Notes and Queries, Number 42, August 17, 1850 | Page 5

our ancestors plural or singular. Resolute John Florio is sadly inconsistent in his use of it: in his _World of Wordes_, ed. 1598, we have:
"_Nova_, newe, fresh, a noueltie, a newe report.
"_Novella_, a tale, a nouell, a noueltie, a discourse, a newes a message."
In Queen Anna's _World of Wordes_, 1611:
"_Nova_, a noueltie, a new report.
"_Novella, a tiding, or newes_.
"_Novellante_, a teller of newes or tidings."
Here we have newes treated both as singular and _plural_! while we have tiding as the singular of _tidings_, a form which, from long disuse, would now appear strange to us. In the following extract from Florio's very amusing book of Dialogues, _Second Frutes_, 1591, he makes newes decidedly plural:--
"C. What doo they say abroade? what newes have you, Master Tiberio? T. Nothing that I know; can you tell whether the post be come? C. No, Sir; they saye in the Exchange that the great Turke makes great preparation to warre with the Persian. T. 'Tis but a deuice; these be newes cast abroade to feede the common sorte, I doo not beleeue them.... C. Yea, but they are written to verie worshipful merchants. T. By so much the lesse doo I beleeue them; doo not you know that euerie yeare such newes are spreade abroade? C. I am almost of your minde, for I seldome see these written reports prove true. T. Prognostications, _newes_, deuices, and letters from forraine countries (good Master C?sar), are but used as confections to feed the common people withal. C. A man must give no more credite to Exchange and Powles' newes than to fugitiues promises and plaiers fables."
In Thomas's _Principal Rules of the Italian Grammer, with a Dictionarie_, printed by Thomas Powell in 1562, but written in 1548, we have--
"_Novella_, a tale, a parable, or a _neweltee._
"_Novelluzza_, an ynkelyng.
"_Novellare_, to tell tales or newes."
In the title page of a rare little volume printed in 1616, we have the adjective new in apposition with the substantive _newes_, thus:
"Sir Thomas Overburie his Wife, with new Elegies upon his (now knowne) untimely death. Whereunto are annexed New Newes and Characters written by himselfe and other learned Gentlemen. Editio septima. London: printed by Edward Griffin for Lawrence Lisle, 1616, 12mo."
The head of one section is-- {181}
"Newes from any-whence, or, Old Truth under a supposal of Noueltie."
Chaucer uses for the newe and of the newe (sc. fashion) elliptically. Tiding or _Tidings_, from the A.-S. Tid-an, evidently preceded newes in the sense of inteligence, and may not newes therefore be an elliptic form of _new-tidinges_? Or, as our ancestors had _newelt��_ and _newelt��s_, can it have been a contraction of the latter? If we are to suppose with Mr. Hickson that news was "adopted bodily into the language," we must not go to the High-German, from which our early language has derived scarcely anything, but to the Neder-Duytsch, from the frequent and constant communication with the Low Countries in the sixteenth century. The following passages from Kilian's _Thesaurus_, printed by Plantin, at Antwerp, in 1573, are to the purpose, and may serve to show how the word was formed:--
"_Nieuwtijdinge_, oft _wat nieuws_, Nouvelles, Nuntius vel Nuntium."
"_Seght ons wat nieuws_, Dicte nous quelquechose de nouveau, Recita nobis aliquid novi."
"_Nieuwsgierich, nygierich_, Convoiteux de nouveautez, Cupidus novitatis."
I trust these materials may be acceptable to your able correspondents, and tend to the resolution of the question at issue.
S.W. SINGER.
Mickleham, August 6. 1850.
"_News_," Origin of the Word (Vol. i., pp. 270. 369. 487.; vol. ii., pp. 23. 81. 106.).--Your correspondents who have written upon this subject may now have seen the following note in Zimperley's _Encyclop?dia_, p. 472.:--
"The original orthography was _newes_, and in the singular. Johnson has, however, decided that the word newes is a substantive without a singular, unless it be considered as singular. The word _new_, according to Wachter, is of very ancient use, and is common to many nations. The Britons, and the Anglo-Saxons, had the word, though not the thing. It was first printed by Caxton in the modern sense, in the _Siege of Rhodes_, which was translated by John Kay, the Poet Laureate, and printed by Caxton about the year 1490. In the _Assembly of Foulis_, which was printed by William Copland in 1530, there is the following exclamation:--
"'Newes! newes! newes! have ye ony newes?'
"In the translation of the _Utopia_, by Raphe Robinson, citizien and goldsmythe, which was imprinted by Abraham Nele in 1551, we are told, 'As for monsters, because they be no _newes_, of them we were nothynge inquysitive.' Such is the rise, and such the progress of the word _news_, which, even in 1551, was still printed _newes_!"
W.J.
Havre.
* * * * *
FOLK LORE.
Charming for Warts (Vol. i., p. 19.; vol. ii. p. 150.).--In Lord Bacon's _Sylva Sylvarum, or a Natural History in Ten Centuries_ (No. 997.), the great philosopher gives a