
Skeat, op. cit., 534-35, ll. 755-56 = Magennis, op. cit., 55, ll. 694-95.
78
Skeat, op. cit., I. 534-35, l. 758-60 = Magennis, op. cit., 55, ll. 697-99.
74
150
Jane Roberts
of the kings ring. Similarly, it is likely that some form of seal

impression may have been involved in sealing a wounded hand for the
length of the ordeal period:
a inseglige man a hand, a s[c]e man fer ne riddan dg, swa hwer
swa heo bo ful swa clne binnan am insegle.79
and the hand is to be sealed, and after the third day it should be established
whether it is festering or clean under the seal.
Although insegel could have extended its field of reference to include

bolt, bar, lock, etc., the exact nature of the sealing provided is not
any more transparent in these contexts than in the passages more
closely related to the putative sealing of writs and documents.
There are grounds, however, for recognizing the greater
referentiality of the word insegel in abstract areas, although the
dictionaries do not note its figurative extension for Old English.80 The
word occurs twice in a phrase used of the making of the sign of the
cross. One of these instances is in the late West Saxon life of St
Machutus, first printed as recently as 1984: a se halga machu hine
geinseglade mid insegle re halgan rode (Then the holy Machutus
sealed himself with the seal of the holy cross).81 And perhaps it was
because the life of Machutus was as yet undeciphered that the
dictionary makers were slow to pick up a comparable phrase in the
Vespasian life of Guthlac: Mid y re nihte ystro gewiton, and hit
dg ws, a aras he and hine sylfne getacnode insegle Cristes rode
[When the nights dark clouds dispersed and it was day, he got up
and signed himself with the seal of the cross of Christ].82 In both
these passages insegel is wider in extension than Chaplaiss normal
79
Felix Liebermann (ed.), Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen, 3 vols, Halle: Max
Niemeyer, 1903-1916, I, 387 [5.2].
80
For fuller discussion of these figurative uses of insegel see Guthlac of Crowland
and the seals of the cross, in Karen Jolly, Catherine Karkov and Sarah Keefer (eds.),
Cross and Culture in Anglo-Saxon England (forthcoming). See also Jane Roberts,
The case of the miraculous hand in the Old English prose life of Guthlac, American
Notes and Queries, 15 (2002), 17-22.
81
David Yerkes, The Old English Life of Machutus, Toronto, Buffalo, London:
University of Toronto Press, 1984, pp. 40-41.
82
Paul Gonser (ed.), Das angelschsische Prosa-Leben des hl. Guthlac, Anglistische
Forschungen 27, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1909, 2.61.
151
usage for the Latin sigillum, which is the word translated in Felixs
life of Guthlac, whereas Bilis life of Machutus has signaculum,83 so
the collocation of insegel and rod may well have been established in
the language. The Old English prose life of Guthlac has another
instance of insegel used figuratively, in the first miracle connected
with the saint. The boy is marked out at birth by a heavenly sign (tacn
of heofenum), which clearly enclosed him with redemptive seals
(swytelice mid inseglum beclysde); and what many people saw was
a hand of the loveliest red colour holding a golden cross, coming from
heaven and pointing to the door of the house in with Guthlac was
born.
The word insegel continued in use into the early Middle English
period, overlapping with segl (never frequent) and with the Frenchderived seal, which was to slip into its semantic space. Orm uses
insegel of the seven seals of the Apocalpyse, just as had the translator
of Gregorys Dialogues. In a Lambeth Homily the sign of the cross on
ure forheafod and a .vii. eade ures lichomes is et inseil e e
deofel ne mei nefre to breocan.84 In the Bodley 34 life of Margaret
the saint defiantly tells Olibrius she has no fear because the Lord
haue his merke on me iseiled wi his in-seil.85 In these last two
instances it is possible to argue for the continued use of insegel as for
a sign that seals,86 evidence for this extension not only in Old
English but in early Middle English too. Yet, the Middle English
Dictionary editors point out that in-seil in St Marherete might be
interpreted as the instrument with which the impression is made,
83
For the meaning of signaculum, compare the phrase signaculum apostolatus (seal
of apostleship) of I Corinthians 9.2.
84
Lambeth Palace Library 487, XII (Richard Morris, Old English Homilies and
Homiletic Treatises (Sawles Warde, and e Wohunge of Ure Lauerd : Ureisuns of Ure
Louerd and of Ure Lefdi, &c.) of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries. First Series. 2
vols., Early English Text Society, os 29, 34, London: N. Trbner & Co., 1868; repr.
1969, 126-27).
85
Frances M. Mack (ed.), Seinte Marherete. e Meiden ant Martyr re-edited from
MS. Bodley 34, Oxford and MS. Royal 17A xxvii, British Museum, Early English
Text Society, os 193, London: Oxford University Press, 1934, p. 12, ll. 12-13.
86
An abstract sense is implied also by the gloss insegle, mercelse for signaculo (gloss
no. 4058 in L. Goossens, The Old English Glosses of MS. Brussels, Royal Library,
1650 (Aldhelm's De laudibus uirginitatis), Brussels, 1974, and compare Arthur S.
Napier, Old English Glosses: Chiefly Unpublished, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1900,
gloss 4177.
152
Jane Roberts
explaining the Middle English forms otherwise as [a]n impression

made in wax, lead, or the like; a seal.87 By a satisfying coincidence, it
is a Bodley 34 text too that attests to the first instance of the new loan
word seal, for which the OED first citation is dated c.1230. The actual
passage, from Hali Meihad, is to be found in the OED stashed under
the verb seal, Ant tu . ._et art iloten to him wi mei[]hades merke,
ne brec u nawt et seil et seile inc togederes.88 Tucked away as if
anomalous, the passage falls under subdivision 1.b, characterized as
fig., with the meaning A token or symbol of a covenant; something
that authenticates or confirms; a final addition which completes and
secures. The most recent editor of Hali Meihad points out that the
image of the seal of virginity is based on the Song of Solomon 4:
12.89 The next citation under 1.b is virtually three centuries later, from
Tyndales gospels. It is noteworthy also that the figurative use of seal
appears a generation or more in advance of what might be thought of
as its prototypical use in a 1258 charter of Henry III, We senden ew
is writ open, sened wi vre seel. This 1258 citation is placed at the
head of OED sense 1.a: A device (e.g. a heraldic or emblematic
design, a letter, word, or sentence) impressed on a piece of wax or
other plastic material adhering or attached by cords or parchment slips
to a document as evidence of authenticity or attestation; also, the piece
of wax, etc. bearing this impressed device.
In conclusion, it is typically the function both of the insegel and
the seal to authenticate or to attest, and these words therefore easily
extend to such senses as symbol, token. Because closing is often a
factor in completing and securing, seal and insegel can overlap in
meaning with such words bolt, bar, lock; and from the middle of the
nineteenth century seal has held the technical meanings (see under 7.b
in the OED) that support the definition Any means of preventing the
passage of gas or liquid into or out of something, esp. at a place where
two surfaces meet. Opening can of course be effected by the
unsealing or breaking of insegel or seal. By contrast, such words as
door and window, which allow the temporary closure of space, have
87
Hans Kurath, Sherman M. Kuhn and Robert Lewis (eds.), Middle English
Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 19522001.
88
Bella Millett (ed.), Hali Meihad, Early English Text Society, OS 284 (London,
New York, Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1982), p. 5, ll. 12-13..
89
Ibid., p. 30.
153
more to do with affording openings than with closure. We can prattle

about doors to the future or windows of opportunity, but seals of
approval or confession are concerned with authentication and closure
respectively. The metaphoric ranges do not match. And that is because
insegel, every bit as much as its successor in English, seal, is
essentially a slippery word, not just potentially but actually huge in
extension.
Appendix
NB: These citations for inseg(e)l are from the DOE database.90 Branch
III draws together those instances open to grouping under I or II.
inseg(e)l
I. a seal
.(adjoined in some way to a document as evidence of authenticity)
HomS 40.3 (ScraggVerc 10) B3.2.40.6 [(163)] Unye e ws t u hit eal
ne meahtest gefstnigan, ne mid insigelum eal beclysan.
HomS 7 B3.2.7 [(62)] Tohwon heolde u hit e anum and inum bearnum
t t mihte manegum genihtsumian uneae ws e t u hit eall ne
mihtest gefstnian ne mid inseglum beclysan?
HomS 40.1 (Nap 49) B3.2.40.2 [(194)] Unye e ws, t u eall ne
mihtest gefstnian ne mid inseglum beclysan.
GDPref and 4 (C) B9.5.6 [(44.332.21)] & eac Iohannes stefn gewre am
ylcan andgyte <in> am ilcan <wene>, se sde, t he gesawe boc mid
seofon inseglum geinseglode, & t nnig man wre gemeted wyre ne on
heofonum ne on eoran ne under eoran, e a boc moste untynan & hire
inseglu tobrecan a boc swa ehhwere Iohannes sde, t heo wre fter
on untyned urh one leon of Iudan cynne.
90
I wish to thank Toni Healey, Joan Holland and their colleagues in Toronto for
allowing me to present their materials in this Appendix. I hope I have collected all
relevant entries. The gloss CorpGl 2 (Hessels) D4.2 [(17.327)] Sigillum signum
anuli is omitted because it does not contain any Old English words.
154
Jane Roberts
..(relating to period after Edwards reign, so allowed to be adjoined)

ChronE (Plummer) B17.9 [(1048.8)] a com Sparhafoc abbod be <wege>
to him mid s cynges gewrite & insegle. to an et he hine hadian sceolde
to biscop into Lundene. a wicwe se arcebiscop. & cw et se papa hit
him forboden hfde.
.( used to authenticate that what is sealed has remained sealed)
..(marking a box)
LS 34 (SevenSleepers) B3.3.34 [(310)] And hi a twegen getreowfste
wron: dydon rrihte eallswa hi r gemynton: eodon into am scrfe
dearnunga onsundran, and as halgan martyrrace eallswa heo gewear on
anum leadenum tabulan ealle mid stafon agrofon, and hi t gewrit mid
twam sylfrenan inseglum on anre teage geinsegledon and wi a halgan
rinne swie digollice ledon, and s scrfes locstan hi wel fste
beclysdon, and him anon syan hamweard gewendon.
LS 34 (SevenSleepers) B3.3.34 [(693)] And mid y e hi in becomen, a
gemetton hi on a swiran hand ane teage, seo ws geinsglod mid twam
sylfrenan insglan e a twgen getreowfste menn rinne ledon a
Decius se casere het t scrf forwyrcan, swa we r beforan rehton, t a
insgla wron eft to swutelunge hwt man rinne funde, onne se tima
gewure eallswa God wolde t a gewuran sceolde.
..(marking a loc)
GD 1 (C) B9.5.2 [(9.59.1)] & a a he geseah, t a earfan genoh hfdon,
he het one cniht stigan of re wintreddan & beleac t winern & asette his
agen insegl on t loc.
GD 1 (H) B9.5.8.2 [(9.59.1)] & a a he geseah, t a earfan genoh
hfdon, a het he one cnapan stigan nyer of re treddan & beleac t
winern & asette his agen insegl on t loc & forlet hit swa belocen & him
sona to cyrcean gehwearf.
..(marking the bandaging over an arm put to torture)
LawOrdal B14.33 [(5.2)] & inseglige man a hand, & <sece> man ofer
ne riddan dg, swa hwer swa heo beo ful swa clne binnan am
insegle.
155
II a seal, an engraved stamp of hard material to make an impression upon

wax, &c.91
GDPref and 4 (C) B9.5.6 [(16.283.20)] Ac swa swa hit fulloft gelimpe, t
a e eallinga men wena, t hi fullmedome syn, hi onne gyt hwthugu
fullfremedra wisena nabba beforan am eagum s hean crftigan, swa
swa hit eac fulloft gelimpe, t we unlredan, onne we sceawia a
inseglu & onlicnessa, e onne gyt fullfremedlice ne beo agrafene, we
onne eac heria a, swylce hi syn fullmedomlice geworhte.
Ch IWm (Douglas 7) B15.1.191 [(60)] And mid ures insigeles onryste to
am at ara foresprecenan stowe freodom on ecnysse uyrhwunie.
III ambiguous between I and II
..(relating to period before Edward's reign, so disputed)
Solil 1 B9.4.2 [(24.1)] Geenc nu gyf ines hlafordes rendgewrit and hys
insegel to e cym, hwer u mge cwean t u hine be am ongytan
ne mg, ne hys willan ron gecnawan ne mge.
Ch 1454 (Rob 66) B15.5.14 [(9)] a sende se cyning be luere abbude his
insegel to am gemote t Cwicelmeshlwe & grette ealle a witan e r
gesomnode wron.
Ch 1445 (HarmD 18) B15.5.7 [(60)] a <gesohte> he ines fder lic &
brohte insigle to me.
Ch 1445 (HarmD 18) B15.5.7 [(61)] a ageaf ic t insigle e.
Ch 1456 (Rob 69) B15.5.16 [(9)] a a him seo talu cu ws a sende he
gewrit & his insegl to am arcebisceope lfrice & bead him t he & hys
egenas on East Cent & on West Cent hy onriht gesemdon be ontale & be
oftale.
..(marking Christs tomb)
91
PrudGl 1 (Meritt) C94.1 [(371)] sigillorum i, statuarum anlicnyssa. is not

relevant.
156
Jane Roberts
CHom I, 15 B1.1.17 [(299.13)] Hi a ferdon to: & mearcodon a ruh

mid insegle. & beston a birgine.
..(marking the lock of a prison door)
Nic (A) B8.5.2.1 [(13.2.14)] And we gehyrdon t secgan t Ioseph e
s hlendes lychaman bebyrigde, t ge hyne on fstre clusan beclysdon
and t loc myd insegle geinseglodon and a ge r to comon a ne fundon
ge hyne na.
..(in glosses)92
Gl B1.9.2 [(316.11)] sigillum insegel.
AntGl 2 (Kindschi) D1.2 [(736)] Sigillum bulla insegel.
IV fig. a seal that protects, sign, token
LS 10.1 (Guth) B3.3.10.1 [(1.11)] a se tima com, t heo t bearn
cennan scolde, a smninga com tacn of heofenum, and t tacn swytelice
mid inseglum beclysde.
.(referring specifically to the protecting sign/seal of the cross)
LS 10.1 (Guth) B3.3.10.1 [(2.61)] Mid y re nihte ystro gewiton, and
hit dg ws, a aras he and hine sylfne getacnode insegle Cristes rode.
LS 13 (Machutus) B3.3.13 [(28r.1)] a se halga Machu hine geinseglade
mid insegle re halgan rode & tforan his leorningcnihtum eode ongean a
ndran & he anede & alegde his stf e he him on handa hfde ofer s
dracon sweoran & him to cw: Far nu u manna <feond> ne u n fre eft to
ysum iglande ne gecer, ne u nanum cristenum men ne derige.
.(in glosses)
AldV 1 (Goossens) C31.1 [(4058)] signaculo insegle mercelse.
92
Does the inclusion of hring mean that ClGl 1 (Stryker) D8.1 [(2473)] Fibula
sigel hringe, fifele are comparable? Or CorpGl 2 (Hessels) D4.2 [(6.170)] Fibula
hringe sigl. But CorpGl 2 (Hessels) D4.2 [(17.327)] Sigillum signum anuli is
irrelevant. See also Heslop (1980), op. cit., p. 5 and fn. 26.
157
AldV 13.1 (Nap) C31.13.1 [(4177)] signaculo mercel, insegle.
Abbreviations
Sawyer = P. H. Sawyer, Anglo-Saxon Charters: An Annotated List and
Bibliography, Royal Historical Society Guides and Handbooks 8, London:
Royal Historical Society, 1968.
Notes on the medical vocabulary of John

Keats
Jeremy J. Smith
Reconstructing the registers and domains of the past
One of the great tasks of English historical linguistics has been the
reconstruction not just of the forms of past states of the language its
phonology and writing-systems, its grammar and its vocabulary but
also of how these forms functioned in terms of meaning, i.e.
semantics. For many years this task was comparatively neglected;
that it is now being seriously addressed again is largely due to the
labours of the team working on the Historical Thesaurus of English,
the great project to which Christian Kay has devoted most of her
academic working life. These notes are offered as a small response to
these labours.
It has long been known that the meanings of words change over
time, and cultural historians have taken advantage of this knowledge
in offering new interpretations of past texts; a classic example of such
an endeavour is C.S.Lewiss Studies in Words, which traces the
changing meaning of individual words to show how literary writers
from the past used these words differently from those of the present
day.1 However, one of the underpinning principles of the Thesaurus
has been that not only the meanings of words but also the
configuration of semantic categories have changed over time. Thus the
languages of religion, or of pain, or of farming, or of science, differ
from generation to generation.
The development of the Thesaurus has made it possible to trace
these shifts in a much more coherent and non-impressionistic way
than has hitherto been achieved. As a consequence, it is now possible
to show how complete registers of language, not just individual
words, operate in writings from the past. In this paper, an attempt is
1
C. S. Lewis, Studies in Words, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2nd edition,
1967.
160
Jeremy J. Smith
made, using the working files of the Thesaurus, to demonstrate how

this knowledge enhances our interpretation of the poetry of a major
literary figure from the beginning of the nineteenth century: John
Keats (1795-1821).
Keats and medicine: a biographical sketch
That the life and writings of John Keats are profoundly intertwined
has long been assumed by critics; as Robert Gittings has put it, Keats
could, and did, transmute almost any experience into poetry. This is
why no part of Keatss life should be neglected, and every incident,
once truly recorded, may have immense value in interpreting his
poetry.2 Keatss biography has always played an important role in
interpretations of his verse.
The facts of Keatss short life may be briefly rehearsed. The child
of rising parents in the harsh, competitive and uncertain world of
Regency London, Keats was early an orphan. His guardians, on the
basis of small legacies, supported Keats in a medical training which
resulted in his being awarded the Licentiate of the Society of
Apothecaries in 1816. For many years it was fashionable for literary
historians to decry this qualification, but Gittings and others have
shown that this was a real professional attainment, the result of hard
application and considerable commitment in a highly competitive
environment.3 However, Keats, in the face of considerable opposition
from his guardian Richard Abbey, abandoned the earning potential of
a medical career for poetry, funded by small sums of money derived
from a minor inheritance. His poetic career was brief, for he died of
tuberculosis, in Rome, in 1821.
This change from medicine to poetry has the potential to be seen as
the comprehensive abandonment of one career for another; certainly
Abbey, who accused Keats of being a Silly Boy for his decision,
saw it as such.4 However, it is now generally accepted that Keats saw
poetry and medicine and, for that matter, politics as closely related
R. Gittings, John Keats, London: Heinemann, 1968, pp. 627-28.

