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Hi all,
this my response may be a little more serious
(hope don't bore you), though I really don't know where the slang said
'Hight Noon' comes from.
Nevertheless I should remark that in middle age
England and French people use to call midday just like this, "hygh noone",
or "haute nonne". As we know the English language got much from the French
language in the middle age, and we know also that modern word "noon" comes
from "none" (or Latin 'nona') that is the cononical hour when monks recite
none, that in the ancient Irish language surely become "Noon". There
is, actually in the Vatican library an ancient Irish manuscript that
use this term to say "none" (see my book "The ancient sundial of Ireland",
page 66), and because since early times the pryer of none has been slowly
superimposed to midday, we find that in England people easily called that
moment 'noon'.
But lets go bak to high noon again. As I wrote
here, medieval French use to call midday "haute nonne" that means high none
(in the sense of the time for pryer), why this? Easy, in medieval time
people didn't use the hours as moments like today, but they consider a time
between two terms (or hour lines), and canonical hours in former times last
almost three seasonal (or temporal) hours, and the position of the sun gave
them the idea to specify better. So this is the names of the part of the day
in medieval France: heure de soleil levant (hour of the rising sun), prime,
houte prime (high prime), tierce, haute tierce (high terce), haute nonne
(high none), basse nonne (low none), remontière (wake up), haut vespre (high
vesper), bas vespre (low vesper), complie (compline), heure de soleil
esconsant (hour of the hiding sun).
At the same time in England we find the popular
use to call midday "hygh noone" as we may read in many old writings. Look at
this Cronicle, for instance:"With us the nobility, gentry and students doe
ordinarily go to dinner at aleaven before noone and to supper at five, or
betweene five and sixe afternoone. The marchaunts dine and suppe seldome
before 12 at noone and sixe at night (read evening), aspecially in London.
The husbandmen dine also at 'high noone' as they call it and sup at seven or
eyght; but out of the terme in our Universities the schoolers dine at
tenne".
Thank you for your attention, and forgive me my
bad English
Mario
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Mario
Arnaldi
V.le Leonardo, 82
I-48020 LIDO ADRIANO -
Ravenna
Italy