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mUs1Ka
Guest
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| Posted: Mon Dec 20, 2004 2:35 am
Post subject: Re: Gotten |
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Dave Clarke wrote:
| Quote: | On Sunday 19 December 2004 08:52 mUs1Ka wrote:
Dave Clarke wrote:
I still don't know what a "y" legter is, even if it is supposed to
be a "y" ligature. Is it the i j ligature (Unicode 0133)?
That, I am sure, was just a typo for "letter".
Ah, yes, of course. Now I am confused. Mike Stevens said:
A manuscript thorn could be mistaked for a legter "y"
How could thorn 'þ' be mistaken for 'y'. Being mistaken for 'p' I can
believe. Or did a 'manuscript thorn' look different?
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In manuscript, a letter Y shape was often used to represent a thorn, hence
the mistaken pronunciation of Ye Olde Shoppe. Similar mistakes have been
made with the long s and f.
http://www.medievalscotland.org/scotnames/lowland16/womeninstances.shtml
In 16th century Scots handwriting, a y-shape was used for two different
letters, thorn and actual <y>. Thorn is pronounced like the letters <th>.
(This is the source of the cliche "ye olde" -- the <y> in <ye> represents a
thorn, and this <ye> is pronounced like, and indeed is, the word <the>.) In
the names below that use <y>, if other 16th century spellings or the modern
spelling of that name use <th>, <t>, or <d> instead, then the <y> represents
thorn; otherwise, it represents a normal <y>.
--
Ray
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Brian {Hamilton Kelly}
Guest
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| Posted: Mon Dec 20, 2004 3:29 am
Post subject: Re: Gotten |
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On Sunday, in article <hlig92-paj.ln1@pinguino.site>
pinggetridofthisbituino@operamail.com "Dave Clarke" wrote:
| Quote: | How could thorn 'þ' be mistaken for 'y'. Being mistaken for 'p' I can
believe. Or did a 'manuscript thorn' look different?
|
In manuscript, the loop on the thorn was elongated and tilted upward to
the right. Moreover, the penstroke used to generate it resulted in the
first part of the curve, leading upward away from the stem, being written
along the width of the pen, resulting in a very thin line upon the page,
whereas the top of the loop, and the downward-leading part joining back
to the stem was written perpendicular to the width of the pen, resulting
in a much broader, blacker, stroke.
If a copyist's eyesight were poor, it is not infeasible that he might
miss entirely the upward-leading thin stroke, and thereby see a character
which looked like this:
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|/
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OK, so it's a backward letter Y; yet all the same the confusion is
perfectly understandable.
--
Brian {Hamilton Kelly} bhk@dsl.co.uk
"I don't use Linux. I prefer to use an OS supported by a large multi-
national vendor, with a good office suite, excellent network/internet
software and decent hardware support." |
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Dave Clarke
Guest
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| Posted: Mon Dec 20, 2004 3:37 am
Post subject: Re: Gotten |
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On Sunday 19 December 2004 wrote:
| Quote: | Dave Clarke wrote:
On Sunday 19 December 2004 08:52 mUs1Ka wrote:
How could thorn 'þ' be mistaken for 'y'. Being mistaken for 'p' I can
believe. Or did a 'manuscript thorn' look different?
In manuscript, a letter Y shape was often used to represent a thorn, hence
the mistaken pronunciation of Ye Olde Shoppe. Similar mistakes have been
made with the long s and f.
|
Thanks for that. So 'y' was deliberately used in place of a thorn, not by
mistake. I wonder why they did that?
--
Dave Clarke
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Brian {Hamilton Kelly}
Guest
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| Posted: Mon Dec 20, 2004 3:39 am
Post subject: Re: Gotten |
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On Sunday, in article
<9Ylxd.1436$gj2.1248@newsfe4-gui.ntli.net>
john.briggs4@ntlworld.com "John Briggs" wrote:
| Quote: | Dave Clarke wrote:
On Sunday 19 December 2004 wrote:
Dave Clarke wrote:
On Sunday 19 December 2004 08:52 mUs1Ka wrote:
How could thorn '' be mistaken for 'y'. Being mistaken for 'p' I can
believe. Or did a 'manuscript thorn' look different?