Op. cit., pp. 116-17.
4
Op cit., p. 153.
3
The medical vocabulary of John Keats
161
disciplines.5 Given the current fashion for holistic medicine it is

perhaps easy for modern readers to appreciate the way in which
distinct parts of life can be connected.
Belief in the interconnectedness between the soul, the body and
human social organisation is nothing new; it was a commonplace of
Enlightenment and Romantic medical thought. The dominant figures
in this kind of medicine were German-speaking including the poet
and polymath Goethe, or the doctor-dramatist Schiller and Germanic
Naturphilosophie insisted that nature embodied a transcendental
unity of plan.6 As Roy Porter has comprehensively traced,
throughout human history it has been usual for doctors to consider the
whole being in making a diagnosis; the specialisation of scientific
medicine, which meant to get its magic bullets on target,7 can in
some ways be seen as a Victorian/twentieth-century aberration,
deriving from notions which arose in post-revolutionary Paris.
Keatss teachers were on the cusp between Enlightenment and
scientific thinking: a compromise-position which may be seen as a
peculiarly English contribution to the evolution of medicine. The
dominant figure in the poets medical education, Astley Cooper of
Guys Hospital, had worked in revolutionary Paris, but had in a not
uncommon trajectory subsequently redirected his earlier
democratic opinions in favour of a distinctive, radical approach to
medicine, which may be characterised as humanitarianism; the word
was first used with its modern sense of compassion for the unfortunate
in the period following the battle of Waterloo.8 Cooper and his
associates emphasised that the practitioner of first rank must know
more than Medicine.9
Keats seems to have taken this advice to heart. After all, Apollo,
who plays a key role in Hyperion, his poem about transition, was
according to Keatss beloved Lempriere the god of both medicine
and poetry, and there is much evidence that the poet saw a close
5
Cf., e.g., N. Roe, John Keats and the Culture of Dissent, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1997.
6
Roy Porter, The Greatest Benefit to Mankind, Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1997, p. 24.
7
Op. cit., p. 305.
8
Hermione de Almeida, Romantic Medicine and John Keats, New York: Oxford
9
Op cit., p. 36.
162
Jeremy J. Smith
connexion between the two disciplines. As Hermione de Almeida has

shown in detail, Romantic medicine informed every aspect of Keatss
writing: the poet, she writes, used his education to exemplary artistic
effect, the perceptual advances of Romantic medicine reflected in his
poetry.10 Andrew Motion writes similarly: While we read his work
and notice its consoling luxuries, its healthy and unhealthy airs, its
medicinal flowers, its systems of nervous sensibilities, its working
brains, its ethereal flights, its emphasis on sensation, its fluctuating
temperatures, its marvellous chemical transformations, and its
restorative sleeps, we realise that these things are not just incidental
details, but the components of a selfless and moral imagination.11
Keats never gave away his medical books, he kept open the option of
returning to a medical career, and in May 1819 he even considered
signing on as a ships surgeon in an East Indiaman, thus combining
medicine and exploration.12
The language of Romantic medicine
The integration of medical thinking in Keatss poetry is, therefore,
everywhere evident, but it is sometimes disguised for modern readers
by the fact that medical language like all forms of living language
is subject to change; the scientific currency of Keatss day is
different from our own.13 As a result, many words which we no longer
consider to be primarily medical in denotation or connotation had
medical meanings in Keatss time. Although numerous scholars
notably de Almeida have traced many of these meanings, the
development of the Historical Thesaurus project offers the possibility
of a comprehensive survey of specialised vocabularies at various
stages in the history of English, and the assembly of terms in notional
10
Op. cit., p. 7.
Andrew Motion, Keats, London: Faber, 1997, p. 131
12
Op. cit., p. 132. Keats was, of course, not the only Romantic poet to be interested
in the artistic possibilities of health and sickness. Coleridge, for instance, was much
concerned with questions of sickness, and the figure of the nurse is an important part
of his poetic vocabulary. See R. Holmes, Coleridge: Early Visions, London: Harper
Collins, 1998, p.15, footnote, and references there cited. A classic discussion of the
literary uses of illness is Susan Sontag, Illness as Metaphor, New York: Farrar, Straus
and Giroux, 1978.
13
De Almeida, op. cit., p. 13.
11
163
categories makes it possible for the development of new and enhanced

interpretations of well-known texts.
The files in the Historical Thesaurus database for the fields
CURE and HEALTH, which can be time-limited, yield a fairly
sizeable listing of the medical vocabulary in Keatss day. It is
noticeable that many words are included in these fields which would
not be considered primarily medical in Present-Day English. A
selection follows:
CURE: balm, bland, broach, cot, discuss, elegant, explore,
gentle, rally, repel, resolve, revel, simple, solicit, steel, stuff,
subdue, tap, touch, translate, union, watch with
HEALTH:
burning, fanatic, fine, fond, foul, gasping,
gazeless, indifferent, indolent, melancholic, panting, passion,
rage, rude, shadow, spin, stifle, swirl, thing, touch, unkind,
vex, visionless, wandering, wither, wrong
Even a cursory survey of Keatss verse demonstrates how
common these words are in his writing, and how a grasp of their
medical meanings can inform our reading of his verse. To demonstrate
the point, I propose to examine the presence of a selection of these
forms in two poems from the beginning and end of his brief poetic
career: Endymion, which he published in 1818, and The Fall of
Hyperion, which was abandoned in the autumn of 1819 and not
published in the poets lifetime.
The later poem tells how the sun-titan, Hyperion, is to be
replaced by the god Apollo. The Fall is a substantial reworking of an
earlier, more substantial version of the myth, Hyperion, which
appeared in the major volume of poems which Keats published in
1820. Major additions in The Fall in comparison with the published
version include an initial dream-vision, in which the first-person
narrator describes an encounter with the priestess Moneta.
Explicitly medical situations are to be found throughout The
Fall. The dreamer collapses in a cloudy swoon (canto I, line 5; all
citations from Keatss verse are from Barnard 1973). The East wind is
sickening (I.7); flesh, near cousin to the common dust,/Will parch
for lack of nutriment (I.109-110); a palsied chill afflicts the
dreamer (I.122); Moneta seems to him to suffer from ferments
Jeremy J. Smith
164
(I.290) in the brain; she in turn accuses the dreamer of being a fever
of thyself (I.169) as opposed to a poet, who is a sage,/A humanist,
physician to all men (I.189-190); the poet, she says, pours out a
balm upon the world (I.201). Monetas face is wan (I.256), Not
pined by human sorrows, but bright-blanched/By an immortal
sickness which kills not (I.257-258). Saturn describes how the fallen
titan has been changed into a shaking palsy (I.426), suffering from
the pain of feebleness (I.429); Hyperion himself, though still
snuff[ing] the incense teeming up/From man to the suns God
(II.16-17), suffers from horrors, portioned to a giant nerve (II.23)
which make him ache (II.24); his ample palate (II.32) tastes
poisonous brass and metals sick (II.33). More subtly, Monetas
reference to an electral changing misery (I.246), with its reference
to the role of electricity in the constitution of the body, relates to a
contemporary debate about the basis of neurophysiology; another
Romantic text inspired by this notion was, of course, Mary Shelleys
Frankenstein (1818).14
The medical underpinning of the poem, therefore, is fairly clear,
but our grasp of its comprehensiveness is enhanced still further if we
note how apparently non-medical vocabulary has a medical
meaning in Keatss day.
Burning, for instance, is perhaps of particular biographical
interest. Keats uses the word a good deal in his poetry; in The Fall it
appears as follows, in the Dreamers narrative:
For by my burning brain I measured sure
Her silver seasons shedded on the night,
And every day by day methought I grew
More gaunt and ghostly.
(I.393-396)
One of the meanings of the word, current from the late medieval
period to the middle of the nineteenth century, is medical, as follows:
Heat attendant upon disease or a serpents bite; the disease itself; esp.
erysipelas or St. Anthonys fire, and venereal disease (OED). The
latest citation in this sense given by OED is from a medical glossary
of 1860: Burning, an old English name for Gonorrhoea. In its OED
14
See R. Porter, op. cit., p. 252.
165
citations it is quite frequently collocated with rage, which falls into

the same Thesaurus category, and it is therefore perhaps no surprise
that, within a few lines, we read how the Dreamer Gasping with
despair/Of change, hour after hour I cursed myself (I.398-399).
The word must have had very definite medical connotations for
Keats, since as is now generally accepted by scholars he suffered
from gonorrhoea, contracted most probably during his visit to Oxford
in 1817.15 Contemporary medical opinion required, as a remedy for
this condition, the sparing use of mercury, usually administered either
by rubbing on the skin or in pill form. The reference to how
Hyperions ample palate (II.32) tasted poisonous brass and metals
sick (II.33) may be connected to this experience. Keats seems in
accordance with contemporary, erroneous medical views on the
connexion between the diseases to have been worried that an
ulcerated throat, contracted during his visit to Scotland in the summer
of 1818, may have been a sign that his gonorrhoea was developing
into the much more serious disease of syphilis. As a result, he took
fairly heavy doses of mercury which may have made him especially
susceptible to the tuberculosis of which he eventually died.16
A more subtle example is the word fanatic, with which the
poem opens:
Fanatics have their dreams, wherewith they weave
A paradise for a sect, the savage too
From forth the loftiest fashion of his sleep
Guesses at Heaven; pity these have not
Traced upon vellum or wild Indian leaf
The shadows of melodious utterance.
(I.1-6)
The word fanatic is of course still current in Present-Day English,
with the meaning a person whose enthusiasm or zeal for something is
extreme or beyond normal limits; the word derives from Latin
fanaticus belonging to a temple, hence, inspired by a god, frenzied,
from fanum temple (CED). The word, first recorded in English in the
early sixteenth century, developed religious connotations in the
15
16
See Gittings, op. cit., p. 236 and Motion, op. cit., pp. 196-97.
Gittings, op. cit., p. 343.
Jeremy J. Smith
166
seventeenth century and took on a primarily religious denotation in the

eighteenth century; this is the overt meaning which Keats offers here,
supported by the reference to A paradise for a sect. However, there
was a distinct, medical meaning still current in Keatss time: a mad
person (not necessarily religious). OED cites the following reference
from the Medical Journal of 1806: Dr. G[all] gave .. hints how to
treat fanatics, by using topical remedies and poultices.
According to Keats, fanatics, like savages, have not the
consolations available to the literate: bare of laurel they live, dream,
and die (I.7). Laurel, of course, is a reference to the traditional
laurel-crown of the poet, both an image and an actual object current in
the house of the poets friend and early patron, Leigh Hunt.17 The
consolation, then, is Poesy [which] alone can tell her dreams (I.8).
The poet is explicitly contrasted with the fanatic (I.17), and this
comparison is developed throughout Monetas speech:
The poet and the dreamer are distinct,
Diverse, sheer opposite, antipodes.
The one pours out a balm upon the world,
The other vexes it.
(I.199-202)
In other words, the poet offers the topical remedy or cure balm
whereas the fanatic simply vexes. The Historical Thesaurus
classifies both balm and vex as medical terms in Keatss day;
poets and fanatics may therefore be seen as opposed in a quite
specific, medical sense. That the word fanatic has a medical sense in
Keatss day clarifies why the poem begins with the reference.
At first sight, medical situations are rather less common in
Keatss first major poem, Endymion. Sporadic metaphors and similes
hint at a medical context, e.g., natures wonders pulsed tenfold
(book I, line 105); Peona, Endymions sister and confidante, has
healing powers like some midnight spirit-nurse (I.413) which allow
Endymions brain to become healthier (I.465); atomies buzz
about our slumbers, like brain-flies,/Leaving us fancy-sick (I.851853; see also brain-sick II.43). The speech of the aged Glaucus in
Book III plays with images of mortality (remorseless as an infants
17
Gittings, op. cit., p. 145.
167
bier III.520), describing Circe as a kind of anti-physician inflicting

sickness: soon these limbs became/Gaunt, withered, sapless, feeble,
cramped, and lame (III.637-638); the subsequent resuscitation of the
nymph Scylla clearly has a medical parallel. It has been noted, too,
that Keats used ethereal in the poem in a quite definite scientific
sense.18 Moreover, in a discussion of the poem in his letters Keats
refers, perhaps significantly, to Pleasures Thermometer,19 although
the medical use of the thermometer was not current in his own day,
possibly because the instrument had not become appropriately refined
for clinical use.20 However, the following words, which the files of the
Thesaurus classify as having medical meanings in Keatss day but
have a much more general currency in Present-Day English, are all to
be found in the poem: bland, explore, gentle, resolve, simple, steel,
stuff, touch; burning, fine, fond, gasp, gaze, panting, passion, rage,
shadow, stifle.
One of the most commonly employed of these words in
Endymion is touch, which occurs no fewer than twenty-one times
and undoubtedly contributes to perception that the poem is
particularly concerned with sensuality; as John Locke put it, touch is
a sense spread over the whole body, tho it be most eminently placed
in the ends of the fingers (Elements of Natural Philosophy 1754
edition, xi.50; cited OED sv. TOUCH n.). According to the OED
citations, the word touch had primary medical meanings during the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Both noun and verb were used in
particular with reference to gynaecological examination, e.g., Upon
touching I found the os uteri a little more dilated (1754-1764),
[Touch:] Term for the examination of the womb, or mouth and neck
of the womb (1860). Intriguingly, the word seems also to have used
in the phrase to touch the gums, to induce salivation, as by the use of
mercury; by 1893, this phrase seems to have become proverbial:
The patient should be brought slightly .. under its [i.e. mercurys]
influence, so as just to touch the gums as the phrase is. Keats was
working on Endymion at the time he seems to have caught
18
J. Barnard, ed, John Keats: The Complete Poems, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973,
p. 564, discussing I. 298; cf. also II. 672.
19
Op cit., pp. 567-68.
20
Porter, op. cit., pp. 344-46.
168
Jeremy J. Smith
gonorrhoea, though it should be pointed out that the poem was well
under way before he visited Oxford.
One of the most important uses of the word occurs in Book I of
the poem, when Endymion, in conversation with his sister Peona,
develops an argument about the human aspiration for the spiritual life:
Behold
The clear religion of heaven! Fold
A rose leaf round thy fingers taperness,
And soothe thy lips; hist, when the airy stress
Of musics kiss impregnates the free winds,
And with a sympathetic touch unbinds
Aeolian magic from their lucid wombs;
Then old songs waken from enclouded tombs;
Old ditties sigh above their fathers grave;
Ghosts of melodious prophesyings rave
Round every spot where trod Apollos foot
(I.780-790)
The phrase sympathetic touch has a quite specific medical meaning
in Keatss time. We have already noted the medical meanings of
touch, and the gynaecological reference point is obviously relevant
to the image Keats is developing (cf. impregnates, wombs).
Sympathetic is given both physiological/pathological and
anatomical meanings by OED, with citations dating between 1728 and
1888. The definitions offered by OED are respectively as follows:
applied to a condition, action, or disorder induced in a person, or in
an organ or part of the body, by a similar or corresponding one in
another; designating one of the two great nerve-systems in
vertebrates, consisting of a double chain of ganglia, with connecting
fibres, along the vertebral column, giving off branches and plexuses
which supply the viscera and blood-vessels and maintain relations
between their various activities; belonging to or forming part of this
system. Music becomes the midwife, whereby human invention
harnesses natural sounds. That touch also has, according to OED, a
contemporary musical meaning adds to the density of reference which
Keats is trying to achieve; Keats himself collocates "touch" and
"sound" in:
169
or ye, whose precious charge

