{24} Somewhat different from this, yet itself also curious, is the
passing of an Anglo-Saxon word in two different forms into English,
and continuing in both; thus ‘desk’ and ‘dish’, both the
Anglo-Saxon ‘disc’ [a loan-word from Latin _discus_, Greek
_diskos_] the German ‘tisch’; ‘beech’ and ‘book’, both the
Anglo-Saxon ‘boc’, our first books being _beechen_ tablets (see
Grimm, _Wörterbuch_, s. vv. ‘Buch’, ‘Buche’); ‘girdle’ and
‘kirtle’; both of them corresponding to the German ‘gürtel’;
already in Anglo-Saxon a double spelling, ‘gyrdel’, ‘cyrtel’, had
prepared for the double words; so too ‘haunch’ and ‘hinge’; ‘lady’
and ‘lofty’ [these last three instances are not doublets at all,
being quite unrelated; see Skeat, s. vv.]; ‘shirt’, and ‘skirt’;
‘black’ and ‘bleak’; ‘pond’ and ‘pound’; ‘deck’ and ‘thatch’;
‘deal’ and ‘dole’; ‘weald’ and ‘wood’†; ‘dew’ and ‘thaw’†;
‘wayward’ and ‘awkward’†; ‘dune’ and ‘down’; ‘hood’ and ‘hat’†;
‘ghost’ and ‘gust’†; ‘evil’ and ‘ill’†; ‘mouth’ and ‘moth’†;
‘hedge’ and ‘hay’.
[All these suggested doublets which I have obelized must be
dismissed as untenable.]
{25} We have in the same way double adoptions from the Greek, one
direct, at least as regards the forms; one modified by its passage
through some other language; thus, ‘adamant’ and ‘diamond’;
‘monastery’ and ‘minster’; ‘scandal’ and ‘slander’; ‘theriac’ and
‘treacle’; ‘asphodel’ and ‘daffodil’; ‘presbyter’ and ‘priest’.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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