William Barnes - An Outline of English Speech-craft

‘Sy wunung heora on west’ (be their woning [thing-name] waste). – Ps. lxviii 30.

‘Ða genealaehton hym to Farisaer hyne costigende ’ (then came near to him the Pharisees tempting [mark-word] him). – Matt xix. 3.

‘Ne gelaede þu us on costnunge ’ (lead us not into tempting [thing-name]). – Lord’s Prayer.

So ‘haelende,’ Matt v. 23; ‘haeling’; ‘bodigende,’ Matt. x. 35; ‘bodung,’ Luke xi. 32.

‘Waere þu to-daeg, on huntunge?’ (not huntende ) (wert thou to-day on or in hunting?) – Aelfric’s Dialogue.

‘Hwaet dest þu be þinre huntunge?’ (not huntende ) (what dost thou by thy hunting?) – Aelfric.

‘ The CALLING of assemblies I cannot away with.’ – Isa. i. 13. Not ‘calling assemblies,’ which, if calling were a mark-word, would mean assemblies that call.

The right speech-trimming with the thing-names in -ing is to trim them in the old English way as thing-names in their cases; as,

‘We are the offscouring of all things unto this day.’ – 1 Cor. iv. 13. Not ‘We are the offscouring all things.’

‘For that righteous man, IN seeing and hearing , vexed his righteous soul.’

‘By the WASHING of regeneration and ( the ) RENEWING of the Holy Ghost.’ – Titus iii. 5. Not ‘He saved us by the washing regeneration and renewing the Holy Ghost.’

The ending -er of the time-taker ( deeder , name-word) is, not unclearly, the Celtic, Welsh gwr , or in word-welding -wr , the Latin -or ; as,

Welsh, barn , doom; barnwr , a doom-man.

Latin, canto , to sing; cantor , a sing-man.

Thence -er seems a far less fitting ending for a tool-name than the old Saxon -el ; and a tool for the whetting of knives would be more fitly called a whettel than a whetter. Choppel , chopper; clippels , clippers.

All new time-words now taken or shapen from other tongues must be unmoulded.

We say shoot , shot (not shooted ); but loot , looted (not lot ), loot being the Hindustani lootna , to rob or plunder.

So time-words, which are known English words, of another kind, names or mark-words, are mostly unmoulded.

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