Nibble their fill at ocean's very marge,
Whose mellow reeds are touched with sounds forlorn
By the dim echoes of old Triton's horn
(I.203-206)
and the culminating reference to Apollo (god of music, as well as god
of poetry and medicine) is significant. The reference to an Aeolian
harp is a characteristically Romantic gesture, which Keats had already
used in his early Ode to (of course) Apollo of 1815 (see also, for
instance, Coleridges Effusion XXXV: The Eolian Harp).
Conclusion
The examples just given are all examples of a traditional artistic
activity: inventio, which according to the classical rhetoricians meant
harnessing materials to hand for creative purposes (a parallel may be
drawn with found art, as demonstrated inter alia by Picassos
famous notorious? linking of a bicycle saddle and handlebars to
create a bulls head).
However, in order to grasp how these inventive processes
worked, it is necessary to have a clear idea of the materials available
from which authors could make their choices. Although the analyses
offered above are hardly radical in offering new readings of the
poems, it may be hoped that they provide sufficient evidence to show
how the Historical Thesaurus project will allow literary as well as
linguistic historians to formulate new research questions, and to
develop new insights and an enhanced appreciation of authors from
earlier periods.
Abbreviations
CED= Collins English Dictionary (2003 edition)
OED = Oxford English Dictionary (http://www.oed.com)
Tell her to shut her moof:

the role of the lexicon in TH-fronting in
Glaswegian
Jane Stuart-Smith & Claire Timmins
Introduction
The discovery of TH-fronting, or the use of [f] for /th/ in words such
as think and tooth, as a feature in the speech of working-class
Glaswegian adolescents provoked both academic and general interest
when it was reported in 1998.1 The finding causes an apparent
difficulty for models of language change which hinge on dialect
contact associated with geographical mobility, since the Glaswegian
speakers who use [f] most in the 1997 sample are also those with the
lowest geographical mobility. In fact, our results seem to reflect those
of other, earlier studies elsewhere in the UK, which also show
relatively less-mobile working-class speakers using TH-fronting.2
Identifying the sociolinguistic mechanisms underlying the diffusion of
TH-fronting have been the primary points of interest for this variable,
and in particular, whether the broadcast media might or might not play
a role.3 The role of television as a factor in this and other changes
spreading rapidly through urban accents in the UK is now being
investigated systematically in a three-year project based in Glasgow.
But there are other aspects of TH-fronting which also deserve
discussion, and which have received much less attention. Here we
focus briefly on the role of the lexicon in the spread of TH-fronting in
Glaswegian and in so doing, we uncover the dynamic processes
1
Rob Corbidge, Its the way you tell em, me old Jock sparrer, Sunday Times,
29/03/98; J. Stuart-Smith, Glasgow: Accent and voice quality, in Paul Foulkes and
Gerard Docherty (eds.), Urban Voices, London: Arnold, 1999, pp. 203-22.
2
For a recent review, see, e.g., P. Kerswill, Dialect levelling and geographical
diffusion in British English, in David Britain and Jenny Cheshire (eds), Social
Dialectology: In honour of Peter Trudgill, Amsterdam: Benjamins, 2003, pp. 223-43.
3
E.g., P. Trudgill, Dialects in Contact, Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 54-55.
172
Stuart-Smith & Timmins
involved in the diffusion of an innovatory variant into a traditional

dialect, and at the same time we also discover more about the fate of
traditional Scots variants in modern Urban Scots.
The term TH-fronting was coined by Wells to refer to the
replacement of the dental fricatives [th, dh] by labiodentals [f] and [v]
respectively in Cockney and other London accents.4 Wells also notes
that /dh/ may not show [v] in word-initial position, and this constraint,
together with other factors particular to the change in Glaswegian, has
led us to use TH-fronting to refer specifically to the use of [f] for /th/.
The first published reports of TH-fronting in Glaswegian date to the
early 1980s and are given by Macafee.5 The expected local
pronunciation for /th/ in Scots in Glasgow and more generally across
the Central Belt is [h], in word-initial and intervocalic position, and
before /r/, as in e.g. thing, nothing, three.6 This feature is, according to
Johnston, becoming more common over time there, though still
variable; in word-final position, /th/ is expected.
The existence of local [h] complicates the diffusion of [f]. Unlike
in other accents of English, where [f] competes solely with [th], in
Glasgow adding [f] creates a three-way system of phonetic variants,
[th]/[f]/[h]. These in turn divide into two categories indexing social
functions. [th] is typical of supralocal and local educated norms (the
regional standard), while [h] and [f] mark local non-standard, nonestablishment, non-posh norms. [h] is well-known in Glasgow as a
vernacular variant, while [f] has only recently risen above the level of
social consciousness.7
Lexical diffusion, or the gradual spread of sound changes across
the lexicon of a language, is now a well-established theoretical
component in understanding sound change both by historical linguists
John Wells, Scotland, in: Accents of English, Cambridge: Cambridge

5
C. Macafee, Varieties of English around the World: Glasgow, Amsterdam:
Benjamins, 1983, p. 34, n. 26; and C. Macafee, Traditional dialect in the Modern
World: A Glasgow Case Study, Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1994, p. 29.
6
P. Johnston, Regional Variation, in Charles Jones (ed.), The Edinburgh History of
Scots, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1997, pp. 433-513; also Macafee
(1983), op. cit., p. 33, n. 23. Stopping of /th/ is also found word-initially; see
Johnston, op. cit., p. 506. This variant, and other rare variants will not be discussed
here.
7
See, e.g., Hugh Reilly, In need of some speech ferapy, The Scotsman, 25/09/02.
'Tell her to shut her moof'
173
and sociolinguists working on language variation and change.8 Given

that TH-fronting seems to be a relatively recent innovation in
Glasgow, we might expect to find evidence for lexical diffusion for
[f], and our results confirm this. However, what is perhaps more
interesting is the way that the existing and particular lexical
distribution of [h] imposes special constraints on the progress of THfronting in Glaswegian.
The data: The Glasgow Speech Project
Our discussion is based on evidence for TH-fronting derived from the
analysis of two speech corpora collected in 1997 and 2003, which
together and with other studies, comprise a long-term research
programme into aspects of language variation and change in
Glaswegian which we call The Glasgow Speech Project. The 1997
corpus comprises read and spontaneous speech from 32 individuals
stratified according to age, gender and social class.9 The 2003 corpus
contains read and spontaneous speech recorded from 36 working-class
adolescents divided into three age groups (1: 10/11 years; 2: 12/13
years; 3: 14/15 years).
Here we concentrate on the results from spontaneous speech
alone, since /h/ - like other stigmatized features of Glaswegian
vernacular, such as oot (/ut/) for out did not occur in read speech.
All instances of /th/ for each speaker were identified and auditorily
transcribed from the 1997 corpus. These data were then statistically
analysed for the effects of AGE, CLASS and GENDER using logratio linear modelling and then Bonferroni-corrected t-tests. The first
35 instances of /th/ were transcribed from the 2003 corpus and then
tested for the effects of AGE and GENDER using chi-square tests,
with the level of significance set to p <0.05.
The majority of the 1997 corpus and the whole of the 2003
corpus were collected by the same fieldworker, Claire Timmins. The
nature of the spontaneous speech recording was the same for both
8
E.g., W. Wang, Competing changes as a cause of residue, Language 45 (1969), 925; A. McMahon, Understanding Language Change, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1994, 50-56; W. Labov, Principles of Linguistic Change: Internal
Factors, Oxford: Blackwell, 1994.
9
More details are given in J. Stuart-Smith, Glasgow: Accent and voice quality in:
Paul Foulkes and Gerard Docherty (eds.), Urban Voices, London: Arnold, 203-222.
174
corpora, as was the area, and even the school, of the working-class
adolescent sample. Thus comparison between speech of the 8
working-class adolescents of 1997 with that of the 36 speakers of the
same age and profile in 2003, though numerically uneven, in other
respects provides good evidence for a real time study of TH-fronting
in these speakers.
Sound change in progress: TH-fronting
The results for 1997 show clear evidence for TH-fronting as a feature
of one group of speakers, working-class adolescents (Table 1), and the
significant effect of AGE confirms this as an apparent time change.
Compared to Macafees mention of occasional TH-fronting this also
constitutes evidence for real time change. Note however, that [h] is
still numerically predominant. The variation for /th/ is spread across
[th], [h] and [f].
Table 1. Distribution of phonetic variation for (th) for all speakers in
spontaneous speech in 1997 corpus.
MCOF
MCOM
MCYF
MCYM
WCOF
WCOM
WCYF
WCYM
[th]
[f]
[thf]
[t]
[s]
[h]
98.40
97.60
93.33
88.89
81.68
74.39
21.21
33.62
0
0
0
0
0
0
32.90
22.41
0
0
0
0
0.26
0.81
0.00
0.86
0.80
1.20
0.89
4.58
0.26
1.63
0.43
0.86
0
0
0
0
0
0
0.43
0
0.27
0.60
5.78
6.21
16.54
12.60
44.59
41.38
[m]
0.53
0.60
0
0.33
1.27
10.57
0.43
0.86
Note n = 2021. All factors and all their interactions were significant. Across
variants working-class adolescents are significantly different from their
middle-class counterparts. Working-class girls are polarized from all middleclass speakers in their high use of [f] and low use of [th].
175
Table 2. Main phonetic variants for (th) for all speakers in spontaneous
speech in 2003 corpus
age/group
gender
[th]
[f]
f
m
f
m
f
m
12.23
4.76
27.34
20.71
20.69
21.40
47.97
58.86
26.08
43.62
39.31
36.45
2
3
[h]
39.80
36.38
46.58
35.67
40.00
42.15
Note n = 1013 There is a significant effect of AGE, but not GENDER, with
the youngest group using more [f] and less [th].
Consider now the results for 2003 (Table 2), which are only from
working-class adolescents.10 The youngest group uses [f] the most, but
at the expense of standard [th], not [h]. This reflects the overall pattern
for all speakers. Adding [f] increases their potential repertoire for
expressing a specific kind of local identity (us as normal,
Possil/Ruchill and so on) which is generated with an array of
specific social and linguistic practices, and by rejecting features
associated with perceived middle-class, establishment norms (them
as e.g. pure gay, Bearsden, and so on).11 Statistical comparison of
the two sets of results is highly significant, providing evidence for a
real time change in progress: [f] is increasing, [h] is increasing
slightly, and [th] is reducing.
The role of position in the word
Table 3 gives the distribution of main variants for /th/ according to
position in the word in the two corpora.
10
Only results for the most frequent variants are presented for the 2003 data.
J. Stuart-Smith, C. Timmins and F. Tweedie, Conservation and innovation in a
traditional dialect: L-vocalization in Glaswegian, English World Wide (forthcoming).
11
176
Table 3. Distribution of [th], [f] and [h] variants for (th) in spontaneous
speech in working-class adolescents according to position in the
word in 1997 (n = 324) and in 2003 (n = 1013).
1997
2003
[th]
[f]
[h]
[th]
[f]
[h]
word-initial
word-internal
word-final
31.38
17.05
43.23
32.65
9.08
56.77
35.96
73.86
0
20.64
6.30
28.92
29.18
22.19
71.18
50.18
71.50
0
overall
30.28
32.62
35.79
18.62
40.85
40.56
Several findings are consistent from 1997 to 2003. [th] and [f] may
occur in all positions in the word. [h] is predominantly found wordinternally, and is absent from word-final position. Statistical evidence
for variation and change is found for word-initial position and wordinternal position, and in each case the change involves reduction of
standard [th]. Word-initially, [h] was more common in 2003. Wordinternally [f] shows the main increase, with [h] being more or less
stable. The dramatic rise in [f] in word-final position is statistically
only a tendency, but still striking, and is clearly linked to the absence
of [h].
It is clear from these results that position in the word is an
important factor which both constrains and facilitates the diffusion of
[f], and this is bound up with the behaviour of [h] and [th]. But
position in the word results from a generalization of lexical
distribution, and the following section shows the importance of
individual words in this change, and particularly for the survival of
[h].
The role of the lexicon
The distribution of the main phonetic variants for /th/ in 1997 and
2003 are displayed in three pairs of tables, for word-initial, wordinternal and word-final position respectively; see Tables 4-6. The total
number of words containing /th/ is always more in 2003 which reflects
the larger sample of 36 speakers as opposed to 8 speakers in 1997.
177
Table 4. Lexical distribution of main variants for /th/ in word-initial position in

working-class adolescents in 1997 and 2003 in descending order of frequency.
2003
1997
word
think
thing
thought
three
through
thirty
thinks
thingmy
thank
third
thirteen
thematic
thieving
thinking
throat
thrown
Thursday
[th] [f]
13
4
4
6
9
6
1
3
2
6
5
22
11
5
2
Total
45
19
64
30
26
17
14
8
7
5
2
2
2
1
1
1
1
1
1
6
2
2
2
1
1
1
1
1
1
[h]
word
[th] [f]
think
thing
three
thought
things
through
thingy
thousand
thingwy
thinking
thirty
third
Thursday
thingmy
thinks
thank
thingummy
23
11
12
8
5
10
6
6
2
4
7
2
3
5
thistle
threw
thin
thirteen
thingd
thingwys
throwing
thanks
theft
therapist
thingamajiggy
thingy'd
thinked
thinness
thong
throat
throw
5
1
1
3
[h] Total
22 155 200
8 59
78
32 1
45
33
41
1 30
36
21
31
9
15
8
14
11
13
3
3
10
2
9
6
8
5
8
2
7
1
5
6
5
1
2
4
4
4
2
2
2
2
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
4
4
3
3
2
2
2
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
178
thumb
thumbs
1
1
1
1
Table 5. Lexical distribution of main variants for /th/ in word-internal

position in working-class adolescents in 1997 and 2003 in
descending order of frequency.
1997
word
something
nothing
anything
Catholics
everything
without
Catherine
menthol
Strathmore
[th]
[f]
[h] Total
word
2
3
4
6
2
7
3
1
1
31
21
15
3
2
1
1
2003
36
31
23
7
6
3
2
1
1
[th]
[f]
[h] Total
something
anything
nothing
healthy
everything
birthday
without
maths
Samantha
5
3
3
3
3
1
1
39
153
46
40
10
9
5
4
Jonathon
Dorothy
athletics
birthdays
Blackthorn
Catherine
enthusiasm
Graths
months
Southpark
3
2
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
21
1
161
50
44
42
21
14
9
5
5
4
2
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
179
Table 6. Lexical distribution of main variants for /th/ in word-final position

in working-class adolescents in 1997 and 2003 in descending order
1997
word
maths
month
mouth
fourth
seventh
underneath
fifth
2003
[th] [f] Total

5
3
1
1
1
6
2
4
2
1
2
11
5
4
3
2
2
1
word
teeth
month
fourth
Smith
twentieth
eighteenth
bath
breath
McGrath
underneath
fifth
ninth
sixth
twelfth
worth
fifteenth
Goth
Grath
length
loudmouth
Portsmouth
sixteenth
strength
[th] [f] Total

2
3
2
3
2
3
1
2
10
8
6
4
7
4
2
12
11
8
7
7
6
5
3
2
1
2
2
3
3
3
2
2
2
2
2
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
2
2
2
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
/th/ is most frequent in word-initial position, occurring in 17 words in

1997 and 36 words in 2003. The most striking result is the lexical
restriction of [h] to think or thing, and forms derived from these stems.
In 1997 this gives 4 words, think and far less frequently thinks, and the
most frequent item thing and its less common derivative thingmy. In
2003, the think/thing set extends across 13 words, but again think and
thing are the most common, and their derivatives, such as thinking and
thingy respectively, are far less frequent. However this lexical
restriction is countered by the relative frequency of thing and think
which together and alone constitute around half of the total instances
180
of /th/ in both corpora. [f] is creeping into the think/thing group but is
found far more often in other words, of which thought and three are
the most frequent. The proportion of words in which [f] is used
increases from 53% to 72% from 1997 to 2003, indicating a gradual
spread through the lexicon, though from a substantial base. Few words
retain [th]. Across both corpora only thank and thirteen resist a nonstandard variant; in 1997 thieving and thematic occur only once and
with [th]. Overall we can see that in this position the prevalence of [h]
in the think/thing set blocks [f] from being numerically frequent, but
[f] can still achieve a decent quantity by occurring in the fairly wide
base of other, less frequent, words which cannot take [h].
A similar, but stronger, pattern emerges in word-internal position.
Here in both corpora [h] is even further restricted to four words,
something, anything, nothing, everything, all of which contain
thing.12 But in this position these words are even more frequent, thus
boosting the relative frequency of [h], and restricting the possibility of
occurrence of [f]. [f] is found sporadically in the thing set, but is
more commonly observed in other words where [h] is not possible
(Catholics is most common in 1997, healthy in 2003). This time there
is no apparent change in lexical spread in this position. [f] occurs in
slightly fewer words in 2003 (74%) than in 1997 (78%). It seems that
word-internally the potential base of words which may not take [h],
and so which could contain [f], is smaller, and this too acts to restrict
the spread of [f]. Words that take only [th] across both corpora are rare
and include two proper names (Strathmore, Blackthorn).
In word-final position [f] is at last without competition. [h] does
not and cannot occur in any words, a restriction which accords with
the general phonotactic prohibition on /h/ word-finally in most accents
of English. [f] appears to be spreading unchecked. In terms of lexical
distribution [f] occurs in all but two words found in 1997. This high
proportion (75%) increases further to 83% in 2003. It is difficult to see
any pattern underlying words which here retain [th]. sixth and
sixteenth both occur only once, and with [th], though the incidence of
[f] in other ordinals suggest that this may well be conincidental.
Otherwise only worth and the proper name Grath show [th]. In
general it seems unlikely that there is any real lexical restriction on
any word taking [f] word-finally, and [f] is diffusing freely in this
12
[h] in birthday is unusual.
181
position. We note with interest how the availability of word-final [f]

