THE JEWELLER’S WINDOW

Press, Volume C, Issue 29638, 7 October 1961, Page 14

THE JEWELLER’S WINDOW

[Specially written for "The Prew" bp ARNOLD WALL] pROFESSOR Arnold Wall, in the present series of articles, discusses the origin of many familiar expressions and phrases, some of them dating from the time of World War I, or even well before then. He wishes to make it clear that he cannot undertake to reply personally to readers who may comment on any of them. This article is the tenth of the series.

“Mainly For Women” 'T’HE favourite butts of the x medieval jester were women and "freres.’’ The “freres” may have had their turn later and the women come first The general tone of the tales about women in the Middle Ages has been described as laughing with a wry mouth and as the stories were all written by men it was to be expected that the ladies would hardly get justice. They are depicted as chatter-boxes, unfaithful wives, quarrelsome, flighty, and “contrary.” The samples are condensed and modernised in respect of spelling and idiom. "Of the Woman who Followed her Fourth Husband’s Bier and Wept.” A kind neighbour tried to comfort her, seeing her weep. But she replied “I am not weeping for the good man that's gone. I weep because, when I buried each of my three former husbands I knew, before the corpse left the house, where I should look for my next husband but now I know of no other husband and it is therefore I do weep.” Waywardness "Of him who sought his wife’s body against the stream.”

“A man whose wife fell into the river and was drowned was found by his neighbours looking for her body up the stream. When they said that this was not the way to find her he replied that they did not know his old woman. “She was so wayward and contrary to every thing while she lived that 1 know very well now she is dead she will go against the stream.” This story is told in later days of Tarleton the Elizabethan actor and no doubt of other noted wags again and again.

"Of the Gentyllman and his shrewd wife.”

A man who had a chiding wife who used to complain of his faults to a monk every day in confession, was advised by the monk to confess to him his sins and thus he would try to reconcile the warring couple. But the man said, “no that needeth not, for I know very well my wife hath shown you all the offences that ever I did, and much more.”

"Of the man who had the Dumb wife.”

A man there was whose wife was dumb and he walked abroad very sad thinking of her. A man asked him why he was so sad and he told him of his wife. The man gave him advice how to cure his wife. He had to lay an aspen leaf under her tounge while she slept and when she woke she could speak. He did that and when he woke her in the morning she scolded him for waking her so early. So then she was cured but the husband was soon weary of her constant chatter. He walked abroad very sad and met the same man and again told him the cause of his sadness. The “man” said he was a devil out of hell, only one of the lesser devils with no great power. He had the power to make his wife speak, but and if a woman once begins to speak neither I nor all the devils in hell be not able to make a woman to be still nor to cause her to leave her speaking. Thus the men had their bit of fun in the old days. We had better not to try that

line now, for the women wield the pen as wen as the men and can give as good as they get, probably better. “Yorksheer” English speakers used to say “Yorsheer,” “Devonsheer,” and so on but during the nineteenth century their habit changed to “Yorksher” as now prescribed in most, if not all, dictionaries. And when “shire” is used by itself as in “shire horses” it was “hyer.” So in this particular case a word spelt with “ —ire” which is one of a group of words so spelt which are, or have been pronounced in two different ways. It is the form with long “i” like “shyer” which is now in use in all cases, I think, except for “ —sheer.” My first example is “briar” which is now known only in that form; but in place-names it appears as “brere” in “Brereton” and “brear,” in “Brearton” and “Breary.” All these three names come from “briar,” the plant Then “friar” used to be more commonly “frere” as in the French “frere’’ for “brother,” but now “frere” appears only in the sur-name, also spelt “Frier.” The plant “samphire” which is mentioned in “King Lear”—“one that gathers samphire, dreadful trade.” This was formerly “sampere” from “Saint Pierre.” Then there is the curious case of "satire” which we now pronounce with the long “i.” Actually this was pronounced in the 18th century in four different ways as follows: “satter,” “sayter,” “saytyre,” "sateer.” We have now discarded the “ —eer” and adopted a pronunciation which was not among the older competitors at all, a unique case. “Umpire” belongs here. It has lost an initial “n” being from Old French “nonper” for "non pair,’’ not equal In older English it was “noumper” and the “ —per” is the word ‘peer.” Literally equal, so it was at one time “numpeer.” Any trace of that “ —eer” has disappeared. A forgotten word now is “rampire”—a form of “rampart”—and this was formerly “rampere” and pronounced “rampeer.” Goldsmith uses it in "The Deserted Village” “where the tall rampire leans against the land.”

The "quire” of paper, now always pronounced with the long "i” was formerly “quair” and has other forms, the modern French form is “cahier.” In the seventeenth century the pronoun “their,” as we have it, was generally spelt “thire.” This spelling is a real puzzle, for it seems most unlikely that it was ever pronounced to rhyme with "fire.” These pairs of words in " —ire” and “—eer” offer an explanation for “their” might well have stood for “theer” and that pronunciation of “their” is not unknown in English dialect. Milton always spelt this word “thire.” (To be Continued)