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#119700 01/12/04 06:19 PM
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I've been studying the Caterbury Tales lately and was just wondering why so many words we use now like run, fallen, drawn etc. have a 'y' in front of them in Middle English; is it to do with tense? How would it have been pronounced?

Examples:
carried = ybore
drawn = ydrawe
fallen = yfalle
led = ylad
run = yronne

P.S: Ooh, it's nice to be back - thanks, Jackie, for reminding me that AWAD still exists as I was wondering who to ask.
(oh yeah, and my website's finally up - okay, not the originally intended topic, but. See my profile)

#119701 01/12/04 06:31 PM
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And by the way, what's ywimpled?


#119702 01/12/04 06:43 PM
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The y- prefix is from the earlier Old English ge- prefix, which like its cognate in German, is one of the signs of the past participle in Old and Middle English.


#119703 01/12/04 06:47 PM
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A wimple is a nun's hood which covers the nun's head and hair. It's sort of like a Christian burqa, but different from a snood. So, ywimpled would mean wearing a wimple or being a nun.


#119704 01/12/04 06:50 PM
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Wimple, Burqa, and Snood. Hat Makers...



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#119705 01/12/04 06:56 PM
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Wimple, Burqa, and Snood. Hat Makers...

Shouldn't that be Mad Hatters, as opposed to Made Hatters in New Jersey.


#119706 01/12/04 07:01 PM
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So would it have been pronounced as 'ge'? e.g: gewimpled


#119707 01/12/04 07:04 PM
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Even when in Old English, when it was spelled ge- it was (probably) pronounced [ye].

Is there a Vox Inglisc, Nuncle?


#119708 01/12/04 07:07 PM
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Dear BA: my guess is that it would not be a hard "g".
Remember Our "wagon" was once "wain".

and
stile

PRONUNCIATION: stl
NOUN: 1. A set or series of steps for crossing a fence or wall. 2. A turnstile.
ETYMOLOGY: Middle English, from Old English stigel. See steigh- in Appendix I.



#119709 01/12/04 07:46 PM
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there are modern days scarves/shawls that are knit (or fashioned) in long(18 to 24 inches/a half meter or so) wide tubes, the scarf can be pulled down onto the shoulders and worn as a shawl(caplet) almost, or pulled up over the head, so the opening of the tube frames the face.(and the rest of the tube rest on the top of the shoulders)

these are still called wimples. (you can google wimple and find several patterns for knitting one)

i would define a wimples as a chin straps that extend up to the top of the head and become part of a head dress/hat/veil. they have extra fabric that drapes over the neck as well as the chin, almost like a bib.

in chaucer time, a common head dress was shaped like a crescent moon, (which sat on top of the head) and it included a wimple..

most nuns today still wear veils, very few still wear wimples.

a snood is something like a shower cap in shape, (a large circle gathered at the edges. it was used to cover/gather up the hair) snoods are often netted, or made of a fairly open/lacy like material, and worn at the back of the head, holding long hair in an ornamental net. (you might not see a snood if you only saw someone from the front.)

in NY, orthodox jewish women sometimes use closely knit or crocheted snoods to cover their hair in public (combined with a hat to cover the top of their head)

#119710 01/12/04 07:58 PM
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In Old English it was already tending to be pronounced /ye/. In fact there is a special cahracter, yogh, that looks almost like a cross between a z and a 3 that is used instead of a g.


#119711 01/12/04 08:01 PM
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Is there a Vox Inglisc, Nuncle?

I wish. There was a link for an Old English site that I linked off my blog. I'll take a look and get back to you.



#119712 01/12/04 08:26 PM
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Re:So, ywimpled would mean wearing a wimple or being a nun.

i think, in chaucer time, that wouldn't be entirely true... nuns 'habits' were fashioned from widows weeds, and reflect the proper garb for a woman in mourning.(at the time the order was created.. so old habits are almost a history of fashion!)

if the royal court were in mourning (as it was for many years during queen victoria's times) everyone in court would wear some sort of mourning garb--

widows weeds(at chaucers time) would have include wimples. so to 'be wimpled' could mean a nun, or just a woman in mourning attire, either for a husband, or someone else-(parent, etc.)

it was not uncommon for widows to live in convents, (even if they did not take the vows of a nun) they would have been entitled to a dowerage (1/3 the income from their late husbands estate), but not entitled to live in the household--(they could if the heir let them.. but lets face it, who want to live with your mother or stepmother?--especially if the law support the idea of you throwing her out of the house?)

so widows often lived with (and dressed as) nuns. but would still have some income, and if they had enough, they could travel.

if there was a death in the royal family (and Edward had half a dozen children who died) the whole of the court would go into mourning.. and the ornate wimples and headdresses would have been a common dress.

if a man died with no sons, his daughter(s) would inherit the estate, (as did Blanche of Lancaster) she would have been in mourning, but wealthy, and entitled to live on the family manor (as she did, after marrying john of gaunt.)
(one of the newer orders,(RC) the sisters of charity, was found at in ny , just after the civil war, and the 'habit' of the order is (was) the same sort of outfit you'd see on a widow of the time (they wear bonnets, with large visors, and ornate bows tied under their chins, not veils, and a pleated cape over a shirt waist dress, as a habit)


#119713 01/12/04 11:03 PM
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widows weeds(at chaucers time) would have include wimples. so to 'be wimpled' could mean a nun, or just a woman in mourning attire, either for a husband, or someone else-(parent, etc.)