as a variant for /th/ permits our Glaswegian speakers to use nonstandard variants in all positions in the word. By 2003, [th] has been
eroded to less than 20% of the total variation for /th/.
These data confirm a process of lexical diffusion for TH-fronting
in real time in word initial position. The good spread across the
possible sites for /th/ in other positions in the word suggests that
lexical diffusion is already quite advanced in these positions. In
general, [h] occurs in few lexemes, but these tend to be very frequent.
[f], on the other hand, occurs in far more words, but these tend to be
less common. The effect of the spread of [f] at the moment seems to
be a dramatic reduction in [th]; [h] is still prevalent.
Concluding Remarks
The findings of this brief analysis may be summarized as follows:
1. TH-fronting is evidenced both as an apparent time and a real time
change in the speech of working-class adolescents in Glasgow.
2. TH-fronting is entering a system with a well-established local nonstandard variant, [h], which means that the process is not binary
but involves three main elements.
3. The spread of TH-fronting is constrained by position in the word
and the distribution of the existing variant [h]
4. TH-fronting is taking place via a process of lexical diffusion,
which is now relatively far advanced
5. The local Scots variant [h] is lexically restricted but maintains a
dominant position because the small number of words that take [h]
remain very frequent.
There can be no doubt that TH-fronting is now a well-established
feature of Glaswegian vernacular, and our results can only give a
glimpse of the full extent of this sound change. That [f] has to
compete with existing local vernacular [h] makes TH-fronting in
Glasgow more complex than elsewhere in the UK, though the
situation is reminiscent of the incursion of T-glottalling into Tyneside
182
English where glottal reinforcement in, e.g., water represents the

local non-standard variant.13
The persistent frequency of Scots [h] for /th/ provides an
effective brake on TH-fronting spreading unchecked throughout the
lexicon. And this is despite the small amount of words that show [h],
which in turn boil down to derivatives of think and thing. Analysis of
the OUT vowel and Scots L-vocalization in Macafees 1984/5 dataset
and the 1997 corpus revealed similar results. Scots forms occur in
small numbers of words, but these continue to be very frequent, to the
extent that there appears to be no quantitative reduction in the Scots
variants of OUT or Scots L-vocalization over the past few decades.14
Thus Scots variants in these samples of Glaswegian vernacular appear
to be remarkably vigorous despite continual lexical erosion of less
frequently used items.
However, there is a fundamental difference between the
maintenance of Scots OUT/Scots L-vocalization and that of [h] for
/th/. In the former, the alternation is essentially between a clearlyrecognized Scots/vernacular/non-standard variant and an alternative
pronunciation closer to Scottish Standard English, albeit with a
characteristic phonetic realization. In the latter case, the introduction
of [f] now leaves [h] existing as one of two possible non-standard
alternatives to [th], and whilst [h] is undoubtedly strong, [f] is now
found occasionally in words formerly only occupied by [h]. It remains
to be seen whether [h] will be able to withstand the onslaught of THfronting in the future.
Acknowledgements
It has been a pleasure to write this paper for Christian Kay for whom
we have enormous affection, respect, and admiration. The work
presented here was largely made possible because of her continual
support and encouragement, especially at the early stages.
13
E.g., J. Milroy, L. Milroy, S. Hartley, and D. Walshaw, Glottal stops and Tyneside
glottalization: competing patterns of variation and change in British English,
Language Variation and Change, 6 (1994), pp. 327-57.
14
J. Stuart-Smith, The phonology of Modern Urban Scots, in John Corbett, J.
Derrick McClure, and Jane Stuart-Smith (eds.), The Edinburgh Companion to Scots,
Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, pp. 110-37.
183
We would like to acknowledge financial support from the

Leverhulme Trust (Grant no F/179/AX) for analysis of the 1997
corpus, and from the ESRC (grant no R000235797) for the collection
and analysis of the 2003 data. We are also grateful to Graham Caie,
John Corbett, Robert Lawson, Suzy Orr and Jeremy Smith for
comments on an earlier draft of this paper.
Forces of change: are social and moral

attitudes legible in this Historical Thesaurus
classification?
Louise Sylvester
1. Introduction
In an extremely thought-provoking essay, Christian Kay reflects on
the cognitive salience of the procedures employed by those classifying
material for the Glasgow Historical Thesaurus of English (HTE).1 As
Christians essay indicates, it is becoming increasingly clear that
cognitive linguistics has thrown up a number of issues which are
pertinent to diachronic semantic studies. Among these is Rastiers
suggestion that the project of diachronic semantics leads us to look at
social evaluations to find the forces which shape and distort the
lexicon.2 It seems to me that the HTE, a project which is at the
interface between historical semantics and lexicography, may present
a rich resource with which such questions may be addressed. Before
the HTE is considered in this light, however, certain theories that have
arisen within cognitive linguistics need to be taken into account. One
of the important suggestions, for example, is that whereas the
traditional view understands the role of language as mapping elements
of the external world onto linguistic forms, cognitive linguists argue
that a particular situation can be construed in different ways, and
different ways of encoding a situation constitute different
conceptualizations (Lee; Taylor; Croft and Cruse).3 Included within
1
C.J. Kay, Historical semantics and historical lexicography: will the twain ever
meet, in J. Coleman and C.J. Kay (eds.), Lexicology and Semantics in English
Historical Linguistics: Selected papers from the 4th G.L. Brook Symposium,
Manchester, August 1998, Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2000.
2
F. Rastier, Cognitive semantics and diachronic semantics: the values and evolution
of classes, in A. Blank and P. Kock, (eds.), Historical Semantics and Cognition,
Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 1999, p. 126.
3
See, for example, D. Lee, Cognitive Linguistics: an Introduction, Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2001; J.R. Taylor, Cognitive semantics and structural semantics,
186
Louise Sylvester
this notion of construal are the ideas that meaning, particularly the
meaning of complex concepts, presupposes the existence of
knowledge systems.4 This paper will consider these theories about
meaning and conceptualization, and their implications for
investigations of the data and definitions in lexicographical projects,
focusing particularly on the HTE. I shall consider also whether it is
possible to bring together different discourses which seek to
understand and account for cultural and semantic shift. This will
enable an investigation of how far changing conceptualizations are
visible through the lens of the HTE classification, using data
concerned with consent, coercion and resistance in connection with
conceptualizations of sexual contracts across time.
If the HTE is published electronically, as seems increasingly
probable, it will be possible to search the thesaurus for all the
occurrences of an individual word within the entire classification,
perhaps through the kinds of searches that are found in the WordNet
electronic lexical database, and thus to address questions about
polysemy and diachronic change. From an onomasiological point of
view, beginning, that is, with a concept rather than a word, it is still
somewhat cumbersome to trace all the relevant parts of the data.
Indeed, until the project reaches completion, it will not be possible to
do so. I have chosen, therefore, to focus on a particular category,
02.05. Will/faculty of will, an extremely large category, containing
6531 records. I shall quote sufficiently extensively to offer a sense of
the category, and will include larger sections of the category in two
appendices.5 I have reformatted this material so that it matches the
presentation in the Thesaurus of Old English (TOE), and I have left in
a skeleton of the numbering system of the original classification, again
matching the presentation in the TOE, in order to make the task of
in A. Blank and P. Kock, (eds.), Historical Semantics and Cognition, Berlin: Mouton
de Gruyter, 1999, pp. 17-48.
W. Croft and D.A. Cruse, Cognitive Linguistics, Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2004.
4
R.W. Langacker, Foundations of Cognitive Grammar. Vol. 1: Theoretical
Prerequisites, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1987, pp. 184-85.
5
I am grateful to Christian Kay and the staff at the Glasgow Historical Thesaurus of
English project for giving me access to the data via a CD-ROM of the materials which
had been classified at March 2004.
Forces of change: social and moral attitudes
187
reading the extracts as easy as possible.6 Bearing in mind Lees

suggestion (op. cit., p.116) that semantic changes are the result of
changes affecting the degree of salience of the various elements of the
relevant frame, this paper will examine the evidence provided by the
HTE classification in order to investigate how far shifts in social and
moral attitudes are legible within the metalanguage and the
vocabulary groupings of the HTE.
2. Structural and cognitive views on the lexicon
If we are to discover the ways in which categories change over time
we need to combine different kinds of knowledge about how meaning
is structured. In order to accomplish this, encyclopaedic knowledge
encompassing conceptual domains needs to be brought together with
linguistic knowledge. Discussing cognitive semantics and structural
semantics, Taylor affirms that changes in word meaning are likely to
have as much to do with changes in background assumptions, that is
domain-based knowledge configurations, as with designation (op. cit.,
p. 40). In linguistic terms, rather than through the lens of cultural and
social history, the question is of particular relevance to the HTE. As is
now quite widely known, the HTE will, when complete, offer a
conceptual classification, in a hierarchical series of categories, of the
entire lexis of English from the Anglo-Saxon period to the present
day, including obsolete senses.7 In establishing the project Samuelss
intention was that it would provide a resource for the diachronic study
of English and, in particular, the investigation of the ways in which
the English language, as a system, regulates change. The HTE was
established at a time when the thinking about language was
predominantly structuralist and so language was conceptualized as a
system within the foundational principles of the project. For scholars
working now, within the frameworks of cognitive linguistics, making
use of the HTE classification raises the question of how far it is
possible to extract from it information about semantic shift which
6
J. Roberts and C.J. Kay with L. Grundy, A Thesaurus of Old English, London:
Kings College London Medieval Studies, 1995. The style and status labels which
appear in the HTE may be found at:
http://www2.arts.gla.ac.uk/SESLL/EngLang/thesaur/abbrev1.htm
7
As proposed in M.L. Samuels, Linguistic Evolution with Special Reference to
English, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972, p. 180.
188
Louise Sylvester
takes account of real-world knowledge. In other words, can we verify

an understanding of semantic shift and its relation to changes in
cultural understanding from the HTE records? Alternatively, it may be
argued that the two aspects, cultural understanding and lexicalization
of concepts, are not separable; if this is so, the HTE can only illustrate
the ways in which semantic shift is culturally determined, and our
interpretations are cultural constructions.
Given the beginnings of the HTE project, we should continue to
be aware that, as Taylor observes, structuralist semantics has proved
an invaluable tool in explicating semantic change, one which points to
changes in the system (op. cit., p.37). I have argued elsewhere8 that
discussions of semantic shift tend to focus on the change in meaning
of a single word, traditionally looking at such processes as narrowing
and widening, e.g. OE mete food > PDE meat; OE bridd young
bird > PDE bird; or pejoration and amelioration, e.g. OE scitol
purgative > PDE shit, or OE prtig sly > PDE pretty. The HTE is,
of course, designed precisely to illustrate such changes to the lexicon,
although it is perhaps most accessible through the headings and so
tracking these shifts is most easily done from an onomasiological
point of view. When I began to think about the idea of willing or
unwilling consent, and the ways in which legal definitions from the
medieval period onwards have sought to interpret this distinction.9
Christian directed me towards the category of terms 02.05.
Will/faculty of will in the HTE classification. Looking at the nouns in
the subcategory 02.05.03 Will/wish/inclination within 02.05
Will/faculty of will, we find evidence that some terms persist in the
language with a particular meaning, while others drop out fairly
rapidly, though they may, of course, resurface at another point in the
classification:
02.05.03 Will/wish/inclination n: dom OE; gemede OE; myne OE;
gewilnes OE; gewyrd OE; i-will<gewil OE-1340; self-will<selfwill OE1456; heart<heorte OE-1584; will<willa OE-1601+1837; intent a1225;
8
L.M. Sylvester, Evidence for diachronic semantic change in the Historical

Thesaurus of English: A cognitive linguistic approach, in I. Moskowich-Spiegel
Fandino and B. Crespo Garcia (eds.), English Historical Linguistics: An Atlantic
View, Universidade da Corua, 2004, pp. 189-221.
9
L.M. Sylvester, The vocabulary of consent: classification and use, in J. Coleman
and C.J. Kay (eds.), op. cit., pp. 157-78.
189
ywil(l)e c1200-a1275; talent a1300-1530; device a1300-1648; (one's)

list a1300-1867; courage c1320-a1626; affection 1330-1877 ai; volunty
c1330-1652; gree c1330-a1734; pleasance c1340-1530; one's pleasure
c1368; affect 1374-1626; fantasy c1374-a1618; disposing c1380-1611;
wish 1390; disposition 1393; mind a1400/50; plight c1400-1726;
volente/volante 1418/20-1525; pleasing c1430-1527; fancy 1465; hest
1500/20-1845; cue 1565-1851; month's mind 1580-1826 ob ex dl;
disposedness 1583-1876; humo(u)r 1590; wouldings a1640-a1758;
beneplacit 1643-1658; inclination 1647; wouldingness a1660; beneplaciture 1662; good-liking 1690; notion 1746; draught 1758-a1775;
tid a1774 sc; inkling 1787 dl
This subcategory contains the term heart<heorte OE-1584. This term

reappears in the classification with another, similar, sense (see below).
The user of the HTE is thus provided with instances of movement
within semantic space, in particular, narrowing. Hanging off the
subcategory 02.05.03 Will/wish/inclination we find the heading:
02.05.03.01. Willingness n
Below this are the groups:
.heartiness/zeal n: goodwill a1300-1486+1805; eagerness c1400-1678;
estudy 1483+1483; zeal c1520 ; heartiness 1530; whole-heartedness
1854; fanaticism 1855
[]
.hearty/zealous aj: affectual 1483-1581; affectuous 1494-c1656; zealous
1526; jealous 1535-1661; affective 1549 sc; hearty 1704; gung ho
1942
[]
.very willingly av: with all one's heart<mid ealre heortan OE ; with heart
c1220-1598; with one's whole heart 1535; with a heart and a half
1636+1885; for twopence 1934
Here we see some, perhaps predictable, extensions of the usage of the

term heart as it shifts across various word-classes and, arguably, gains
an intensive sense. The HTE also offers evidence for processes of
grammaticalization: we find the term will recurring throughout the
classification of the category 02.05. Will/faculty of will, both alone
and in numerous compounds. It also occurs with meanings which
shade towards an indication of future events. For instance, the
190
Louise Sylvester
classification of the category begins with nouns with the sense

Will/faculty of will:
02.05 Will/faculty of will n: will<willa OE; wilhede 1340; volition 1738;
voluntary faculty 1867
.will-power: volition 1844; will-power 1874
.will as natural instinct/drive: will to 1823
..spec.: vitativeness 1843; will-to-live 1903; will to power 1907
Later we find that the category also includes terms signifying

necessity, and the verb form of the term will appears to look both
ways: towards the meaning of desire, and also towards a hardening of
the sense of driving what will happen:
02.05.02 Must of necessity vi: needs must 1390; must needs a1400-1782
.be necessary condition: shall<sculan OE-1605+1818
.must inevitably: will c1611
..be an inevitable consequence: will 1387; it is (of) force 1483-1802
It is easy to fall into the trap of assuming that because a sub-category

appears further down in the classification, the sense comes into use
later in time, as in the example of will be an inevitable consequence
and will must inevitably as well as will act of own free will which
appears in the classification at 02.05.01 with the date 1393. We need
to be careful not to make arguments for trends in semantic shift that
are not supported by the evidence of the dates of usage which are
derived from the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). As the category
numbers indicate, many of the groupings are co-hyponyms, and the
dates make it clear that many of the senses co-exist and overlap in
temporal distribution. When we look at a small group, quite low down
in the classification, we can see that a sub-category may be made up
of terms which remain in the language from the medieval or early
modern periods to the present day bearing the same senses (as
hungrily and cravingly in the example below), and of terms which
appear only fleetingly, and which for syntactic or other reasons, do not
remain in the language either with this particular sense, or, perhaps, at
all:
02.05.03.03.03.01 .craving av: hungrily 1377; cravingly 1621; esuriently
1883 al fg; hungeringly 1884
191
In some cases, survival rates clearly vary according to the form of the
word, as we see in the cases of hungrily and hungeringly. Sometimes
word class may be a deciding factor; while esuriently av is only
attested once, the OED, and therefore the HTE editors, suggest that
esurient aj is in use from a1672 up to the present day.
The kinds of changes we have just been looking at are of the type
which have received most attention within historical semantics.
Perhaps, however, there are ways in which the structuring principles
of the HTE may find a rapprochement with some of the tenets of
cognitive linguistics. Much has been written about the cognitive
salience of categories, beginning with Roschs work10 and extending
the findings made within psychology to research within linguistics.
The suggestion has been made that as linguists, as well as
anthropologists, continue to seek to explain the link between language
and cultural construction, the theoretical nexus of language,
categorization and culture is likely to tighten.11 Even though ideas
derived from cognitive psychology were not part of the design of the
HTE project, questions about categories underlay the design of the
taxonomy which was devised for it, and the organizational principle of
the HTE is that of a hierarchical arrangement of semantic categories
based on relationships of hyponymy.12 The HTE consists, therefore, of
a sequence of categories and subcategories, organized on the basis of
the semantic relationship is a kind of. Thus, 02.05.01. Free will is
a kind of 02.05. Will/faculty of will, and 02.05.01.01 .of actions
represents a kind of exercise of free will. Taylor (op. cit.) notes that
three kinds of relations between linguistic units need to be recognised.
One is the is-a relation in which one unit instantiates, or may be
10
E.H. Rosch, On the internal structure of perceptual and semantic categories, in