In manuscript, a letter Y shape was often used to represent a thorn,
hence the mistaken pronunciation of Ye Olde Shoppe. Similar mistakes
have been made with the long s and f.
Thanks for that. So 'y' was deliberately used in place of a thorn,
not by mistake. I wonder why they did that?
It wasn't a 'Y', it was a letter that resembled a 'Y'. The only way to
represent it in print was by using a 'Y'.
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Is this the crux of the matter: the introduction of printing? The founts
that Caxton imported when he set up his presses probably did not include
the letters edh and thorn; so typesetting required that he (and other
printers) adopted something close to the actual letter.
This adoption of Y for thorn then led back into manually written material
(not just manuscript, but display signwriting).
Er, perhaps.
(I don't believe that Y was used for thorn in pre-letterpress days except
by mistake; nothing deliberate about it.)
--
Brian {Hamilton Kelly} bhk@dsl.co.uk
"I don't use Linux. I prefer to use an OS supported by a large multi-
national vendor, with a good office suite, excellent network/internet
software and decent hardware support." |
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John Briggs
Guest
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| Posted: Mon Dec 20, 2004 3:58 am
Post subject: Re: Gotten |
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Dave Clarke wrote:
| Quote: | On Sunday 19 December 2004 wrote:
Dave Clarke wrote:
On Sunday 19 December 2004 08:52 mUs1Ka wrote:
How could thorn '' be mistaken for 'y'. Being mistaken for 'p' I can
believe. Or did a 'manuscript thorn' look different?
In manuscript, a letter Y shape was often used to represent a thorn,
hence the mistaken pronunciation of Ye Olde Shoppe. Similar mistakes
have been made with the long s and f.
Thanks for that. So 'y' was deliberately used in place of a thorn,
not by mistake. I wonder why they did that?
|
It wasn't a 'Y', it was a letter that resembled a 'Y'. The only way to
represent it in print was by using a 'Y'.
--
John Briggs |
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Dave Clarke
Guest
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| Posted: Mon Dec 20, 2004 6:31 am
Post subject: Re: Gotten |
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On Sunday 19 December 2004 20:58 John Briggs wrote:
| Quote: | Dave Clarke wrote:
On Sunday 19 December 2004 wrote:
Dave Clarke wrote:
On Sunday 19 December 2004 08:52 mUs1Ka wrote:
How could thorn '' be mistaken for 'y'. Being mistaken for 'p' I can
believe. Or did a 'manuscript thorn' look different?
In manuscript, a letter Y shape was often used to represent a thorn,
hence the mistaken pronunciation of Ye Olde Shoppe. Similar mistakes
have been made with the long s and f.
Thanks for that. So 'y' was deliberately used in place of a thorn,
not by mistake. I wonder why they did that?
It wasn't a 'Y', it was a letter that resembled a 'Y'. The only way to
represent it in print was by using a 'Y'.
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Sorry, I'm confused again. Which letter resembled 'y'? If you mean thorn, I
can't see the similarity.
--
Dave Clarke |
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bogus address
Guest
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| Posted: Mon Dec 20, 2004 8:17 am
Post subject: Re: Gotten |
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| Quote: | I still don't know what a "y" legter is, even if it is supposed
to be a "y" ligature. Is it the i j ligature (Unicode 0133)?
That, I am sure, was just a typo for "letter".
It is best not to mention the Yogh, often confused with the Ezh.
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But everybody can have a yogh... it's free, nobody else needs to
know about it, it's perfectly normal, lots of people have one...
<http://www.nls.uk/auchinleck/editorial/popup/font_pop.html>
Go on, you know you want to...
========> Email to "j-c" at this site; email to "bogus" will bounce <========
Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760
<http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/purrhome.html> food intolerance data & recipes,
Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files and CD-ROMs of Scottish music. |
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Fred
Guest
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| Posted: Mon Dec 20, 2004 11:47 am
Post subject: Re: Gotten |
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"Brian {Hamilton Kelly}" <bhk@dsl.co.uk> wrote in message
news:20041220.0139.58868snz@dsl.co.uk...
| Quote: | On Sunday, in article
9Ylxd.1436$gj2.1248@newsfe4-gui.ntli.net
john.briggs4@ntlworld.com "John Briggs" wrote:
This adoption of Y for thorn then led back into manually written material
(not just manuscript, but display signwriting).