Quite interesting. The Wife of Bath was of course a widow couple times over:

As for the Wife of Bath,
'Upon an amblere esily she sat,
Ywimpled wel, and on hir heed an hat
As brood as is a bokeler or a targe.'

Sorry for the misinformation. I tend to just think wimple == nun which has more to do with the meaning of wimple in the modern age than in the middle ages.



#119714 01/12/04 11:09 PM
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Shouldn't that be Mad Hatters
that would be good, too.
I was trying to remember the proper name for the business of making hats...



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#119715 01/13/04 06:28 AM
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millinery

Bingley


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#119716 01/13/04 08:02 AM
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> an Old English site

Here's one that I have on an old list, fwiw:

http://www.geocities.com/wordwulf/niw_englisc.htm


#119717 01/13/04 10:20 AM
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millinery
thanks, Bingley. that's what I was thinking, and then I thought, no, that's a dressmaker's shop... sew, silly me...




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#119718 01/13/04 01:50 PM
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Here's the link I was thinking of:

http://www.wmich.edu/medieval/research/rawl/IOE/index.html

The second chapter on pronunciation says that the yogh I was talking about, which the author calls a dotted g, is pronounced as voiced velar spirant. Sort of like the ch in the German ich but with the glottis buzzing.


#119719 01/13/04 01:55 PM
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Maybe I'm not the only one who didn't know etymology of
milliner:
milliner

SYLLABICATION: mil·li·ner
PRONUNCIATION: ml-nr
NOUN: One that makes, trims, designs, or sells hats.
ETYMOLOGY: Probably alteration of Middle English Milener, native of Milan, from Milan, the source of goods such as bonnets and lace.

I didn't think that there could be a mill to grind out hats.


#119720 01/13/04 01:59 PM
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glottis buzzing

gotta love that!

and thanks, Dr. Bill. I should have looked it up...



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#119721 01/13/04 02:02 PM
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Great looking site there, nuncle. Thanks.


#119722 01/13/04 02:37 PM
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Couldn't resist to give the old form of Milano, Mediolanum, meaning 'middle plain'. It's a Celtic placename, and there was one in Britannia: now Whitchurch in Shropshire.


#119723 01/13/04 05:35 PM
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one of the newer orders,(RC) the sisters of charity,
Helen - were they the nuns that had the big white wimples like the one Sally Field wore in "The Flying Nun?" or was that the Sisters of Mercy?



#119724 01/13/04 06:00 PM
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the nuns of 'the flying nun' (i don't know what order they where) are much older... and their head dress/hat is very similar to dutch hats of 16th (17th?) century..and the order is from belgium(area) originally.--i don't know if it was belgium proper (or some border town)

very few orders 'go world wide'.. most have home lands, and countries that they selected for missionary work..
i had ursulines as elementry teachers, they are a french order, and had missions in the 1700's in french canada, and new orlean. (general jackson, on the eve of the 'battle of 1812 dined and (slept) in the guest house of the ursuline convent (just out side the city)

the french --as rulers- left north america, but the ursulines stayed behind. (and still have a big 'mother house' in Montreal)

the sisters of charity, were founded by mother seton..(the first american born woman to be named a saint)and their habits (i spent 10 seconds or so looking for a picture) are some thing similar to the way mother seton is dressed in this photo..
http://emmitsburg.net/setonshrine/bio.htm

very much like widows weeds of the mid 1800's.


#119725 01/13/04 06:09 PM
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the Sisters of Mercy?

It was the Sisters of Rocky.


#119726 01/13/04 08:07 PM
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The Flying Nun lived in the convent of San Tanco, on top of a hill near San Juan, Puerto Rico, but I don't think we ever learned the name of the order to which she belonged.


#119727 01/13/04 08:17 PM
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the Sisters of Rocky

That's a load of Bullwimple.


#119728 01/13/04 09:57 PM
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The Flying Nun's order was completely fictional. Their habit was modeled - sort of - on that of the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul, an order founded by St. Vincent in France in mid-1600s. I do some work for Providence Hospital in Michigan - which was a Daughters of Charity hospital until a couple of years ago when it merged with a health system sponsored by the Sisters of St. Joseph. Anyway, the cornette was the winged wimple you're thinking about. No time to find a photo right now; will come back and do so.