T.E. Moore (ed.), Cognitive Development and the Acquisition of Language, New
York: Academic Press, 1973, pp. 111-14; Cognitive representations of semantic
categories, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 104, 1975, 192-233; and
with C.B. Mervis, W.D. Gray, D.M. Johnson and P. Boyes-Braem, Basic objects in
natural categories, Cognitive Psychology 8, 1976, 382-439.
11
R.E. MacLaury, Preface: Linguistic and anthropological approaches to cognition,
in J.R. Taylor and R.E. MacLaury (eds.), Language and the Cognitive Construal of
the World, Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 1995, pp. vii-xiii, vii.
12
C.J. Kay, I. Wotherspoon, and L. Sylvester, One thesaurus leads to another: TOE,
HTE, TME, in C.J. Kay and L. Sylvester (eds.), Lexis and Texts in Early English:
Studies Presented to Jane Roberts, Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2001, pp. 173-86.
192
Louise Sylvester
regarded as, a more fully specified instance of a more schematically

characterised unit. A second relation is the is part-of relation: one
unit is part of a larger, more complex unit. A third relation is the islike relation in which one unit resembles another unit, in some
aspects. Of this final example, Taylor suggests that the simulacrum
can thus be assimilated to the exemplar as a marginal instance to a
prototype (op. cit., pp. 19-20). As we work down the HTE
classificatory headings, the is a kind of relation is clearly evident,
and the classification also includes the second, is part-of relation.
The HTE may thus be said to include examples from both the first and
the third of Taylors list of relations (so, for example, a viola is-like a
violin/is-a-kind-of stringed instrument, eschewing the abstract for the
concrete, for a moment.). These sense relations may be seen as fitting
into the ideas of dynamic construal that have become so important in a
cognitive view of meaning. In this connection we may note Croft and
Cruses suggestion that one of the main aims of the dynamic construal
approach to word meaning is to achieve a unified account of both hard
and soft aspects of word meaning, both flexibility and rigidity, and to
locate the origins of these at first sight contradictory properties. The
hard properties include sense relations such as hyponymy,
incompatibility, meronymy and antonymy, and the existence of
structured lexical sets (word fields) (op. cit., p.106). This formulation
would seem to offer some validity to the kind of semantic information
that is encoded in the HTE classification, built as it is on the relations
of hyponomy and meronymy. It seems, then, that there is some
theoretical justification, with regard both to the categorial
arrangement, and the semantic relationships on which it is built, to
assimilate some of the insights we may gain from the HTE
classification into a cognitive framework, as Kays paper indicates
ought to be possible without inordinate difficulty. What is less easy to
determine, is how to make use of this kind of information to shed light
on diachronic semantic shift which must have been initiated by
speakers, and which must therefore have arisen within a context of
dynamic construal. One remaining question concerns how these shifts,
and the forces which shaped them, can be read off the HTE
classification.
3. Construal and concepts
193
Cultural shift
My focus in this paper is on the relationship of language to an

understanding of concepts within our culture, and the ways in which
these may be seen to change, and, in doing so, produce changes in the
lexicon. The observation by Rastier with which we began concerns
diachronic semantics and social evaluations; cultural historians,
however, have not always considered that we need to track shifts in
social evaluations, in particular where these are concerned with
abstract ideas such as romantic love and desire. The HTE category
under consideration, 02.05. Will/faculty of will contains the
subcategory 02.05.03.03. Desire and this is part of the reason that this
category seems such a useful one with which to investigate whether
the HTE classification offers evidence for changes in social attitudes
alongside the information it contains about semantic shifts. Discussing
the cultural history of romantic love and desire, Belsey observes that
however much sexual practices and preferences are known to differ
culturally, the desire that motivates them is tacitly understood to be
the same throughout history.13 Both linguists and scholars of popular
culture now suggest, however, that emotions should not be regarded as
pre-social essences, but as socially ordered and linguistically
mediated;14 they argue that the reality of sex does not pre-exist the
language in which it is expressed; rather, language produces the
categories through which we organize our sexual desires, identities
and practices.15 We are faced here with the Saussurean paradox: is
language a system inherited by speakers, or is it created by speakers.
Saussure emphasised that the signs that make up a language are not
labels for an independently given list of concepts; he argued instead
that it is the language itself that structures cognition, thereby creating
the concepts through the very process of symbolising them. Saussure,
however, has been seen as shying away from the full implications of
his theory. Thus, he observes that if, of the three synonyms
redouter, craindre, and avoir peur, redouter did not exist, its meaning
13
C. Belsey, Desire: Love Stories in Western Culture, Oxford: Blackwell, 1994, p. 7.

S. Jackson, Women and heterosexual love: complicity, resistance and change, in
L. Pearce and J. Stacey (eds.), Romance Revisited, London: Lawrence and Wishart,
1995, pp. 49-62, p.51.
15
D. Cameron and D. Kulick, Language and Sexuality, Cambridge University Press,
2003, p.19.
14
194
Louise Sylvester
would be shared out amongst its competitors.16 Here, therefore,

Saussure appears to presuppose the existence of a conceptual content,
which is independent of language, and which has to be lexicalised in
some way or other.17
For an understanding of the framing of the idea of consent, the
subcategory 02.05.03.02. Unwillingness would seem to be an
important one. The noun category 02.05.03.02. Unwillingness
contains 46 items. It also has two small subcategories hanging off it:
02.05.03.02. instance of contains just two items, nill 1526-1677 and
stay 1550-1567. The second, 02.05.03.02. one who is unwilling has
only three items: boggler 1606, drawback 1618, and hanger-back
1923+1962. This relative paucity of tokens may look like reluctance
to name those who resist doing what is expected of them. The
adjectival category, 02.05.03.02. Unwilling, however, contains 75
items. It is perhaps easier to characterize those who are unwilling than
to name the characteristic. The subcategory 02.05.03.02. Unwilling is
perhaps one which reflects a variety of nuances of disapproval, and
perhaps requires the replacement of euphemisms. Certainly, the
modern connotations of some of the terms we find here seem very
different from one another; for example, dangerous, indisposition and
grudging:
02.05.03.02. Unwillingness n: uniwill c1175; danger c1290-1526; loathness
a1300-1709; nilling c1374-1710+1865 ai; unlust 1390-1535;
throness/thraness a1400; loathiness c1449; unlustiness a1470-1583;
difficulty 1513-1769; unreadiness 1526-a1761; scruple 1526; sticking
1528-1725; remorse a1529; sweerness 1533-1659 sc & nd;
untowardness c1547-1579; dangerousness 1548; loathsomeness 15561807; envy 1557; retractation 1563; unwillingness 1593; indisposition
1594; loathfulness 1596; backwardness1597; offwardness 1600 (2);
grudging 1601; reluctation 1605-1674; hink c1614-1709 sc; reluctancy
1634; disinclination 1647; indisposedness 1651-a1691; shyness
1651; nolence/nolency 1652 (2); nolition 1653; costiveness 1654 ai;
scrupling 1665; reluctance 1667; queerness 1687; uneasiness a17151737; tarditude 1794; inalacrity 1813-1855; grudgingness 1820;
tarrowing 1832 sc; stickling 1848; grudgery 1889; balkiness 1894;
stickiness 1933
16
F. de Saussure, Cours de Linguistique Gnrale, ed. C Bally and A Sechehaye,

Paris: Payot, 1943, p. 160. ( First edition 1916).
17
See Taylor, op. cit., p. 22.
195
The connotations of many of the terms in this subcategory (see

Appendix 1 for the whole subcategory), in particular those in use in
earlier periods, look very different from those with which we now
associate those words, such as revere and bitch, that are still in the
language. It is interesting, for example, that the verb force, which
appears at 02.05.03.02.0 Be unwilling (see Appendix 1) had a brief
existence with the sense be unwilling between 1546 and 1591. The
first problem is, of course, how to get at the connotations of these
terms, and for that we need recourse to large historical corpora which
will show us the items in use. It may be that the citations in the OED
will have to serve as a starting-point, though it seems a pity that the
OED offers no style labels for many of these terms as clues to their
register. Simply looking at the items, we may wonder if we can we
read off this list any sense of social attitudes towards those who
respond with doubt to the actions asked of them, and if it is possible to
detect any temporal shifts in such attitudes. We may wonder, further,
whether this category includes those who wish to refuse offers of sex.
A second problem is that this line of inquiry returns us to the problems
of individual words, and takes us away from the information afforded
by the conceptual grouping of the lexical items.
Meaning as construal
Cognitive linguistics suggests that it is an error to suppose that people
use language in order to refer directly to things in the world, that is,
to things outside of the mind; rather, language is used to refer to
mental projections of the world.18 From its very inception, cognitive
grammar is said to have emphasised the role of construal in
semantics: linguistic expressions do not refer directly to states of
affairs in the world, but to speakers conceptualisations of these states
of affairs; thus, cognitive semantics defends itself against the charge
that it is excessively concerned with real-world, universal
categories, for which a language merely supplies a list of names.
Moreover, cognitive semantics fully accepts that different languages
may make available to their speakers different sets of
18
R. S. Jackendoff, Semantics and Cognition, Cambridge, Ma.: MIT Press, 1983, p.
29.
196
Louise Sylvester
conventionalised modes of construal.19 In this connection, we may

note that the taxonomy which provides the underlying structure for the
HTE was deliberately designed as a folk taxonomy, in an attempt to
reflect what it is that people know. The editors understanding was
that this information consists in general of a smattering of scientific
knowledge mixed with the way in which the world is constructed in
the popular imagination. Addressing precisely the question of what
speakers know and how this is reflected in the categorial hierarchies
they construct, Croft and Cruse (op. cit., pp. 96-97) ask about
difference between terms which may appear at more than one level in
a taxonomy: what is the difference, for example, between the basic
level thrush and the subordinate level thrush. They suggest that an
important factor is richness of content, in terms of knowledge,
memories, connections and so forth. While a competent naturalist will
have a relatively rich representation of items such as blue-tit, swallow,
thrush and so on, town-dwellers may well know the names, but very
little else about the different birds, so these names will not form
satisfactory labels for basic level items: the names will be little more
than place-holders for potential knowledge. Such people may be able
to form an image of a generic (garden) bird, but not have enough
experience or knowledge to be able to visualise individual species.
Insofar as they have both a superordinate level and a basic level
construal of bird, these will not be different level construals of the
same category, but two different categories that fit at two levels. Croft
and Cruse go on to question what happens in the case of speakers who
can operate with two different systems, the technical and the social;
this is precisely the sort of question that is addressed within the HTE
taxonomy. An example which illustrates this may be found in the
category 01.02.08.01.09 Fruit & vegetables where we find a
subcategory 01.02.08.01.09.03.07 Fruits as vegetables. This heading
seems to indicate that two types of knowledge may be present at the
same time: the knowledge that the data, including types of capsicum
such as red pepper and a number of names for different kinds of
tomatoes, are, indeed, fruits, and the information that most people eat
them as though they were vegetables.
Croft and Cruse assume that speakers who can operate with two
different systems will adjust themselves cognitively to each situation,
19
Taylor, op. cit., p. 31.
197
the technical and the non-technical, and revert to the societal default
construal of the terms. They ask whether such speakers actually
change their categories or simply construe a new level for them. If
they actually restructure the categories, for instance by backgrounding
aspects of knowledge that are highly relevant in a professional setting,
then they are effectively creating new conceptual categories (op. cit.,
p.97). A clear parallel may be found in terms of my discussion about
the concepts of will and consent. Legal definitions of coercive sex
include the ideas of trespass and rape; personal definitions, however,
may not include these concepts. In a personal definition, coercive sex
may form part of fantasies about sex, fantasies which may be derived
from models in romantic fiction. Croft and Cruse conclude that it
would seem reasonable to assume that level cannot be construed
independently of content, that is to say, any observed movement up or
down a taxonomic hierarchy will be a consequence of different
construals of the category denoted by a lexical item. What is difficult,
is to see how it is possible to include, or to infer, a range of construals
over time from a fixed taxonomy. How might it be possible to
reconcile the diachronic nature of the data contained within the HTE
classification with its defining headings which are in part those of the
OED, and in part the creations of the HTEs editors? In this respect,
we may compare the HTE with another lexicographical resource, the
Middle English Dictionary (MED); here, the definitions are intended
to be specific to a historical understanding of the particular period of
language use.
Knowledge of concepts
The question of how concepts are understood is crucial to the
investigation of this paper: it is not possible to trace changing
conceptualizations without some sense of how concepts are perceived
and how meanings are attached to them. On the other hand, we need
to discover if we can discuss concepts that go beyond concrete nouns,
and the basic domains delineated by Langacker and others, without,
finally, writing cultural history that ignores questions of linguistic or
mental structures. The issue of meaning, and of how we understand
what we perceive, has been much discussed recently. The root of the
question concerns how far mental perceptions may be said to be
stable, how far they form a background of information that comes into
198
Louise Sylvester
play when we are faced with new objects, and how far all
understanding of meaning, including conceptual meaning, is online,
a dynamic construal created in and by linguistic usage. To address this
issue we need to refine our understanding of the set of possible
relationships between a conceptual classification and what we
understand by knowledge of concepts.
Taylor (op. cit., p. 38) observes that although Saussure used the
word concept to designate the semantic pole of the linguistic sign,
many semanticists have been reluctant to appeal to concepts at all.
Concepts, by definition, are private, mental entities; a person can only
have access to another persons concepts through the medium of
language. If language is defined as a means of symbolising concepts,
however, there is no methodology for independently establishing the
nature of another persons concepts. Taylor notes that a common view
amongst psychologists is that a concept is a principle of
categorisation. To have a concept is to have the means to categorise
entities as examples of that concept; thus, to have the concept tree is
to have the ability to recognise a tree when one sees one.
Most discussions about the nature of categories, then, propose a
constant underlying mental representation of some kind for each
category. Recent research, however, suggests that mental categories
are variable as well as stable, and that people appear to be able to
create categories on the spot: see, for example, Barsalou on ad hoc
categories,20 Aitchison on the mental lexicon,21 and Smith &
Samuelson on category instability.22 Indeed, Smith and Samuelson
suggest that category variability. and in-task category creation, are
facts that are not well explained by the idea of a concept. Cognitive
processes, they argue, depend broadly on the immediate input and its
larger context; they are temporally extended with real rise times and
decay times, such that activity at any moment depends on, and
emerges out of, preceding activity and they change as a direct
consequence of their own activity. Smith and Samuelson state that
these facts about perceiving and remembering have profound
20
L.W. Barsalou, Ad hoc categories, Memory and Cognition 11, 1983, 211-27.
J. Aitchison, Words in the Mind: An Introduction to the Mental Lexicon, Oxford:
Blackwell, 1994.
22
L.B. Smith and L.K. Samuelson, Perceiving and remembering: category
instability, variability and development, in K Lamberts and D. Shanks (eds.),
Knowledge, Concepts and Categories, Hove: Psychology Press, 1997, pp. 161-95.
21
199
implications for theories of categories; they conclude that objects

cannot map stably into a set taxonomy because the objects of mental
life are not themselves stable entities (op. cit., p.173).
4. Changing conceptualizations as indicated by legal and social
historians.
When we consider the diachronic conceptualization of the idea of
consent, a concept which appears to be part of the meaning of will and
to be included in notions of free will and coercion, we may wish to
ask how it is understood and interpreted by legal and social historians.
Scholars examining the law of rape in the Middle Ages are agreed on
the difficulty of teasing out definitions from the statutes, eyre rolls and
legal treatises of the period.23 The issue of consent is, however, crucial
to legal definitions of rape and to the manner of its prosecution in the
medieval period.24 Blackstone observes that Roman law supposes that
women never go astray without the seduction and arts of the other sex
and therefore by restraining and making so highly penal the
solicitations of the men, the Roman legislators meant effectually to
secure the honour of the women. Blackstone goes on to state that
English law does not entertain quite such sublime ideas of the honour
of either sex: it does not lay the blame of a mutual fault upon one of
the transgressors only and therefore makes it a necessary ingredient in
the crime of rape, that it must be against the womans will.25
Brundage, however, suggests that both medieval and modern notions
of rape are grounded in the raptus of Roman law and that in ancient
Roman law raptus consisted in the abduction and sequestration of a
woman against the will of the person under whose authority she lived.
In contrast to legal definitions of modern day rape, sexual intercourse
23
B. Hanawalt, Crime and Conflict in English Communities 1300-1348, Cambridge,

