Book Description

Excerpt from A Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, Vol. 1 of 2: Obsolete Phrases, Proverbs, and Ancient Customs, From the Fourteenth Century; A-I The numerous quotations I have given from early manuscripts will generally be found to be literal copies from the originals, without any attempt at remedying the grammatical errors of the scribes, so frequent in manuscripts of the fifteenth century. The terminal contractions were then, in fact, rapidly vanishing as part of the grammatical construction of our language, and the representative of the vowel terminations of the anglo-saxon was lost before the end of that century. It is only within the last few years that this subject has been considered by our editors, and it is much to be regretted that the texts of Ritson, Weber, and others are therefore not always to be depended upon. For this reason I have had recourse in some cases to the original manuscripts in preference to using the printed team, but, generally, the quotations from manuscripts have been taken from pieces not yet published. Some few have been printed during the time this work has been in the press, a period of more than two years. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.