The Story of English in 100 Words (6 page)

Once inside the hall, the vocabulary of mead was all around him. The place to sit was called a
medubenc
(‘mead-bench’) or
medu-setl
(‘mead-seat’). He and his fellow-warriors would engage in a lengthy bout of
medu-drinc
(‘mead-drinking’), taking a
meduscenc
(‘draught of mead’) from a
medu-full
(‘mead-cup’). He would soon get
medu-gal
(‘enthused by the mead’) and experience
medu-dream
(‘mead-joy’). If he had too much, he would end up
medu-werig
(‘mead-weary’).

It’s fascinating to see a word being used in this way, permeating so many aspects of social behaviour. And it’s a feature of English which we continue to exploit today.
Whisky drinkers
might buy a
whisky bottle
from a
whisky shop
or (in olden days) a
whisky house
, and pour a
whisky peg
from a
whisky decanter
into a
whisky glass
. They might become
whisky sodden
or develop a
whisky voice
. On the other hand, we don’t extend the usage as much as the Anglo-Saxons did. We don’t usually talk about
whisky seats
,
whisky paths
or
whisky joy
.

In the Middle Ages, mead changed its social standing in Britain. Wine became the drink of choice among the upper class, leaving mead, along with ale and cider, as the drink of the poor. Mead never died out as a drink, but it took second place to ale and
cider, which were much easier to brew.
Ale
is used fifteen times in Shakespeare;
mead
not once.

Gradually, mead came back into fashion, sometimes developing new uses and shifting its meaning. In the 17th century it could be used to mean any sweet drink. Robert Burton used the term
mead-inn
in 1632, referring particularly to Russian drinking practices – a tavern where mead was the main drink sold. People in Britain in the 18th century drank
mead wine
.

In the USA, the name took on a different sense, referring to various sweet carbonated drinks sometimes flavoured with sarsaparilla. Americans continue to be strongly interested in mead today. There’s an International Mead Association, and a festival is held every year in Colorado. New
mead
-words continue to be coined. The occasion is a
meadfest
, and many
meaderies
and
mead-lovers
attend. There are
meadmaking
courses,
meadings
(tasting parties) and if you want you can read a
meadzine
.

But beware: don’t mix up the ‘drink’ sense of the word
mead
with another sense which is recorded in English from a few centuries later – a shortened form of
meadow
. When you see such words as
mead-flower
,
meadsweet
and
meadwort
, these are all meadow flowers. They have nothing to do with the drink. And if you know a road called the
Meadway
, that’s the ‘meadow’ sense too, and a later development. It’s
mead
in the ‘drink’ sense that fascinates linguists, because it’s part of a window into the origins of English.

Merry

a dialect survivor (9th century)

The first time we see the word
merry
is in an Old English manuscript, made by or for King Alfred, at the end of the ninth century. Except we don’t actually see
merry
, spelled like that. What we see is
myrige
, which would have been pronounced something like ‘mi-ree-yuh’.

There were many words in Old English written with that letter
y
. It seems to have represented a vowel sound pronounced high up in the front of the mouth, a bit like the
i
of
sit
, but with rounded lips. We can hear the same sound today in the way many Scots people pronounce
you
, or the way the French say
tu
. By the Middle Ages, people must have stopped rounding their lips, because the scribes started writing the word with an
i
. Middle English manuscripts show such spellings as
miri
and
mirye
.

In Anglo-Saxon manuscripts we also see the word spelled as
muri
and
meri
. That suggests there were different dialect pronunciations in the country. And when we look at where the people who wrote the manuscripts were located, we can indeed begin to see a dialect pattern. The scribes who used the
i
spelling were based in the south, around Winchester. Those who used
u
came from further west. And those who used
e
came from the south-east, in Kent.

By the Middle Ages, there was a huge tangle of spellings. Over fifty ways of spelling
merry
have been
recorded. Versions with
e
,
u
and
i
turn up all over the place. And then, gradually, the spelling with
e
won, reflecting the pronunciation which had become the norm in London and the south-east.

What could be
merry
, in Old English? The word originally meant ‘something that causes pleasure’, so it was used for all kinds of things and happenings. Songs, birds, harps, organs and voices could all be merry. So could the weather, the countryside, days, winds and smells. Books and stories were merry. So were clothes and jewellery. And the sun and stars. And countries.
Merry England
dates from around 1400.

Only in the 14th century did the word come to be applied to people, and then it developed a remarkable range of uses. Merry England indeed! We see it used for any kind of animated enjoyment – and also when the animation is drink-fuelled. Anyone happily tipsy is said to be merry. That usage goes back to the Middle Ages, when people were also said to be
merry-drunk
. In the 16th century, strong ale was called
merry-go-down
.