Ma.:Harvard University Press, 1979, p. 104; J. M. Carter, Rape in Medieval
England: An Historical and Sociological Study, New York: University Press of
America, 1985, p. 35.
24
Carter, op. cit., pp. 4-5.
25
W. Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, (4 vols.), ed. J. Stewart,
London: V. & R. Stevens and G.S. Norton, 1854, IV, p. 261.
200
Louise Sylvester
was not a necessary element of ancient raptus.26 He goes on to argue

that sexual advances of any kind, no matter how amiable, involve
pressure of some sort by one person on another, observing that society
may choose to draw the line between permissable and nonpermissable pressures at any point along a very wide spectrum. The
consent issue that medieval jurists addressed in rape cases was not
Did she consent? but rather, Was her consent procured by force,
either physical or mental?(op.cit. pp. 68-8). Discussing erotic love in
the law of rape, Naffine states that if we look more closely at the
meaning given to consent in the law of rape, we can observe the
continuing objectification of one of the parties (the person to whom
sex is proposed) in the contractual form of sex. She argues that what
we discover is that consent to sex (for the purposes of the law of rape)
does not mean free agreement; it does not entail a mutual transaction
or negotiation on equal terms. Legal interpretation of consent for the
purposes of the law of rape (of both a judicial and academic nature)
reveals that the sexuality presupposed is still a traditional compelling,
coercive sexuality.27 Interestingly, the notion of the imposition of
sexual desire on another appears only obliquely in the HTE
classification of the category 02.02.22. Love: one of the subcategories
hanging off the heading 02.02.22.07. Action of caressing is
02.02.22.07..act of influencing/persuading by caresses which
contains two items: coying 1580-1603+1887 and coaxing 16721683+1870.
Turning to the HTE classification of 02.05.Will/faculty of will, it
is interesting to note that that the subcategory 02.05.03.03. Desire
immediately succeeds the subcategory 02.05.03.02. Unwillingness
examined above (see Appendix 2 for the subcategory 02.05.03.03.
Desire in full). This arrangement prompts consideration of the
question of how far these ideas are linked only in the minds of the
editors of the HTE, and how far it is possible to trace a diachronic link
between them. The subcategory 02.05.03.03. Desire ends with the
grouping of the transitive verbs, and finally with the reflexive verbs,
26
J.A. Brundage, Rape and marriage in the medieval canon law, Revue de droit
canonique 28, 1978, 62-75, reprinted in J.A. Brundage, Sex, Law and Marriage in the
Middle Ages, Aldershot: Variorum, 1993, p. 63.
27
N. Naffine, Possession: erotic love in the law of rape, Moderm Law Review 57,
1994, 10-37, p. 10.
201
and both the headings and the items they contain seem suggestive in a
context of thinking about consent and coercion:
Desire vt: awilnian OE; cepan OE; facian OE; friclan OE; frymdig beo OE;
recanOE; (ge)willian OE; wilne<wilniaOE-c1540; will<willan OEa1677+1875; desire c1230; appetite c1385-1652; appete c1385-1685;
wait after1393-1533; set one's mind on 1509-1827; list 1545-1587;
exopt 1548; have a mind for 1616; desiderate 1645; lust 1648; have a
mind to 1674-1726; want 1706; choose 1766 vu; have eyes for 1810
; like 1822; be stuck on 1886 us sl
.a person/his presence: want c1760
.a person to do something: want 1845
.something to be done: will<willan OE; love c1380-1682
.pursue object of desire: follow a1300 fg ; court 1571
.cry for object of desire: wail for 1573/80-a1771
.excite (desire): tickle 1547/64
Desire vr: lust oneself a1586-1599
This subcategory is immediately succeeded by the set of headings

relating to wishing beginning with 02.05.03.03.01.02. .a wish, and the
next subcategory in the classification is 02.05.03.03.02.
Longing/yearning. As a reader interested in the construction of
heterosexual desire in literature, this raises the question of how far I
am imposing my own interests in interpreting these categories and
their data in a way which includes the relationship of sexuality and
desire and their enactments. When we look again at the classification
and data of the notion of desire, do we find any hint of this
interpretation of sexuality, an interpretation which is, arguably, found
in conventional romance from the medieval to the modern period?
Thus we return to the main topic of investigation raised in this paper:
how far it is possible to learn something about changing social
attitudes in the area of will, consent and coercion from the HTE
classification; and if the various modes of understanding, linguistic,
encyclopaedic, cultural and social, can be placed in productive
dialogue with one another. As noted above, the notion of construal in
cognitive linguistics includes the idea that meaning presupposes
knowledge systems28 and that there is no need to make a principled
distinction between encyclopaedic knowledge and linguistic
28
R.W. Langacker, op. cit., pp. 184-5.
202
Louise Sylvester
meaning.29 These tenets of cognitive linguistics suggest that both

cultural understanding and semantics must form part of our
understanding of meaning.
5. Conclusion
The insights relating to construal proferred by cognitive linguistics
suggest a need to address issues concerned with how meaning in
language is understood and the relationship of our understanding in
this area to the evidence that lexicographical projects offer. If meaning
is no longer considered to be a property of words, what are the
implications of the various theories of construal of meaning for
lexicographical projects such as the HTE, a project that was envisaged
not only in terms of semantic relations, but as a conceptual
classification?30 This is not an issue that is unique to the HTE: the
editors of the electronic lexical database WordNet have been described
as vacillating between a position that stays entirely in the plane of
words, and deals with conceptual relationships in terms of the
relationships between words, and one which separates the conceptual
plane from the terminological plane.31 However, one of the editors of
that project asserts that the lexicon is constrained by the kinds of
concepts that are available to us by virtue of our perception of, and
interaction with, the world around us; she claims that the WordNet
project deals in concepts.32
Some light may be shed on the question of the theory of construal
and the understanding of concepts by various caveats that have been
put forward in relation to the notion of construal. In particular, these
include the idea that the construal of interpretations is not
unconstrained. The constraints are many and varied: they vary in
strength and may reinforce one another or cancel one another out.
These constraints can also be overcome by cognitive effort, but the
stronger the constraint, the greater the cognitive effort required to
impose a construal that defies the constraint. They also vary in their
29
J. R. Taylor, op. cit., p. 20.

M.L. Samuels, op. cit., p. 180.
31
D. Soergel, Review of C. Fellbaum, WordNet: an electronic lexical database, in
D-Lib Magazine at http://wwwdlib.org/dlib/october98/10contents.html
32
C. Fellbaum, Introduction to WordNet: An Electronic Lexical Database,
Cambridge, Ma.: MIT, 1998, pp. 1-19.
30
203
stability under change of context and they include the nature of

reality: some aspects of experience lend themselves more readily to
construal in certain respects and less readily to construal in other
respects.33
Geeraerts argues that while the dynamic flexibility of
prototypical categories does indeed demonstrate the interpretive
potential of linguistic categories, it also constrains the set of possible
interpretations, as these are required to link up with existing concepts.
Interpretation does not go wild because speaker and hearer share a
system of preferential interpretations that also constrains the form
deviant readings may take. He concludes that the theoretically
important point is that this restrictive preferential pattern shows up in
the structure of language itself, in prototypicality, and that it would
therefore be wrong to stress only the potentially infinite set of
interpretations that languages allow: the interpretive constraints that
lie at the basis of mutual understanding are also part of the structure of
language.34 This last point suggests that the HTE, which is structured
as a series of hierarchical categories organized by conceptual
meaning, does have something to tell us about language and meaning,
since linguistic meaning is not as wide open as the notion of construal
may lead us to expect.
It seems clear, then, that meaning is culturally constructed, based
on the input speakers receive about words within the contexts in
which concepts are encountered. Pragmatics and discourse analysis,
disciplines which grew out of semantics, offer information about the
processes of interpretation that take place within the structure of
conversations. Equally, however, there are hard properties of word
meaning and constraints on the interpretation of words.
Lexicographical projects such as the HTE may be mined for the
information they offer about the lexicalization of concepts in
language. The work of Aitchison (op. cit.) is suggestive about the role
of lexical fields in the storage of words in the mental lexicon,
indicating that the basis on which the words and concepts are grouped
in the HTE is cognitively salient, in line with Christians suggestions
33
W. Croft and D.A. Cruse, op. cit., p. 101.

D. Geeeraerts, Cognitive semantics and the history of philosophical
epistemology, in R. A. Geiger and B. Rudzka-Ostyn (eds.), Conceptualizations and
Mental Processing in Language, Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 1993, pp. 53-79, p. 73.
34
204
Louise Sylvester
in her paper on historical semantics and historical lexicography.

Nevertheless, our knowledge that interpretation is culturally
constructed should remind us of the modest words of the last editor of
the MED: the MED will stand as a monument of historical
lexicographical practice of a particular time and place.35 The HTE can
tell us many things; it may also be able to tell us something about the
constructions we place on the concepts we encounter in the literature
of the medieval period, and of our own time.
Appendix 1
Extract from 02.05. Will/faculty of will in the HTE
02.05.03.02. Unwillingness n: uniwill c1175; danger c1290-1526; loathness
a1300-1709; nilling c1374-1710+1865 ai; unlust 1390-1535;
throness/thraness a1400; loathiness c1449; unlustiness a1470-1583;
difficulty 1513-1769; unreadiness 1526-a1761; scruple 1526; sticking
1528-1725; remorse a1529; sweerness 1533-1659 sc & nd;
untowardness c1547-1579; dangerousness 1548; loathsomeness 15561807; envy 1557; retractation 1563; unwillingness 1593; indisposition
1594; loathfulness 1596; backwardness1597; offwardness 1600 (2);
grudging 1601; reluctation 1605-1674; hink c1614-1709 sc; reluctancy
1634; disinclination 1647; indisposedness 1651-a1691; shyness
1651; nolence/nolency 1652 (2); nolition 1653; costiveness 1654 ai;
scrupling 1665; reluctance 1667; queerness 1687; uneasiness a17151737; tarditude 1794; inalacrity 1813-1855; grudgingness 1820;
tarrowing 1832 sc; stickling 1848; grudgery 1889; balkiness 1894;
stickiness 1933
.instance of: nill 1526-1677; stay 1550-1567
.one who is unwilling: boggler 1606; drawback 1618; hanger-back
1923+1962
Unwilling aj: unwillende OE+c1330; loath/loth <la OE+c1374; unwilly
c1200+1395-c1440; slow to c1200; unwille a1225; ill-bethought
a1250; sweer a1300 sc & no dl; slow of 1382-1730; slow 1382; slow
in 1382; eschew c1386-a1420; dangerous c1386-1598; squeamous
1387-c1550; unprest a1400+1568; ill-willling c1520; evil-willing 15251563; untoward 1526-1665; unwilling 1533; untowards1548; ill-willed
1549; squeamish 1553-1589; dainty 1553-1612; nice c1560-1676;
loathful 1561-1591+1785 sc; coy 1576-1633+1859; undisposed 15901650; coyish 1592; costive 1594; involuntary1597-1742; tarrowing
35
R.E. Lewis, The Middle English Dictionary at 71, Dictionaries 23, 2002, 76-94,
p. 88.
205
c1598-1632 sc; backward 1599; unpregnant 1602-1603; scrupulous

1608-1754; refractory c1610; behindhand 1611; unprone1611+1883;
nilling 1620-1710; backwards 1627-1683; shy a1628; retractable 1632;
uninclinable 1640-1656; unapt 1640; unbeteaming 1642; averse 1646
; indisposed 1646; disinclined 1647; tender of/in 1651-1840;
relucting 1655-1659; aversant 1657; scrupulous of/in 1658-1662;
incomposed 1660; unready 1672-1857; boggling a1683; unconsenting
a1693; retrograde 1695-1760; lought a1700; reluctant 1706;
uninclined 1729-1740; tenacious 1766-1802 er; disinclinable 1769; illdisposed 1771; unwishful 1775-1876 di+1894; unaffectioned 1788;
back-handed 1817; sweert 1824 sc; tharf 1828 dl & fg ; backward in
coming forward 1830; unvoluntary 1834; misinclined 1837; squeamy
1838 og us; ba(u)lky 1847; retractive 1869; grudging 1874; tharfish
1876 dl; -shy 1884
.characterised by unwillingness (of actions etc.): grudged 1549c1636+1853; unwilling 1613; reluctant1667; uncheerful
a1684+1858; restive1806/7
.more unwilling: worse-willing 1549-1584
.most unwilling: the last 1535-1588
Unwillingly av: ungeorne OE; unwillum OE; unwilsumlice OE;
unwilles/unwillan<unwilles OE-c1375; uneath<uneae OE-1382;
lately<ltlice OE-c1400; unthank(e)s<unankes OE-a1470; unthank
a1225-1338; lo(a)th a1340-c1374; grutchingly 1340-c1400; tarrowingly
c1375 sc; uneaths 1388; at one's unthanks a1400/50-c1420; (at/again
one's) unwilles c1400; wandsomely c1400; against (one's) will c1400;
unwilfully 1435; invite c1450; tarryingly 1450/30; nicely 1530-1695;
unwillingly a1533; loathly 1547 nn rr; faintly 1548-1756; evilwillingly 1549; grudgingly 1549; difficultly 1551-1677; loathsomely
1561; dangerously a1577-1647; ill-willing 1579/80; backwardly 15801860(); with an ill will 1601; scantly 1606-a1631; sadly 1611; tenderly
a1628+1822; reluctantly 1678; shyly 1701; uncheerfully 1753; with
ill grace/with a bad grace 1754 ; shrinkingly 1817; with bad grace
1832; retractatively 1851; begrudgingly 1853; costively 1858; tharfly
1876 dl; loathfully 1887
.intensely: sore a1225
.unwilling to help: unhelpfully 1889
Be unwilling vi: forsacan OE; (ge)tweon OE; nill<nyllan OE-1652; make it
tough 1297-1530; forthink a1300; loathe 1300; reck c1300-1610; tarrow
c1375 sc; make it strange c1386-1591; shent c1400; make strange
1456/7-1773; sonyie c1470-1573 sc; steek 1478-1579; doubt 14831743; make (it) nice 1530-1677; stick 1532-1827(); stay 1533-1644;
resist 1539; force 1546-1591; lie aback 1560-1569 sc; stand 1563-a1800
cf sc; hang (the groin/a leg) 1577/87-1883; make courtesy 1579-1589;
206
Louise Sylvester
make dainty 1579-1649; hang back 1581; rue 1583-1630; make doubt
1586; make (a) scruple 1589; make it scrupulous 1593; yearn 1597;
hang the wing a1601-a1624; make squeamish 1611-a1617; smay 16321667+1841 dl & dl di; boggle a1638; hang off 1641; reluct 16481899; shy 1650; scruple 1660; make boggle 1667-1768 ai; revere
1689; begrudge 1690; have scruples 1719; stop c1738; bitch 1777;
reprobate 1779; stickle 1819; reluctate 1835; disincline 1885
Hesitate/scruple at vt: find bones in 1459-a1529; stick at 1525; make
bones of/about 1548; scotch at 1601-1627+1887 dl; strain at 1609
.be unwilling to grant/allow: grutch a1300-1719 nn dl & ai; begrudge
1362; grudge c1500; repine 1615
.render unwilling: indispose 1692
Be unwilling vr: sonyie c1500 sc
Unwilling ph: invita Minerva 1584-1626+1848
.against the will of: unwilling to (unto) 1555-1654
Appendix 2
Extract from 02.05. Will/faculty of will in the HTE
02.05.03.03. Desire n: (ge)cneordnes OE; friclo OE; myn(e)le OE; willa OE;
i-will<gewill OE-1340; wilning<wilnung OE-c1449; lust<lust OE1677; willing<willung OE-1710+1865 ai; ywil(l)e c1200-a1275; list
c1220; envy a1300-1607; desire 1303; desiring 1377; appetite
1382; wilne c1400; wish c1430-a1716; desidery c1450-1513; stomach
1513; affect 1531-1619; desirefulness 1548 (2); woulding 1549-a1714;
affection 1567-1643; desirousness 1571-1665+1872; lusting 1580-1760;
listing 1587; maw 1598-1704; bosom 1603; appetition 1603;
appetence 1610; orexis 1619-1675+1842 me; appetency 1631;
desirableness 1649; the would 1753/4-1831
.faculty of: orectivity 1906 pl
.prompting of: stirring a1225; motion 1430/40-1726; movement 1456
sc+1732 nn rr; puncture 1660-1780
.that which stimulates: whet 1698; aphrodisiac 1873 tf
.object of desire: lufu OE; lust OE; gewilnung OE; will<willa OE nn ai &
po; desire1340/70; appetite c1386-1798 ai; catch 1596; optative
1605-1703; desiderate 1640-1670; desirable 1645; desideratum 1652;
flight 1654; appetible a1716; look out 1795; desideration 1836; eligibles
1844
..person: scope 1590-1707; fish 1722
.one who desires: desirer c1450; luster 1591; wanter 1727; desiderant
1860
.desirableness: appetibility 1604-1656+1824; desirableness 1647
207
.desire including thought: feeling c1810 py

.desire excluding thought: feeling c1810 py; appetency 1836/7 mt
.instinctive/natural desire: appetite 1366
.secret desire: grudging 1625-1694
.contrary desire: counter-lusting 1656-1666
.trivial desire: curiosity 1605-a1718
.temporary desire: frenzy 1632-1761; mania 1689; furor 1704; influenza
1774; rage 1785; furore 1790; craze 1887; enthusiasm 1916
Pertaining to/characterized by desire aj: desirous a1420-1652; appetitive
1577; appetitual 1616; epithymetic 1631; epithymetical 1646;
appetitious 1653-1668; desiderative 1655/60+1816; orectic 1779 pl;
appetent 1837 mt;
.desirous: lustbre OE; lustful OE; gelysted OE; geancol OE; willende OE;
willesful a1225-c1290; desired a1300-1598; desirous c1300; wilful
1340-1573/80; willing 1382; desiring c1386; talentive a1400-c1450;
lusty c1400-1657; desirant c1450; desireful c1500 nn rr; fond of 15521779; lusting 1559-1844; desirable 1759
.capable of desire: gewilniendlic OE
.desired: gelustful OE; sought a1300; desired 1382; sought after/for 1605
; envied 1631; desiderated a1743; courted 1793;
..much: well(-)desired 1604
..equally: efenleof OE
..long: long-wished 1570-a1649; long-desired 1570; long-wished-for 1748
.desirable: geornlic OE; (ge)giernendlic OE; mynelic OE; gewilniendlic OE;
wilsum OE; gewyscendlic OE; yearnandlike a1300 (2); desiderable
a1340-1675; fair c1380-1676; desirable 1382; desireful 1382 ai;
dainteous a1400; desirous1430-1728; expetible 1569-1721; lustful
1610-a1667; appetible 1622-1660+1847; desiderate 1640; deligible
1680; wantable 1970