Edit: Can't believe there are no pictures out there; we have a million in the hospital archives. Well, the first page of this newsletter has a drawing of a Daughter of Charity that will give you the idea of what the cornette looked like. http://www.dochs.org/who_we_are/caritas_spring_2003.pdf

#119729 01/13/04 10:16 PM
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well the whole thing was a sit/com, and the nuns seemed to have a life quite unlike any nuns i knew, and i had several cousins who were members of different regilious orders, so i got see/learn about rules and religious orders (as well as learning a thing or two from the ursulines)

there is an order of nuns, (dedicated to teaching and healing the sick ) that do wear elaberate folded head dresses..similar enough to the ones on the show.
the style of head dress that was common enough at the time the order was founded (just as nuns mother theresa 'order' wear sari's)-- nuns habits look strange now, because the reflect styles of the past..

most RC priest are just priests--not members of a specific 'order' they wear a collar, and cassock (sometimes--manytimes they just wear a collar).

there are also 'orders' of brothers(monks) that also include priests--and there are orders of just priests, --like the jesuits,-- an order that has as part of its function, a dispensation from wearing any sort of habit, or special clothing..jesuits are part of the papal equivelent of the CIA--and are undercover priests, and wear 'street clothing'

many ordersof monks, ie, fransicans, (mostly monks, but may also be priests) also wear anchronistic clothes/habits.

franciscans wear coarse *brown wool robes, (and coarse wool under robes) they are tied with rope (not leather) and they wear simple leather sandles (not shoes) -- and special permission has to be granted to them to wear socks even in the cold weather (like now in NY, temp is close to freezing, and is expected to be well below freezing mark tomorrow).
*actually the franciscans wear coarse wool robes make from native wool. in England, they tended to wear grey wool (unbleached simple wool) and were called the 'grey friars'.

many orders of monks are 'cloistered' (as are a percentage of nuns)--they are less often seen.


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most RC priest are just priests--not members of a specific 'order' they wear a collar, and cassock (sometimes--manytimes they just wear a collar).

I've heard these priests called diocesan. Not all members of orders are actually priests, i.e., cannot hear confession, offer mass. There are minor grades of the Society of Jesus that are open to lay brothers.



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yup--Not all members of orders are actually priests,

there are a numbers degrees to orders -priest are one set of orders, brothers/monks another set, (many monks take vows of povery, priest do not--but if a man is a member of an order that has vows of poverty, and a priest as well, he is bound by the orders vows of poverty)
there are also orders for women (nuns)
and there are lay orders. the lay order of franciscans, who live in semi poverty, work with the poor, own not much more than the clothes on their backs...most orders have 'lay orders'... some are almost non existant.

for both monks and nuns there are cloistered, semi cloistered orders. semi cloistered nuns (i suspect the same is true for monks, but i don't know) can not live or travel alone (that means they can not even walk on a public street by themselves)

there are orders that take vows of silence.. (and do not speak aloud except to pray/sing)

generally nuns/monks take vows of poverty, chasity, and obedience. vows of silence and full cloistering are known, but less common.
a vow of poverty mean they are not permitted to own anything personally, (the franciscans take this to the extreme, and the order doesn't even own its monistaries), nor can they give or recieve any property.

property is held communally (by the order) and shared as needed. most orders of nuns/monks are required to live in convent/monistary.

some orders have requirements of physical labor, (they used to work farms, and grow their own food, some still do, but nowdays some work as nurses, or other professions, and all of their salary is paid to the order, not to them personally. (one order i know of, is required to spend a small portion of each day working in graveyard, and graves are dug, communially --in theory, each brother must dig his own grave.)

diocesan priests, on the other hand, have a 'responsiblity' of office (a group/period of required prayer every day),and vows of celbacy(as well as chasity), and not much else. they are often 'employees' of a diocies, and have assign work, (sick calls, funerals, weddings, daily masses) but they can hold part time jobs, (and pocket the salary), they can inherit money, recieve (and keep) gifts, like cars, or homes...if they are employeed as diocesan priests, they are often required to live in rectory.

a priest can become 'unemployed'--but its rare.-- especially nowdays when there is a shortage of priests.
they are free to join the military, or to go to school (and become doctors or lawyers, enginneers, or what ever-if they have the personal resourses)

orders of monks(and nuns) will sometimes send a monk to 'school', if the order has a need--but that is less common..the ursulines are an order dedicated to education, and they are semi cloistered, they used to 'assign' a nun to be financial 'officier'--the nun would often end being a certified public accountant, and manage the 'houses' investments, retirement funds, lay salaries, and all the fiscal responsiblities of the order.--but the ursulines also 'discourged' young women without college (undergraduate) degrees from joining the order.. they were 'counselled' to contemplate their vocation as they privately persued their education.
(convents also 'suggested' the proper amount for a 'dowery'-it wasn't 'required', but they did suggest rather firmly.
nuns are the only ones i know who still have 'offical doweries')




#119732 01/26/04 11:10 PM
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>so old habits are almost a history of fashion!)