Er, perhaps.
(I don't believe that Y was used for thorn in pre-letterpress days except
by mistake; nothing deliberate about it.)
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This is very interesting stuff.
I understand that one of the reasons for English being so un-phonetic is
that the characters used to write the modern language were different from
those in which it was originally recorded and developed. I'm thinking in
particular of the 'ough' sounds. I had always assumed that this was related
to the Norman Conquest and the adoption of Norman French (and its associated
alphabet) as the language of the ruling class. However did printing presses
also play a role in this?
Fred |
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Matthew Huntbach
Guest
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| Posted: Mon Dec 20, 2004 8:30 pm
Post subject: Re: Gotten |
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On Sat, 18 Dec 2004, Bob Cunningham wrote:
| Quote: | On Fri, 17 Dec 2004 09:52:50 +0000, Matthew Huntbach
mmh@dcs.qmul.ac.uk> said:
But under what circumstances does the use of "got" rather than
"gotten" create a problem?
In American English, "I've got" means "I possess", while
"I've gotten" means "I have obtained". Where English
English rejects "gotten", speakers lack that way to make the
distinction.
I've read in this thread that "gotten" has begun to be used
in English English. I suspect that even among those who are
beginning to use "gotten", the distinction I've mentioned
above doesn't exist there. Is that true?
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"Gotten" is being picked up by people who have become so used to hearing
it in USA media that they have no idea this usage is not standard in
British English. It's an unconscious usage rather than a conscious
attempt to "sound American". So I would imagine it is learnt as any other
piece of grammar in one's native language is learnt. If American children
naturally pick up the "got/gotten" distinction, then I suppose British
children would as well. Do American children take a while to get the hang
of it, so sometimes use "gotten" when "got" would be appropriate?
Matthew Huntbach |
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Dave Clarke
Guest
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| Posted: Mon Dec 20, 2004 8:35 pm
Post subject: Re: Gotten |
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On Monday 20 December 2004 01:29 Brian {Hamilton Kelly} wrote:
| Quote: | On Sunday, in article <hlig92-paj.ln1@pinguino.site
pinggetridofthisbituino@operamail.com "Dave Clarke" wrote:
How could thorn 'þ' be mistaken for 'y'. Being mistaken for 'p' I can
believe. Or did a 'manuscript thorn' look different?
In manuscript, the loop on the thorn was elongated and tilted upward to
the right. Moreover, the penstroke used to generate it resulted in the
first part of the curve, leading upward away from the stem, being written
along the width of the pen, resulting in a very thin line upon the page,
whereas the top of the loop, and the downward-leading part joining back
to the stem was written perpendicular to the width of the pen, resulting
in a much broader, blacker, stroke.
If a copyist's eyesight were poor, it is not infeasible that he might
miss entirely the upward-leading thin stroke, and thereby see a character
which looked like this:
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|/
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OK, so it's a backward letter Y; yet all the same the confusion is
perfectly understandable.
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Thanks for that Brian. It now, finally, makes sense to me.
--
Dave Clarke |
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Charles Lindsey
Guest
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| Posted: Mon Dec 20, 2004 11:51 pm
Post subject: Re: Gotten |
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In <32ffhnF3mjb1sU1@individual.net> "Mike Stevens" <michael.stevens@which.net> writes:
| Quote: | However, I'm not at all sure that it didn't linger some time after that in
the speech of older (especially uneducated) people. I certainly remember
the similar "boughten" being used by a middle-aged lady of my acquaintance
in the mid-1960s.
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I always thought "boughten" was part of the Somerset dialect - at least,
that's where I heard it.
--
Charles H. Lindsey ---------At Home, doing my own thing------------------------
Tel: +44 161 436 6131 Fax: +44 161 436 6133 Web: http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~chl
Email: chl@clerew.man.ac.uk Snail: 5 Clerewood Ave, CHEADLE, SK8 3JU, U.K.