..exceedingly desirable: covetable c1340; over-desirous 1483
.stimulating desire: orectic 1892 me
Desirously av: wilfully c1350-c1611; desirously c1400; desiderantly
c1450; appetently a1479; desiringly 1552; wantingly 1894
.in a desired manner: desiredly 1625-1666
.desirably: desiderably 1635; optably 1657; desirably 1823
Desire vt: awilnian OE; cepan OE; facian OE; friclan OE; frymdig OE; beo
OE; recan OE; (ge)willian OE; wilne<wilnia OE-c1540; will<willan
OE-a1677+1875; desire c1230; appetite c1385-1652; appete c13851685; wait after 1393-1533; set one's mind on 1509-1827; list 15451587; exopt 1548; have a mind for 1616; desiderate 1645; lust 1648;
have a mind to 1674-1726; want 1706; choose 1766 vu; have eyes for
1810; like 1822; be stuck on 1886 us sl
208
Louise Sylvester
.a person/his presence: want c1760

.a person to do something: want 1845
.something to be done: will<willan OE; love c1380-1682
.pursue object of desire: follow a1300 fg; court 1571
.cry for object of desire: wail for 1573/80-a1771
.excite (desire): tickle 1547/64
Desire vr: lust oneself a1586-1599
Key word in context: semantic and

pragmatic meaning of humour
Irma Taavitsainen
honesty, integrity, courage, trust, gratitude, humour, creativity,
wisdom or love (CA5 2542 BNC)
row sum corrupte humour. And is sikenes bynemet a mannes wit
(Gilbertus Anglicus, p. 27; emphases mine)
What can the context of a word tell us about its meaning? In Presentday English humour is a positive notion, collocated with pleasant
ideas, whereas its common collocations in Middle English are
negative adjectives ill, evil, corrupt. My aim is to discuss the semantic
and pragmatic meanings of this lexeme. First, I shall outline the
semantic meaning and then assess how the pragmatic meaning is
negotiated. My study focuses on the occurrences of the word humour
(with its spelling variants) in the corpus of Middle English Medical
Texts (MEMT, forthcoming).1 The corpus is used to locate
collocations for the semantic meaning, and to find illustrative
examples for qualitative analysis of the pragmatic meaning.
Scientific Thought-styles and Middle English Medical Texts
Beside communication and representation, language is used to
construct ideology. The work by the Scientific Thought-styles project
at the University of Helsinki shows that linguistic features typical of
scholasticism and empiricism are very different from one another,
reflecting the underlying methodology and philosophy of science.2
1
The spelling variants can easily be found in word lists (a regular function in MEMT
Presenter software).
2
The present project members are Irma Taavitsainen, Pivi Pahta, Martti Mkinen,
Turo Hiltunen, Maura Ratia, Carla Suhr, and Jukka Tyrkk. The project is part of the
Research Unit for Variation and Change in English at the Department of English
(VARIENG), University of Helsinki, with a centre of excellence status and funding
by the Academy of Finland 1999-2005; the research reported here was also supported
210
Irma Taavitsainen
The kinds of evidence for scientific knowledge varies: scholasticism is

logocentric and texts accordingly rely on quotative evidence seen in
their frequent use of speech act verbs of saying; in contrast,
empiricism is based on observation, with sensory verbs of perception
predominating.3 To assess thought-styles, the project is compiling an
electronic corpus, the Corpus of Early English Medical Writing
(CEEM 1375-1750). Its first part, MEMT, which will appear in 2005,
contains vernacular texts of the scholastic period from c.1375 to
c.1500. It is mainly compiled of edited medical treatises, but provides
a great deal of new material for researchers as several unpublished
theses are included. It also contains transcripts of some new texts.
Shorter texts are included in toto while longer texts are represented by
extracts. Its main branches have been devised according to the
tradition of writing as Surgical texts, Specialized texts, and
Remedies and materia medica. Texts in the first and second
categories are learned, and have their origins mostly in the academic
tradition. The third group includes remedy books, recipes,
prognostications, and materia medica, represented by herbals. This
category contains learned elements as well, but the transmissions are
extremely complicated.4 Verse texts are recorded as a separate group
(see MEMT Introduction for details).
by that funding. Christian Kay visited VARIENG several times during the period as
she served on the Advisory Board. We are grateful for her input, constructive
discussions and inspiration.
3
See Irma Taavitsainen, Pivi Pahta, Noora Leskinen, Maura Ratia, and Carla Suhr,
Analysing scientific thought-styles: What can linguistic research reveal about the
history of science?, in Helena Raumolin-Brunberg et al. (eds.), Variation Past and
Present: VARIENG Studies on English for Terttu Nevalainen, Mmoires de la Socit
Nophilologique de Helsinki 61, Helsinki: Socit Nophilologique, 2002, 251-70;
and Irma Taavitsainen, Evidentiality and scientific thought-styles: English medical
writing in Late Middle English and Early Modern English, in Maurizio Gotti and
Marina Dossena (eds.), Modality in Specialized Texts: Selected Papers of the 1st
CERLIS Conference, New York, Oxford, Wien: Peter Lang, 2001, pp. 21-52.
4
Martti Mkinen, Herbal Recipes and Recipes in Herbals Intertextuality in Early
English Medical Writing, in Irma Taavitsainen and Pivi Pahta (eds.), Medical and
Scientific Writing in Late Medieval English, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2004, pp. 144-73; and Martti Mkinen, English Herbals in the Field of Medieval
Medical Intertexts. Diss. University of Helsinki, forthcoming.
Semantic and pragmatic meaning of humour
211
Semantics and pragmatics: definitions of meaning

Semantics and pragmatics are closely connected and partly
overlapping fields of study. Recent textbooks in semantics cover areas
that have previously been treated in the pragmatic domain only, such
as speech acts and implicatures. To make a distinction, semantics has
been defined as pertaining to the meaning of words and sentences;
pragmatics to the meaning of utterances. Semantics focuses on
linguistic expressions, while pragmatics pays attention to the
interlocutors, speakers and hearers. Negotiation of meaning is a
central issue as pragmatics focuses on meaning in interaction, how
hearers add contextual information to the semantic structure and how
they draw inferences from what is said.5 Semantic and pragmatic
meanings are complimentary, both making use of context to a greater
or lesser degree but focusing on different aspects of language.6
Historical semantics deals with semasiological and onomasiological
changes, i.e., what changes a lexical meaning underwent or what
developments and restructuring of coding took place in a particular
domain.7 Historical pragmatics focuses on language in interaction,
taking the contributions of both speaker and hearer into account; the
units of study are utterances, and the context, both linguistic and
sociohistorical, provides a clue to what speakers mean and how
readers construct the meaning.8
Humoral medicine
The word humour was a key ideological concept of medicine in the
period when the Ptolemaic world view prevailed. The idea of the
macrocosm of heaven being projected onto the microcosm of man was
5
See, e.g., Jenny Thomas, Meaning in Interaction: An Introduction to Pragmatics,

London and New York: Longman, 1995, and Jef Verschueren, Understanding
Pragmatics, London: Arnold, 1999.
6
Cf. Katarzyna M. Jaszczolt, Semantics and Pragmatics: Meaning in Language and
Discourse, London: Pearson Education, 2002, p. 1.
7
Elizabeth Traugott and Richard B. Dasher, Regularity in Semantic Change,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002, p. 25.
8
Susan Fitzmaurice and Irma Taavitsainen, Approaches to negotiated meaning in
historical contexts, in Susan Fitzmaurice and Irma Taavitsainen (eds.), Methods in
Historical Pragmatics, Mouton de Gruyter, forthcoming.
212
Irma Taavitsainen
the cornerstone of the medieval world view. According to the humoral

theory, the human body consisted of four bodily humours or fluids:
blood, phlegm, choler and bile. Health was understood as a balance
between the humours, while sickness was due to an excess or lack of
one of them.9 In the holistic system the planets and the signs of the
zodiac had an influence on human life and the surrounding
environment: the system of physical and physiological fours related to
the four elements (fire, air, earth and water), the four qualities (hot,
cold, moist and dry), the seasons of the year, the ages of man, the
points of the compass, and the signs of the zodiac (in groups of four
according to the elements). This idea underlies all medieval medical
and medico-astrological texts as a standard component of learning
used to explain the existing order and the structure of the universe.10
Semantic meaning: the company a word keeps
The outline of semantic development is demonstrated in the Oxford
English Dictionary (OED) on-line. The earliest meanings of humour
are concrete and physiological and develop through multiple meanings
into abstract senses in Present-day English (for the range of meaning
and examples, see OED). The direction of change from concrete to
abstract is claimed to be universal,11 and there is a tendency towards
an increase in expressiveness or subjectivity in semasiological
changes.12 Present-day humour has been ascribed at least two
prototypical centres with an overlap with wit, MOOD and
AMUSEMENT, but this word has not been observed to have
9
See Faye Getz, Medicine in the English Middle Ages, Princeton, New Jersey:
Princeton University Press, 1998, pp. 55-56.
10
Nancy Siraisi, Medieval and Early Renaissance Medicine: An Introduction to
Knowledge and Practice, Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1990,
pp. 104-6; John. A. Burrow, The Ages of Man: A Study in Medieval Writing and
Thought, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986, pp. 12-13; Andrew Wear, Health and
Healing in Early Modern England, Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998, pp. 37-39.
11
Elizabeth Traugott, On regularity of semantic change, Journal of Literary
Semantics 14 (1985), pp. 155-73; Elizabeth Traugott, On the rise of epistemic
meanings in English: an example of subjectification in semantic change, Language
65 (1989), pp. 31-55; Eve E. Sweetser, From Etymology to Pragmatics: Metaphorical
and Cultural Aspects of Semantic Structure, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1990.
12
Traugott and Dasher, op. cit., p. 94.
213
developed negative or markedly subjective meanings.13 In addition,

the lexeme has come to mean the faculty of perceiving what is
ludicrous or amusing; the collocation sense of humour occurring
frequently in the British National Corpus.
The meanings in the late medieval period are directly related to
medieval medicine (see OED):
(1) moisture; damp exhalation; vapour; or any fluid or juice of an
animal or plant, either natural or morbid, connected with medival
physiology;
(2) spec. In ancient and medival physiology, one of the four chief
fluids (cardinal humours) of the body by the relative proportions
of which a persons physical and mental qualities and disposition
were held to be determined.
In semasiological studies, the form of the lexeme is typically kept

constant, though there may be phonological changes. The Historical
Thesaurus of English will be indispensable in showing affiliations of
the word with various semantic fields, and more evidence from
corpora of various genres and registers, including both literary and
non-literary texts, will be helpful for tracing the path from concrete to
abstract. As an overall line of development based on OED entries,
constitutional physiological senses seem to have given way to
temporary states of mind, a particular disposition or liking for some
action without apparent ground or reason, and a quality of action
which excites amusement.
The Middle English Compendium (MED) on-line lists typical
collocations of humour. Collocates pertaining to moisture are radical
and seminal, and to the anatomical meaning kindeli, natural, god,
innatural, unkinde, unnatural, gleimi (viscous) and roten. Figurative
senses are also mentioned with ille (ivel, qued, wikked) and
collocations of the anatomical structure of the eye are crystalline,
cristalline (cristallinus), glasen (glasi), vitreus, whitish (whitli),
albugineus, and airi.
13
Pivi Koivisto-Alanko, Abstract Words in Abstract Worlds: Directionality and
Prototypical Structure in the Semantic Change in English Nouns of Cognition. Diss.
Mmoires de la Socit Nophilologique de Helsinki 58, Helsinki: Socit
Nophilologique, 2000, pp. 240 and 247.
214
Irma Taavitsainen
The collocates in MEMT do not follow these patterns. The words

radical and seminal do not occur in MEMT at all. In both surgical and
specialized treatises, the collocations pertaining to the structure of the
eye are frequent as some of the treatises in the first category are
sophisticated descriptions of human anatomy, and an
ophthalmological text is included in the second category. Other texts
containg several passages discussing humoral issues are a learned
embryology de Spermate,14 and the physiological part of the learned
encyclopaedia Of the Properties of Things (see below). Of the
adjectives mentioned in MED, kyndely occurs frequently in passages
dealing with humoral doctrine and natural is even more frequent as a
common collocate of hete. Vnkynde also occurs in theoretical passages
dealing with physiology, e.g., in Trevisas text. The adjective euel is
found once in collocation with humour in a highly learned treatise,
and wikked humours occurs in a herbal treatise. A KWIC concordance
of humour in MEMT shows that hot, fiery, watery, moist, dry, black,
and kind, are frequent; unkynd, corrupt, rawe, and malencolyous occur
as well. All examples are connected with the physiological senses and
pertain to the doctrine of humoral medicine. There are differences
between individual texts depending on their field of writing, but the
genres and layers of writing are otherwise fairly similar, as the
examples below show. The first is from a highly learned text on
technical phlebotomy from the end of the fourteenth century, the
second from Chauliacs anatomical text which has university origins,
the third from one of the best-known herbals of the fifteenth century,
and the last is a quotation praising the medicinal properties of aqua
vite for corrupt humours in a remedy book (all emphases mine):
Alexandire forsoe commandi a pacient leucoflamcie to be
fleubotomyed; euel humourus forsoe if ey be in veynes ar
competenly brou3t out be flebotomye.
(Of Phlebotomy, p. 51)
ise humours forso, which bene engendred of chile in e lyuer, as it
is seid, bene double. Som bene naturale, seid of naturalitee of
nutricion, Som no3t naturale. Naturale3 with e blode bene send to al
14
Pivi Pahta, Medieval Embryology in the Vernacular: The Case of De spermate.

Diss. Mmoires de la Socit Nophilologique de Helsinki 53, Helsinki: Socit
Nophilologique, 1998.
215
e body to be engendred & noreshed. No3t naturale3 bene sequestrate

& sent to place3 ordeyned for som helpynge3, Or ai bene sent & put
out fro e body as colre to e chest of e galle3, Melancolie to e
splene, fleume to e iuncture3, e watery superfluitee to e reyne3 & to
e uesic.
(Chauliac, Anatomy, p. 126)
is herbe drawith oute al wikked humours of a man is herbe is hote
and drye. (Agnus castus, p. 153)
The nurisshyng and generacion of lys and of ycche and of hete in man is
body is of humours putrified, for roten humours by nature been put
oute and putrified by e porys of e skynne and e mouthe of e porys.
And with corrupte humours, wormes and lis been gendrid and ycche
and hete of the skynne, e whiche vexen men and suffre not to slepe.
And by cause hit is ingendrid of corrupcion, ere is noo thing in this
worlde medicinal at better and more naturally may cure hit and kepe
hit fro putrefaction and consume humours corrupte enne may oure
quynte essence, yf ou haue hit redy at hande; or elles take e beste
aqua ardent at ou may gete. (Remedies, Ferguson 205, p. 231)
Pragmatic meaning: Humour as a commonplace in various genres

In cultural history, appropriation has been defined as the process by
which meaning is produced and the ways in which discourses affect
the reader and lead to a new form of comprehension of oneself and the
world.15 I have modified the theory of appropriation for linguistic
stylistics and to historical pragmatics, showing how shared cultural
sets, in this case scientific doctrines, are appropriated, understood and
acted upon in different ways by different audiences.16 Meanings of
15
Roger Chartier, The Order of Books: Readers, authors and libraries in Europe
between the fourteenth and eighteenth centuries, Stanford, CA: Stanford University
Press, 1994, pp. ix-x, and Roger Chartier, Forms and meanings: Texts, performances
and audiences from codex to computer, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
Press, 1995, p. 89.
16
See Irma Taavitsainen, Genres and the appropriation of science: Loci communes in
English literature in late medieval and early modern periods, in Janne Skaffari, Matti
Peikola, Ruth Carroll, Risto Hiltunen, and Brita Wrvik (eds.), Opening Windows on
Texts and Discourses of the Past, Amsterdam and Philadelphia: Benjamins, 2005, pp.
179-96; and Irma Taavitsainen, Genres of secular instruction: a linguistic history of
216
Irma Taavitsainen
texts are historically constructed and sociohistorically anchored,

created in negotiation between text participants in interaction. Texts
have multiple, and even contrasted uses as the following examples
show. Meanings and appropriations are elusive and difficult to
capture, but context provides clues to the various ways people
understood science and scientific ideas Matters of health are of
general interest, and knowledge of the basic doctrines must have
penetrated all layers of society, forming the common ground.
Linguistic realisations are always based on choices made between
various ways of communicating ideas to different audiences, and there
are differences between genres and registers of writing.
Before the development of strong vernacular and national
intellectual traditions in late medieval and early modern England
scientific ideas spread through loci communes or commonplaces. In
my earlier studies, I have argued for different appropriations in
different genres for different audiences. Humoral theory was derived
from learned science and originated in academic settings, but became
modified for broader audiences: details became less specific, everyday
applications were added, and the underlying text type often changed
from expository to instructive.17 The following examples illustrate my
point. An explicit formulation of the basis of humoral medicine is
found in Bartholomaeus Anglicus learned encyclopaedia De
proprietatibus rerum, translated into English by John Trevisa in 1398.
The passage below is expository:
An humour is a substaunce fletinge in dede, and is ibred and come of
gederinge of e element qualitees, ... For humour is e firste principal
material of bodies at haue felinge and chief help in here worchinge,
and at bycause of norischinge and of fedinge. Constantinus sei at e
humoures be iclepid e children of e elementis, for eueriche of e
humours come of qualite of elementis. And ere be foure humours:
blood, flewme, colera, and melencolia. (Trevisa, p. 147)
Definitions are given by two NPs joined by be or come (cf. Presentday scientific writing), and enumeration of details follows. Likewise,
useful entertainment, Miscelanea: A Journal of English and American Studies
(University of Zaragoza). Special issue of ESSE7, forthcoming.
17
See Egon Werlich, A Text Grammar of English, Heidelberg: Quelle & Meyer,
1982.
217
the example from Chauliacs surgical treatise quoted earlier represents

academic learning and displays a high degree of specificity. The
following extract is from The Wyse Boke of Maystyr Peers of Salerne,
a text in the Salernitan tradition of health instruction, which shows
another way of dealing with the same doctrine. This extract explains
the system of correspondences first, but soon reverts to advice and
instruction. Applications were useful: it was good to know how to
recognize the complexions by the looks or how to time taking
medicine for the best possible effects.
euery man is made of iiij humours that is for to wytte of Blode, of
red colorye, off blak colorye, and of flewme. Eche of thes iiij humours
pursueth the bodye yat is in hys own stede The kyndes of these iiij
humours be suche. The bloode is hote and moyste and swete The 4
humoures ben departyd be nygth and be daye/ And so in these iiij
humours be conteynyd xxiiij howrys devidyd as yei ben before
rehersyd. And thus these iiij humours have iiij yssuyes goyng owte of
the body
And for ye tyme that any of these iiij humours before seyde ouyr
konnyth evyr soo it tucyth man or woman than to grete evyll. But the so
grete and comown maystres schwld weche hwmowr yt is ffor why ys
the blode ouercome the humoure ... Than geffe hym drynkyes and
metyes goode yn ayenste yat is byttyr, dreye, and colde.. (Peers, p. 307)
The simplest versions of the doctrine are found in verse. Applications

are more prominent and rhymes make the contents easy to remember:
God made all mankynd that lyues on the erthe
Of iiij elementys, als we in bokys rede:
Of fyre & of ayre, of watir & of erthe,
That gendirs in vs humors, als Arystotille vs lers.
Of thes iiij humors ilk man is made,

Bot all is nogt in lyke of qualite & state:
Ffor iocund & amerous & laykand the rede is & mery,
Ffleschely enowhe & synghand, myld & full hardy.
The whit is splepand & slaw & redy to spit,
Als fat is his face & dull is his wit.
The gul is a gyloure, crabid & hardy;
Quaynte & full large he is, dry & wily.
The blak is a chynche, drery, & full of gyle,
Irma Taavitsainen
218
Proude & full couetus & couert he is in wyll.

