Le 21 juin 07 à 09:12, Ron Fletcher a écrit :
> Hi Stephen,
>
> There was no set standard of spelling in the 16th century. Many
> registrars
> wrote names as they heard them from the couples being married etc.
> As many
> citizens were illiterate at that time.
>
> I also read that her book has the initials I. P. on the cover,
> indicating
> that Jane spelled her name Iane. I's and J's were interchangeable
> back
> then.
>
> The thing that made me smile was the entry, "Jane Pickeringe owe this
> book..."
>
> A-ha...So she borrowed this book and owes it to the true owner!
> (A library book?) This will really confuse historians.
>
> Owe and Own have completely different meanings.
Ron
I forgot to say that the "n" in own comes from the infinitive verbal
ending of the Old English verb ag-an (to owe). The intermediary "g"
softens to "w", as it can in South American Spanish
(agua water becomes awa, I believe). If we look at the word
"beran" (to produce or bear) we see that the expected Modern English
word would be "to owe", as it is "to bear" and not
"to bearn". In deed the usual form was "to owe" untill the 17th
century, but perhaps there was a dialectal form based on the
infinitive, "to owen". This would be a doubly marked infinitive as
"childeren" is a double plural "child-er" plural + en plural (When
there are many children, there really seem to be very many children
)
Persumably, at some stage this double inf. spelling was adopted to
avoid the ambiguity of two identical forms meaning very different
things ("I owe 10 pounds", as opposed to "I own 10 pounds")
It is easy to understand why that would be.
Best wishes
Anthony
>
> Best Wishes
>
> Ron (UK)
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Stephen Kenyon [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Sent: Wednesday, June 20, 2007 11:21 PM
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: [LUTE] Pickering or Pickeringe?
>
> Hello, which please is the appropriate spelling for our Jane?
> Many thanks...
>
> Stephen
>
>
>
>
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