Ah, that probably explains why they were generally black in color. Old habits dye hard.

(with a vengeance.)




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#119733 01/27/04 01:11 AM
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"Old habits dye hard"



#119734 01/27/04 01:31 PM
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(don't encourage him, Zed)


#119735 01/27/04 02:02 PM
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That's OK, ASp. That one was funny. Even, dare I say it, good.


#119736 01/27/04 03:00 PM
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That one was funny. Even, dare I say it, good.

WHAT?!?!? dye? dye? where's the double usage? that's just a plain old pun!

I claim double standard. he got points for being prodigious. I mean a prodigal. oh, whatever.

I'll stop wimpling now...



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#119737 01/27/04 03:03 PM
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Hey! He double meant 'habits' and 'dye/die' works with both of them. Prodigiousness merely means that he has a half-way decent chance of scoring once in a while. I've been polite enough not to comment on any of his other efforts.


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#119739 01/27/04 03:13 PM
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Have to love this word, nancyk!

Now, I do remember well the cornette worn by the nuns in The Flying Nun, but I can't see where there might be a connection to a horn of any kind. I also can't imagine the word cornette not being somehow related to 'horn.'

Her flying about in a cornette could easily be mistyped as flying about in a corvette.


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Man, ain't nobody even mentioned the fact that "wimple" has a twin word, "guimpe". Just like "William" and "Guillaume". And "ward" and "guardian". All thanks to the Norman conquest, I guess. But whose idea was it to invite Norman?


#119741 01/28/04 01:04 PM
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What language is guimpe, please, birdfeed?

Nancyk, I have a vague memory that's telling me your spelling of cornette is right, but I couldn't find it anywhere! I tried cornet (yay, Onelook--thanks again, tsuwm) and found in the Infoplease Dictionary (I added the bolding.):
—n.
1. Music.a valved wind instrument of the trumpet family.
2. a small cone of paper twisted at the end and used for holding candy, nuts, etc.
3. a pastry cone, usually filled with whipped cream.
4. Brit.a conical wafer, as for ice cream; cone.
5. a large, white, winged headdress formerly worn by the members of the Sisters of Charity.
6. a woman's headdress, often cone-shaped, usually of delicate fabrics and having lappets of lace or other material, worn by women from the 14th to the 18th century.
7. a pennant or flag used for signaling in a navy.
8. (formerly) the officer who carried the colors in a troop of cavalry: the cornet of horse.


I am wondering if it is related to coronet or cornice.


#119742 01/28/04 01:27 PM
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"What language is guimpe, please, birdfeed?"

It's English. And one of its meanings is the same as wimple.
Thus speaks American Heritage Dictionary 4th ed.,"French, from Old French guimple, from Old High German wimpal."

Thus suggesting what I've always suspected, that if you leave words unattended in the dark long enough, they will multiply.

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Thanks, Jackie, for your list. Here's what I found on MW that does include Nancy's spelling of cornette:

Etymology: Middle French cornette, from corne horn (from Latin cornu) + -ette
1 also cornette a : a woman's cap or headdress varying in style from the 15th through the 18th centuries and usually made of delicate materials with lappets of lace or ribbon b : a lappet of such a headdress


I would expect that although the name of the originally horn-shaped hat of these three centuries with its various styles fell largely out of use, the specific term for the sisters' headpiece remained because it is such a--to say the least--distinctive bit of headgear.

Hats are very common among women in the South anymore unless for very festive occasions, such as your own derby, J. In the North I'd expect hats to be more commonly seen because of the weather.


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Thus suggesting what I've always suspected, that if you leave words unattended in the dark long enough, they will multiply.

!


#119745 01/28/04 10:44 PM
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Thanks, WW and Jackie. Since the Daughters of Charity originated in France, they used the French -ette spelling for their headdress. All of the hospital archive material spoke of "cornettes" so I didn't think twice about the spelling, much less look it up.

And, WW, your comment about wearing hats up north because of the weather provoked an amusing mental picture of the aforementioned cornette on a blustry, snowy winter day. Flying nuns, indeed!


#119746 01/30/04 02:38 AM
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Quoting from of troy: "so old habits are almost a history of fashion!"

Yes Helen - and they Die Hard 2.

stales

sorry all, couldn't resist!


#119747 02/01/04 05:20 PM
Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 3,467
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 3,467
>Yes Helen - and they Die Hard 2.

[chopped liver emoticon]



TEd
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