(Compendium of Astrological Medicine, pp. 411-2)
Conclusion
Humour is a particularly good word to study from both the semantic
and the pragmatic point of view, as humoral theory was a cornerstone
of medieval physiology. All examples in MEMT pertain to the
concrete, physiological meaning of the word. In contrast, the presentday meanings of the lexeme are abstract and positive, and a great deal
remains to be done in tracing the semasiological path. The pragmatic
meanings can be accessed through the context of genres and layers of
writing. Learned writings deal with the doctrine in an expository way,
giving definitions, whereas texts for more heterogeneous and more
popular audiences revert to applications, giving practical advice and
instruction.18
Works cited
Agnus castus = Brodin, Gsta ed. 1950. Agnus Castus, A Middle
English Herbal. Uppsala: Uppsala University. 119-164.
Chauliac, Anatomy = Wallner, Bjrn ed. 1964. The Middle English
Translation of Guy de Chauliacs Anatomy, With Guys Essay on
the History of Medicine. Lunds Universitets rsskrift, N.F., Avd.
1, Bd 56, Nr. 5, Lund: CWK Gleerup. 114-142.
Compendium = Mooney, Linne R. 1984. A Middle English Verse
Compendium of Astrological Medicine. Medical History vol. 28
411-416.
Gilbertus Anglicus = Getz, Faye Marie ed. 1991. Healing and Society
in Medieval England: A Middle English Translation of the
Pharmaceutical Writings of Gilbertus Anglicus. Madison:
University of Wisconsin Press. 1-54.
Of Phlebotomy = Voigts, Linda Ehrsam & Michael R. McVaugh. eds.
1984. A Latin Technical Phlebotomy and its Middle English
18
I am grateful to Turo Hiltunen and Jukka Tyrkk for discussions about the topic. I
hope to continue studies on humour with assessments of Early Modern contexts.
219
Translation. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society

74, Part 2, Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society. 37-53.
Peers = Heffernan, Carol F. 1993. The Wyse Boke of Maystyr Peers
of Salerne: Edition and Study of a Fourteenth-Century Treatise of
Popular Medicine, Manuscripta vol. 37 No. 3. 307-317.
Remedies, Ferguson 205 = Halversen, Marguerite A. 1998. The
Consideration of Quintessence: An Edition of a Middle English
Translation of John of Rupescissas Liber de consideratione de
quintae essentiae omnium rerum with Introduction, Notes and
Commentary. Unpublished Doctoral Thesis, Michigan State
University. 207-254.
Trevisa = Seymour, Michael C. et al. 1975. On the Properties of
Things: John Trevisas Translation of Bartholomaeus Anglicus,
De Proprietatibus Rerum, vol. 1 A Critical Text. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 129-162.
(from Poems Written for Translation into an
Abandoned Language)
James McGonigal
The Blank Page
Coming across a blank page
in a book of writing
like a sudden mist a clean bedsheet
or a loch reflecting November
I wondered was it deliberate tactics
on the part of the writer
like the point in a conversation
when one of us conceals our thinking
and we turn the page of the dialogue
and overleaf there are hundreds of words
to get lost in again almost forgetting
the threat and promise of that moment
and whether the absence was error or style.
The Upsidedown Room

I have forgotten the word
for a painting on the ceiling
but thats what this room
was like as we entered
222
James McGonigal
a chandelier standing erect as a fountain

the sole focal point on a barley white floor
armchairs and sofa afloat like red clouds
with cloudlets of cushions asleep in their arms
back in one carpeted corner of heaven
two signs of disturbance
a television and a stereo
hung down like bats close in to the wall.
Praise
I often praise God for the glittering
giftwrap of another language
often but not enough it seems
for just as He lets me remember
the machair and lichen word perfect
just as often He casts me
up on a desolate shoreline
having lost all of the words but one
for the smell of the waves on my jacket
which we call the praise on the cloth.
Neighbours from Heaven

The smokestained sandstone
of neighbouring houses
like the pelt of old tabbies
with black glassy eyes
behind those black windows
the dark lives of neighbours
become clearer as night falls
and windows light up
and they contemplate dinner
and hunting excursions
through the bushes of telly
and video undergrowth
above us the swallows
type emails to heaven
about life and death matters
bright trivial swift.
223
Notes on Contributors
Carole Biggam is an Honorary Research Fellow in the Dept of English
Language, University of Glasgow, and a Life Member of Clare Hall,
Cambridge. She researches in the historical semantics of early
mediaeval languages, in particular plant-names, colour and
architectural terms.
Graham D. Caie has been the Professor of English Language,
University of Glasgow, since 1990 and followed Christian Kay as Head
of Department. He researches in Old and Middle English Language and
Literature and leads the Digitisation of Middle English Manuscripts in
the Hunterian project.
Julie Coleman is a Reader in the English Department at the University
of Leicester. Her main area of research is the history of cant and slang
dictionaries from the earliest period to the present day, but she has a
wider interest in lexicology, lexicography and dictionary research in
general. She founded the International Society for Historical
Lexicography and Lexicology.
John Corbett is Senior Lecturer in English Language, University of
Glasgow. He works primarily in modern English and Scots language
studies, although he also has long-established interests in Scottish
literary studies. Christian Kay supervised his PhD thesis.
Fiona Douglas is a Lecturer in English Language at the University of
Leeds. She works primarily on modern Scots and Scottish English,
corpora and newspaper language. Whilst studying for her PhD at
Glasgow University, she worked part-time on The Historical
Thesaurus of English.
Philip Durkin is Principal Etymologist at the Oxford English
Dictionary, where he leads a team of specialist editors preparing
etymologies for the third edition of the OED. He has a particular
interest in loanwords in Middle English and modern English, and
particularly in borrowing of polysemous words.
226
Andreas Fischer is Professor of English Philology at the University of

Zurich. His research interests include historical lexicology and
semantics, the language of Shakespeare and Joyce, as well as varieties
of English world-wide. He is a member of the board of the Institute for
the Historical Study of Language at the Department of English
Language, University of Glasgow.
Carole Hough is Reader in English Language, at the University of
Glasgow. She specialises in Old English, onomastics and semantics,
and is editor of the journal Nomina.
Margaret Laing is Research Fellow in the Institute for Historical
Dialectology, English Language, University of Edinburgh. She
contributed to the production of A Linguistic Atlas of Late Mediaeval
English (AUP/Mercat Press, 1986). She is now engaged in the creation
of A Linguistic Atlas of Early Middle English in collaboration with
Roger Lass. She has published extensively on early Middle English
dialects and scribal systems.
Roger Lass is Professor Emeritus of Linguistics and Honorary
Research Fellow in English at the University of Cape Town. He has
published numerous books and technical papers on theoretical and
historical linguistics and the history of English. Most of his current
research is dedicated to A Linguistic Atlas of Early Middle English for
which, among other things, he is responsible for the Etymological
Corpus.
Caroline Macafee is Honorary Fellow at the University of Aberdeen.
She has written extensively on Scots language, including "The history
of Scots to 1700" (incorporating material by the late A. J. Aitken) in
volume XII of A Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue.
James McGonigal is Professor of Curriculum Studies at Glasgow
University. He specialises in the teaching of literature in primary and
secondary schools, the teaching and learning of language forms and
functions in schools, Scottish cultural and creative studies and literary
227
modernism. As can be seen from his present contribution, he is an

accomplished poet.
Terttu Nevalainen is Professor of English Philology and the Director of
the Research Unit for Variation and Change in English at the
Department of English, University of Helsinki. Her research interests
include corpus linguistics and the social history of the English
language.
Michiko Ogura is Professor of English at Chiba University, Japan. She
has published extensively on Old and Middle English philology,
including Verbs of Motion in Medieval English, Verbs in Medieval
English: Differences in Verb Choice in Verse and Prose and Old
English Impersonal' Verbs and Expressions.
Jeremy Smith is Professor of English Philology at Glasgow University
and Head of the Department of English Language. He researches on
and teaches in Old and Middle English language and literature, the
history of English and of Scots, and codicology. The focus of his
current research is on Middle English linguistic studies.
Jane Stuart-Smith is Reader in English Language at Glasgow
University. Her research is concentrated on variation and change in
Glaswegian accent, and most recently, on the role of the broadcast
media in accent change.
Louise Sylvester is senior lecturer in English at the University of
Central England. Her research is focused on semantics , lexicology and
lexicography. Her work on the Glasgow Historical Thesaurus project
resulted in her first book Studies in the Field of Expectation and she
coedited with Christian Kay Lexis and Texts in Early English.
Irma Taavitsainen is Professor of English Philology, Director of the
Department of English and Deputy Director of the Research Unit for
Variation and Change in English at the University of Helsinki. Her
fields of interest are medical and scientific writing, historical
pragmatics and corpus linguistics.
228
Claire Timmins is Research Assistant at Glasgow University on the

project Accent Change in Glaswegian: A sociophonetic investigation
with Jane Stuart-Smith and specialises in phonetics and
sociolinguistics. She has published a number of articles on accent
change with Jane Stuart- Smith.
Heli Tissari is currently a Fellow of the Helsinki Collegium for
Advanced Studies at the University of Helsinki, Finland. Her research
concerns English emotion words, and she specializes in metaphors and
cognitive linguistics.
Iren Wotherspoon is Senior Research Assistant at the Historical
Thesaurus. Her areas of research are lexicography, lexicology and
etymology. She has worked with Christian since Christians arrival at
Glasgow University and has papers published in the fields of linguistic
computing, etymology and lexicology, some as co-author with
Christian Kay.
Tabula Congratularia
Sylvia Adamson
William Aitken
Kathryn Allan
R.E. Allen
Jean Anderson
Wendy Anderson
Jamal Ardehali
Janet Bately
Dave Beavan
Alison Bennett
Michael Benskin
Carole. P. Biggam
Michael Bilynsky
Derek Britten
Elisabeth Burr
Graham Caie
Gerard Carruthers
Pauline Cairns
Susan Castillo
Thomas Chase
Julie Coleman
John Corbett
John G.Coyle
Richard Cronin
Robert M.Cummings
Marace Dareau
Florence Davies
Marilyn Deegan
Hans-Juergen Diller
Fiona Douglas
Philip Durkin
Flora Edmonds
Louise Edmonds
Cathy Emmott
Gwen Enstam
Anthony Esposito
Theresa Fanego
Eileen Finlayson
Andreas Fischer
Caroline Gevaert
Heinz Giegerich
Douglas Gifford
William Gillies
Stuart F.Gillespie
Robert A.D.Grant
Manfred Grlach
Lesley Haughton
Antonette Healey
Simon Horobin
Carole Hough
Werner Huellen
Freda Hughes
Lorna Hughes
Rosemary Huisman
Alice Jenkins
Richard Johnstone
Leena Kahlas-Tarkka
Dieter Kastovsky
Pivi Kilpinen
Matti Kilpi
Grzegorz Kleparski
Vassiliki Kolocotroni
Erik Kooper
Merja Kyt
Margaret Laing
Roger Lass
230
Eleanor Lawson
Nigel Leask
James Lonie
Kathryn Lowe
Angelika Lutz
Paddy Lyons
William Mack
Margaret A. Mackay
Willy Maley
Pauline Maridor
Robert W.Maslen
Lister Matheson
Caroline Macafee
Donald Meek
Anneli Meurman-Solin
Robert Millar
Lilo Moessner
Elizabeth Moignard
Annabelle Mooney
Kath Mulvenna
Jane McCawley
Derrick McClure
Kirsteen McCue
Margery Palmer McCulloch
James McGonigal
Donald Mackenzie
Iseabail McLeod
Mike MacMahon
Dorothy McMillan
Frances McSparren
Terttu Nevalainen
David J.Newell
Des OBrien
Michiko Ogura
Cerwyss O'Hare
Lisa-Lena Opas-Haninen
Pivi Pahta
Minna Palander-Collin
David A.Pascoe
Carol Percy
Hans Peter
Adam Piette
Rhiannon Purdie
Scott Rae
Helena Raumolin-Brunberg
E. Reay
Alan Riach
Matti Rissanen
Jane Roberts
Christine Robinson
Amel Salman
M. L. Samuels
Hans Sauer
Maggie Scott
Nick Selby
Harold Short
John Simpson
Jennifer Smith
Jeremy Smith
Angus Somerville
Daniel Soule
Pauline Cairns Speitel
Eric Stanley
Merja Stenroos
Jane Stuart-Smith
Louise Sylvester
Irma Taavitsainen
Harumi Tanabe
Freda Thornton
Claire Timmins
Heli Tissari
Nicola Trott
Noriko Unebe
Theo van Heijnsbergen
Theo Venneman
Doreen Waugh
Christopher Whatley
Christopher Whyte
Rosie Williams
Ian Williamson
Keith Williamson
Iren Wotherspoon
Alec Yearling
Judith Youngson
231

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The Power of Words

COSTERUS NEW SERIES 163

The Power of Words

Amsterdam-New York, NY 2006

Cover photo: University of Glasgow

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Old English colour lexemes used of textiles

Slang terms for money: a historical thesaurus

Huv a wee seat, hen: evaluative terms in Scots

Lexical splits and mergers:

Of fderan and eamas: avuncularity in Old English

$ho:fian{*}/vK2: a LAEME-based lexical study

The rhyme potential of Scots

Of politeness and people

ME douten and dreden

What did Anglo-Saxon seals seal when?

Notes on the medical vocabulary of John Keats

Tell her to shut her moof:

Forces of change: are social and moral attitudes legible in this

Key word in context:

Notes on the Contributors

assistance she gave them. Many of the contributors to this volume

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Old English colour lexemes used of textiles in

archaeobotany and the chemical investigation of dye traces on

Antonette diPaolo Healey and Richard L. Venezky, A Microfiche Concordance to

Old English colour lexemes

glossed in Old English with wagrift tapestry, veil, curtain, and

Arthur S. Napier (ed.), Old English Glosses Chiefly Unpublished, Anecdota

Old English colour lexemes

brun to fulfil this function in a translation context suggests it may

wringing (wringan) the resulting substance through a cloth into the

Pettit, op. cit., I, 8.

Old English colour lexemes

healers had come to consider a woad-dyed cloth as standard medical

Ibid., II, 307.

Old English colour lexemes

narrator, and admits it is a garment (gewd) but presents a series of

and grey,37 so particoloured garments of these colours could be

Old English colour lexemes

red.46 The presence of rubeus is a little surprising, although it could

Old English colour lexemes

Old English colour lexemes

5.5 Copes and Chasubles

common alternative meaning of dark should be understood here,

Old English colour lexemes

5.6.2 (cyrtel; dunn)

Old English colour lexemes

investigation into dye colours. I have retained examples of dunn

Owen, op. cit., p. 204.

or tunica in Latin, although the Anglo-Saxon garment could extend to

Owen-Crocker, op. cit., pp. 245-51.

Old English colour lexemes

impression of Anglo-Saxon wealth, and love of luxury and colour.85 It

Dodwell, op. cit., pp. 129-69.

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Slang terms for money: a historical thesaurus

price of precious metals affected the value of coins, which were

Slang terms for money

Money; a (large) sum of money; a coin

Slang terms for money

As the value of silver rose, it became an uneconomical material

After 1860, farthings, halfpennies, and pennies were all produced in

Slang terms for money