From the Archives: Gadering of Wordes

Anyone who like, you know, really loves language and stuff like that, especially English that’s becoming like a totally universal language, owes a debt of gratitude to Frances McSparran, Robert E. Lewis and 123 other non-hipsters. For 71 years now these University of Michigan researchers have collectively labouren in academic obscurity to completen a dictionary of so-called Middle English—that is, English from about 1000 AD to 1400.

According to a recent Times account by Richard Lee Colvin, they waded through 900,000 surviving quotations from that pre-printing era to extrapolate 55,000 entries over 15,000 pages. It shows a nieuwe English language agglomerating from Latin, French, German, Dutch and several minor English peasant dialects and opens a fascinating window on the evolution of modern meanings and language.

As mankind’s intellectual and economic interests expanded and diversified, the dynamic, imaginative new language proved highly adaptive and adoptive. English devised new words for new ideas (“handy” and “handyman” grew from a male literary character named Hende, who may have been good with his hands but originally was tricky and willful) and co-opted and changed words from other tongues (Hitler was not thinking football defense when he launched his blitzkriegs).

In Middle English, centurie was an army division. Muchel meant much. Brainen was to smash someone’s skull, perhaps after a chalenge (a false accusation). A saggard was a braggart, a rancle a festering sore and a ragadie an inflammation. A wainun was a lazy dog, a tike a no-good dog, an idle man was a harlot and a biginner was an inventor.

Wafrun always was a wafer, but calling a man pretty meant he was cunning and elegant. A chinche was a miser, a wretch was a hare and big meant strong and sturdy, not large.

Deciphering medieval phonetic spellings and divining meanings, the dictionary is chatrid with olde words that look familiar: algebra was setting broken bones, setten meant set and tahken meant take. Some words became extinct but shouldn’t be: A soupet , for instance, could still be a cup of soup. Pyrdowy does sound like a mournful tune. A grutchen could be a chronic griper. An unlikable person could still be a motihole or trufler . Phonies are definitely fabelard, and drunkards should be gulche-cuppes .

These Midwestern linguistic detectives also uncovered evolving patterns of thinking. Clearly, the Middle English skie became our “sky.” But, it turns out, originally skie meant cloudy sky, not unusual over England. Then they found in a medieval doctor’s notes the word skiish, meaning something cloudy. Thus was accidentally discovered the developing English habit 1,000 years ago of adding “-ish” to nouns to produce adjectives like “childish,” “devilish” or even “Hollywoodish.”

Though not brefe, the new dictionary is nothing to mokke or biscornen. It was a hard biswinkful job to bifinden old definitions. To look bihindeward bilemns our understanding of the past, learning how words bifallen into modern lives as English totally biwrixled itself. We’re blissen to have the dictionary. And that’s no idle chuffing.