XVII.—Ne.

The Saxon-English negative ne has disappeared, and not has usurped its place. But the position of the negative has been changed. Ne always came before the verb in the sentence (as in Latin); not has its place after the verb. Take as a sample the sentence, "Have you not read?" In the Saxon-English version of the Gospels it stands: "Ne redde ge?" literally, "not have read ye?" Again: "Ne oudrede ge eow" (fear ye not); literally, "not fear ye you," where ge = ye is the nominative case, and eow = you, the accusative or objective, a distinction which we have neglected and lost.

The old negative ne is used by Spencer in his "Faery Queene;" but Spencer affected Archaic forms, just as Sallust did in his day, and ne in Spencer's time was obsolescent, if not obsolete, in common speech.

The newspapers have made y-clep'd = called, familiar to the ordinary reader, but they have not done as much for hight.

And many others. We have a trace of this, and that is all, in the provincial expression will-he nil-he (sometimes written, "wille nille) = Will he or will he not—that is, whether he will or will not; but with that faint provincial vestige, Chaucer's coalescent negative verbs have disappeared from our common speech. Possibly, the change in the place of the negative in the sentence may account for this.

There are two other classes of words, the results of a sort of abnormal coalescence, which, for want of an appropriate place, I may as well explain here.

We have a few words which formerly began with the letter n, but which now begin with a vowel; the n, which etymologically

belongs to the word, having detached itself therefrom, and fastened itself upon the indefinite article; whilst we have a few others which originally began with a vowel, but which have made reprisals upon the article an, having stolen its n and adopted it as an initial letter. There is some reason to believe that there are a few words which have effected a very narrow escape from a similar corruption.

Adder, a snake of the viper tribe, is an example of the first kind. The Saxon-English word is naeddre, which, in Chaucer's time, was written nedder, neddir. The modern German word is natter. There can be no doubt that, etymologically, adder ought to be nadder; but the word has lost its initial n, which has transferred itself to the indefinite article, and a nedder has become an adder.

We can actually see the process of change commencing, and almost mark its date.

It is not until a few years after A.D. 1200 that we find the indefinite article an well established—e.g., in the Ormulum and Layamon's Brut. The definite article the had become common nearly half a century earlier. Before the former date, therefore, there was no indefinite article to rob, or be robbed, or to confuse the ear by a coalescent sound. In the MS. of "Piers Plowman's Vision," used by Mr. Thomas Wright in his edition of 1856, the old form appears; but in the MS. used by Mr. Skeat, in his edition of 1869, we find "addris;" but the date of the MS. is not given, and probably is not known. In the Wicliffite versions of the Bible, edited by Sir F. Madden and the Rev. Mr. Forshall, from the earliest MSS., we find "eddre," singular; and "eddres," plural. Wicliffe's date is about 1389, so that the new form began to creep in before A.D. 1400. How much later the older form "nedder" held concurrent sway, I have no means of tracing. The folio page 44 editions of Chaucer are no authority. Caxton and his followers altered the reading and spelling to the English of their own day. It has been left to modern scholars to restore the text of Chaucer and other writers of his age.

Another word which has shared the same fate, is the name of the well-known shipwright's and wheelwright's tool, an auger. Look at this word auger, and who would suppose that the nave of a wheel lies embedded or fossilised therein? Yet so it is. The Saxon-English word is Naue-gar, sometimes found in the form Nafe-gar. Hence, Naue-gar, Nafe-gar, has been referred to Nafu, the nave of a wheel—the f and u (or w) being inter-changeable letters. The last syllable, gar, is, primarily, a dart or javelin, and, secondarily, any pointed instrument or tool capable of boring a hole. Naue-gar is therefore a nave-borer. Ladies will not object to this secondary meaning of gar^* when I remind them that they employ the name of a murderous weapon for one of the implements of the work-table—stiletto.

Naue-gar has lost its initial n, which has attached itself to the article, and that which ought to have been a nauger has become an auger.

Nappe—nap means linen cloth, just as Drap means woollen cloth. We have the first in nap-kin. As drap-ier (now contracted to draper) is a dealer in woollen cloth, so nap-ier is a page 45 dealer in linen. I have heard a fanciful attempt to derive the proper name Napier from Ne-pier or Ne-peer—no equal, peerless. But this is not tenable.