PGP: 2C15F1A9 Fingerprint: 73 6D C2 51 93 A0 01 E7 65 E8 64 7E 14 A4 AB A5 |
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Charles Lindsey
Guest
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| Posted: Mon Dec 20, 2004 11:54 pm
Post subject: Re: Gotten |
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In <Pine.LNX.4.61.0412171355260.16256@frank.dcs.qmul.ac.uk> Matthew Huntbach <mmh@dcs.qmul.ac.uk> writes:
| Quote: | In French, and in other European languages, it came to be seen to be polite
to address someone in the plural i.e. to use "vous" rather than "tu". This
remains the case to this day. It seems that in early modern English the
same applied - one would always address a group of people as "you", one
could address a single person as "thou", but it was considered more polite
to address a single person as "you". As time went on, in order not to
seem rude, "you" was used in more and more circumstances, to the point
where it became used in all circumstances.
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Except in the North of England, where I would happily use it when
addressing someone who would understand it as such.
--
Charles H. Lindsey ---------At Home, doing my own thing------------------------
Tel: +44 161 436 6131 Fax: +44 161 436 6133 Web: http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~chl
Email: chl@clerew.man.ac.uk Snail: 5 Clerewood Ave, CHEADLE, SK8 3JU, U.K.
PGP: 2C15F1A9 Fingerprint: 73 6D C2 51 93 A0 01 E7 65 E8 64 7E 14 A4 AB A5 |
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Charles Lindsey
Guest
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| Posted: Mon Dec 20, 2004 11:56 pm
Post subject: Re: Gotten |
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In <Pine.LNX.4.61.0412171734490.18715@frank.dcs.qmul.ac.uk> Matthew Huntbach <mmh@dcs.qmul.ac.uk> writes:
| Quote: | On Fri, 17 Dec 2004, Charles Lindsey wrote:
It was, and it still is AFAIAC. I am sure I have used it in contexts where
the strong form 'got' seemed inappropriate. Clearly, the weak forms
"gotted" or "getted" are wrong and ugly, so we have "gotten" instead.
There are no such forms as "gotted" or "getted".
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Exactly so. That was why I mentioned them.
In all cases where
| Quote: | USA English would use "gotten", the correct British English form is "got".
|
So what do you do with your "Ill got gains"?
--
Charles H. Lindsey ---------At Home, doing my own thing------------------------
Tel: +44 161 436 6131 Fax: +44 161 436 6133 Web: http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~chl
Email: chl@clerew.man.ac.uk Snail: 5 Clerewood Ave, CHEADLE, SK8 3JU, U.K.
PGP: 2C15F1A9 Fingerprint: 73 6D C2 51 93 A0 01 E7 65 E8 64 7E 14 A4 AB A5 |
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Mike Stevens
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Dec 21, 2004 5:52 am
Post subject: Re: Gotten |
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Charles Lindsey wrote:
| Quote: | In <32ffhnF3mjb1sU1@individual.net> "Mike Stevens"
michael.stevens@which.net> writes:
However, I'm not at all sure that it didn't linger some time after
that in the speech of older (especially uneducated) people. I
certainly remember the similar "boughten" being used by a
middle-aged lady of my acquaintance in the mid-1960s.
I always thought "boughten" was part of the Somerset dialect - at
least,
that's where I heard it.
|
That's only one County away from where I heard it - in Wiltshire, and I
suspect the two dialects have other things in common.
--
Mike Stevens
narrowboat Felis Catus II
Web site www.mike-stevens.co.uk
No man is an island. So is Man. |
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Matthew Huntbach
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Dec 21, 2004 5:50 pm
Post subject: Re: Gotten |
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On Mon, 20 Dec 2004, Charles Lindsey wrote:
| Quote: | Matthew Huntbach <mmh@dcs.qmul.ac.uk> writes:
On Fri, 17 Dec 2004, Charles Lindsey wrote:
It was, and it still is AFAIAC. I am sure I have used it in contexts where
the strong form 'got' seemed inappropriate. Clearly, the weak forms
"gotted" or "getted" are wrong and ugly, so we have "gotten" instead.
There are no such forms as "gotted" or "getted".
Exactly so. That was why I mentioned them.
|
So why would you want to use them rather than the correct (in British
English) "got"?
| Quote: | In all cases where USA English would use "gotten", the correct British
English form is "got".
So what do you do with your "Ill got gains"?
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One of many cases where a form which is otherwise archaic is preserved
in a stock phrase. You cannot say "badly gotten" or "well gotten".
Matthew Huntbach |
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