One sign of a word becoming really established is when it turns up in idioms, book titles, nicknames and compound words, and from the 14th century we see it in a whole host of phrases. Idioms?
Make merry
and
the more the merrier
. Titles?
The Merry Wives of Windsor
and
The Merry Widow
. Nicknames?
The Merry Monarch
(Charles II) and the
Merry Men
(of Robin Hood). Compounds? The supremely descriptive
and
merrythought
. A merry-totter was a medieval name for a children’s swing or see-saw. It’s still heard today in some regional dialects, especially in Yorkshire. And in the 16th century, a merrythought was a word for a fowl’s wishbone, pulled and broken while each party made a wish.

The process continued in later centuries. In the 18th century we find the arrival of the fairground carousel – a
merry-go-round
. In the 19th century we find people being
merry and bright
and
going on their merry way
.
Merry-go-up
was a slang name for snuff. The Royal Navy came to be called the
Merry Andrew
. In the 20th century, we find
merry maids
used as the name of a wide range of enterprises, from milk chocolate caramels to domestic cleaning services. And in the USA and the Caribbean,
merry
became popular as a verb. One could
merry oneself
(‘amuse oneself’). And people could
merry up
, such as after a drink, or
merry up
a room if it looked dull.

The ultimate accolade was when
merry
came to be used, in the 16th century, as a greeting for one of the chief festivities of the year.
Merry Christmas!
And, for a while,
Merry New Year
too, until
Happy
took over. Not a bad career for what was originally a Kentish dialect word.

Riddle

playing with language (10th century)

People have probably played with words as long as language has existed. They love to take a word and mess about with it, such as by saying it backwards, making an outrageous pun on it or stringing it together with other words so that it can’t be said (tongue-twisters). The playful temperament has produced innumerable word games and competitions, such as crossword puzzles and Scrabble. And one of the earliest signs of this temperament in English appears in the form of riddles.

It took a while for the word
riddle
to develop this meaning. When it first appears in Old English, in early translations from Latin, it was in the form
rædels
(pronounced ‘reah-dels’), a combination of the word for ‘read’ with an
-els
ending. It meant a ‘reading’ or ‘opinion’ about something. Gradually the sense broadened to an ‘interpretation’ of something, and then, in an interesting switch, to a ‘saying that defies easy interpretation’ – an enigma. The modern meaning was in place by the 10th century.

The form of the word changed too. That
-els
ending was quite common in Old English, turning up in such words as
gyrdels
(‘girdle’) and
byrels
(‘tomb’ – think
buriels
). But during the 14th century it evidently confused everyone. By then, the
-s
ending on a noun was being thought of as a plural. So when people saw the word
redels
(as it was usually spelled
in the Middle Ages), they thought it of it as a plural form,
riddles
. During the 15th century, they gradually dropped the
-s
to make a new singular form,
riddle
.

There’s a collection of Old English riddles in one of the finest Anglo-Saxon manuscripts: the Exeter Book. It was compiled in the late 10th century, and is so called because it was acquired by Bishop Leofric for Exeter Cathedral some time afterwards. It contains over thirty poems and over ninety verse riddles. They cover a wide range of subjects reflecting the Anglo-Saxon way of life, such as weapons, book-making, animals and everyday objects.

Each riddle presents a topic in a mysterious or puzzling way and asks the reader to identify it. Some are the equivalent of the modern ‘dirty joke’. The riddle whose answer is ‘a key’ begins like this: ‘Something wondrous hangs by a man’s thigh …’ Here’s R. K. Gordon’s translation of one of the cleaner riddles:

I saw a creature in the cities of men who feeds the cattle. It has many teeth. Its beak is useful. It goes pointing downward. It plunders gently and returns home. It searches through the slopes, seeks herbs. Always it finds those which are not firm. It leaves the fair ones fixed by their roots, quietly standing in their station, gleaming brightly, blowing and growing.

The answer is: a rake.

The story of
riddle
doesn’t end here. By the 14th century it had developed the general sense of a
‘difficult problem’ or ‘mystery’. It came to be applied to people:
He’s a complete riddle; I don’t understand him at all!
And then, in the 16th century, the noun became a verb, meaning ‘to speak in riddles’. ‘Lysander riddles very prettily,’ says Hermia in Shakespeare’s
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
(II.ii.59).

Something very curious then took place. Some people started to use the verb and the noun together.
Riddle me a riddle
, says one 16th-century writer, meaning ‘Solve this riddle for me’. Others dropped the noun and used the verb twice:
Riddle me, riddle me
. Evidently people found the sound of the word appealing. And children did too, because eventually the phrase became part of a popular nursery rhyme:

Riddle me, riddle me, ree;
A little man in a tree;
A stick in his hand,
A stone in his throat,
If you tell me this riddle
I’ll give you a groat.

Riddle-me-ree
became a frequent title for collections of riddles, and the phrase often appeared in children’s stories. You’ll find it in
The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin
, by Beatrix Potter.

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