[NS-Heralds] Re: Award and Order name resubmission help -GreatBear

[Caradoc]

I did just look this one up recently (not today, or I'd remember details better). I believe "great" starts at 10th century (spelled "grete", IIRC) and 9th century with the "great" spelling -- tho it seems odd to me that the current spelling would show up so early. I believe "beare", so spelled, makes an appearance in the 16th century.



And that's a question, since we're not using the OED for quite its intended purpose:



Do we know that they are giving us every known spelling variant and when it was introduced? Since they're probably not doing us quite that big a service, what spellings are legitimate, and on what auctoritee are they so? Or, since English is our lingua anglica, can we just re-spell it into today's commonly-accepted spelling (or for some words, spellings)?



Just not sure that "Grete Bere" would mean much to most folks. "Greet Beer? Sounds friendly, I'll have a tankard."



Also, the Merriam-Webster dictionary (again, IIRC) claims to be more up-to-date on etymology; sadly, it's also less informative. Perhaps the online OED is more current than my decades-old one. Certainly, the Middle English dictionary gives "great" (with or without final "e") as a possible variant, and "beare", but only with the final "e".



(I really like definition #3 for bear:

"The bear as a type of the sins of sloth and gluttony; also, a person whose character is dominated by such a sin." There's something to live up to.)



--Caradoc

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I think once you start eating people you should stop claiming to be a vegetarian, even if you only eat bad people. -- J.D. Nicoll





 --- On Sat 01/05, Sara L Uckelman < liana at ellipsis.cx > wrote:

From: Sara L Uckelman [mailto: liana at ellipsis.cx]

To: ns-heralds at mailman.itasca.net

Date: Sat, 05 Jan 2008 12:36:38 +0100

Subject: Re: [NS-Heralds] Re: Award and Order name resubmission help -Great Bear



Quoth bronwyn at tds.net:<br>> re now being questioned.  Not to mention the fact that the OED is _not_ a common<br><br>Show me an SCA heraldry mailing list that doesn't have at least one<br>subscriber with a hard copy or access to the electronic edition.<br>Since the OED is a no photocopy source, all you need is someone to<br>look up the word for you and post the relevant dates.<br><br>Also, the Middle English Dictionary is freely available on the web<br>to all comers: http://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/med/<br><br>-Aryanhwy<br><br><br> <br>-- <br>vita sine literis mors est<br>http://www.ellipsis.cx/~liana/<br><br>_______________________________________________<br>NS-Heralds mailing list<br>NS-Heralds at mailman.itasca.net<br>http://mailman.itasca.net/listinfo/ns-heralds<br>

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