Among the words which have made reprisals in the article, Newt, a small water-reptile is the most conspicuous. Perhaps it is the only one which is entirely free from doubt. Shakespeare has "eye of newt, and toe of frog," among the ingredients of the witch's cauldron, and he has the word in other places. The oldest form of the word is efet, or eft, which our language still retains. I have already mentioned that the change from f to w is a common permutation, and eft and ewt are the same word, which has become newt by the process to which I have referred—an ewt = a newt.

According to Latham, the word nag, for a small horse, belongs to the same class, the initial n, as he contends, not being radical. He considers that the radical word is the old Norse, or old Icelandic word, ög, and was probably transplanted to Northumbria where many Danish forms prevail. The Saxon form of the word would be ág. It has, if Latham be right, stripped the article of its final n, which has fastened itself on the radical, and nag is now a well-established word. Notwithstanding Latham's high authority, however, which in Teutonic learning is very great, it is proper to point out that his explanation of nag is not supported by such conclusive evidence as the derivation of the word newt. We have the word eft or ewt from the very earliest times down to our own day, whereas the word ög or ág does not appear upon English soil, that I am aware of, before the article an made its appearance to lend its aid to such transformations. In addition to this negative reason for doubt, we have in Saxon a word which may have given birth to nag, namely the verb hnaeg-an, to neigh, in which the n is radical.

There is another word, not recognised by Latham as belonging to this class, but which Skinner places therein, and, I think, with good reason—I mean the word nook, a corner. Home Tooke, who saw past participles in a vast number of nouns, thinks that nook is the past participle of the word nick. Why, it is not easy to conceive.

The Dutch and Belgic een hoek is a comer. I do not find that the Saxon word hóc—hook—bears the meaning of a corner or an angle, in any glossary to which I have access. But it may have had that meaning. Without relying upon a supposed Saxon origin, we undoubtedly derive many words from the Dutch, and this may be one. Een hoek, dropping the aspirate, would be sounded very like "a nook," the article parting with its initial n to the noun, as already explained.

Latham, in his new Dictionary of the English Language, makes page 46 the word neddy, the familiar name of a donkey, a word of the same class as newt and nag. He considers that the word was heady, from the headstrong character of the animal, and that by dropping the aspirate, and robbing the article of the n, it has become neaddy, neddy. In spite of the great respect which is due to Latham, I cannot but regard this as an ingenious freak of etymology. In the first place, neddy is sometimes applied to a pony as well as to an ass, and I suspect that neddy is only one out of many instances in which men apply human names to animals. Asses are commonly called Jack and Jenny; goats, Billy and Nanny. We have Jack daws, Jenny wrens, and Poll parrots. Why seek a more recondite origin for a Neddy? Still, there is another aspect of the word which shadows forth a possibility, but no more than a possibility, that the initial n may have the origin imputed to it, without resorting to the headstrong or heady donkey. We have several Christian names commencing with a vowel, which, in a familiar form, have the letter n prefixed. For instance, Ann, Nan, Nanny, Nancy; Ellen, Nell, Nelly; Oliver, Noll; Edward, Ned, Neddy.

The article was sometimes used before names. In a battle cry, the combatants would thus use the name of their chief:—"A Percy," "a Percy;" "a Douglas," "a Douglas;" "an Oliver," "a Roland," and so forth. This appears from many of our old romances and ballads. Several of our Edwards have been great in battle as in council. Thus, "an Edward," "an Oliver," rapidly repeated, may have given rise to Ned, Neddy, and Noll. But it seems to me more probable that Nan, Nell, Ned, and names of a like nature, are mere phonetic tricks of the vulgar, for the sake of ease of utterance. "Ann, Ann, Ann," repeated by a child would become Nan.

There are a few other words to be found, perhaps, in a single old manuscript, which show that some words commencing with a vowel have had a narrow escape from having the n of the article fastened upon them.

Thi nye, instead of thine eye, is probably due to the carelessness page 47 of the scribe. The two forms are what lawyers call idem sonans; but thi nye never seems to have got farther. Error must, however, have a beginning. It had a beginning in newt, auger, and adder, and got perpetuated. Eye has been more fortunate in its escape.

I now take leave of the reader. The examples which I have given are not very numerous; but I have endeavoured so to shape my explanations as to set the student upon the proper track of investigation—namely, the reading of our English authors who lived before the reign of Elizabeth. If the reader once dives into Chaucer, he will be very likely to be tempted farther back.