hand to hand, and which is appropriated to no particular labourer, is called a he.'- Cobbett. Many of our old English writers make the gender of English nouns correspond to the gender of the equivalent nouns in Latin and Greek. 13. The differences of gender are indicated in three ways in English, viz. (1) By different words: bachelor (Low Lat. baccalarius, maid or spinster a cowherd, from bacca, a Low Lat. form of vacca, a cow) boar (O.E. bár) boy (cp. Ger. bube) sow (O.E. sugu) girl (dim. of Low Ger. gör, a little child) sister (O.E. sweóstor) doe (O.E. dá) cow (O.E. cú) heifer (O.E. heahfor, from heah, high, and fear, ox;= = full-grown ox or cow) hen (fem. of O.E. hana, cock) filly (dim. of foal) bitch (O.E. bicce. Cp. Ger. betze) bee (also used as of the common roe (O.E. rá) or hind (O.N. hind, a female deer) In modern English 'servant' is of the common gender. In Bible English it is masculine, the feminine being 'maid,' e.g. 'nor his servant, nor his maid' (Ex. xx. 17, P. Book version. Cp. Ps. cxxiii. 2). (2) By distinctive terminations, mostly derived either directly or indirectly from Latin, e.g. -trix, as testator, testatrix; executor, executrix. -en, the only instance of this termination in modern Eng- In Old English we find several distinctive gender terminations. Thus, all nouns ending in a were masculine; most nouns ending in e were feminine; e.g. wuduwa, a widower; wudune, a widow. The old feminine suffix -stere still survives in spinster, though a spinster no longer means, as it did once, a female spinner. In many other words this suffix survives, but is no longer distinctively feminine, e.g. punster, rhymester, huckster (originally a female hawker). It also survives in many proper names, as Bagster (contracted into Baxter) from baker; Brewster, from brewer; Webster,' from webber, i.e. a weaver; Kempster, a comber; Whitster, a bleacher. By degrees -ster ceased to be a distinctively feminine termination, and it became necessary to add the termination -ess. Hence such words as song-str-ess; seam-str-ess.2 (3) By using nouns or pronouns, having gender, as prefixes or affixes, as he-goat, she-goat; man-child, femalechild; he-bear, she-bear; man-servant, maid-servant; cocksparrow, hen-sparrow. Woman-wife-man. As a rule feminine nouns are formed from the masculine. The following are exceptions: gander from gans, the old form of goose; bridegroom from bride and guma=man; drake (=duck-king) from önd, a duck (Norse) and rake=king (comp. rick in bishop-rick); widower from widow. Exercises. 1. Place in parallel columns the masculine and feminine nouns in the following passages, and state what considerations probably determined the gender in each case a. b. C. But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page Rich with the spoils of time did neʼer unroll.—Gray. When Music, heavenly maid, was young, While yet in early Greece she sung.-Collins. And Hope enchanted smiled and waved her golden hair.-Id. d. Next Anger rushed, his eyes on fire.-Id. e. The meek-eyed Morn appears, mother of dews.-Thomson. f. Knowledge is proud that he has learnt so much, g. Wisdom is humble that he knows no more.-Cowper. Mont Blanc is the monarch of mountains; h. The river glideth at his own sweet will.-Wordsworth. i. k. Late, late yestreen I saw the new moone Wi' the auld moon in her arme.-'Sir Patrick Spens.' 7. Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God.-Coleridge. 16 Need gars (i.e. makes) naked men rin and websters spin.' Scotch Proverb. 2 In O.E. seamere means a tailor. 2. What are the feminine nouns corresponding to prince, steer, ram, viscount, ogre, sorcerer, colt, buck, boar, abbot, marquis, stepson, pea-cock, gaffer, landlord, Jew, gentle-man, foster-father, czar, earl, sloven, black-cock? 3. Give the gender of the following words: heifer, hart, witness, friend, tree, fairy, sylph, naiad, squirrel, pony, author, murderer, cousin, aunt, child, landlord, tenant, proprietress, nag, filly, tigress. NUMBER. 14. Number is that inflexion which nouns undergo to indicate whether they stand for one object or for more than one. That form which is used to denote one thing is said to be of the singular number, or, more briefly, singular, e.g. man, ox, tree, calf. That form which is used to denote more than one thing is said to be of the plural number, or plural, e g. men, oxen, trees, calves. 15. The plurals of English nouns are formed in the following ways— (1) By adding es or s to the singular, e.g. brush, brushes; book, books. In O.E. many nouns formed their plurals in as, which was subsequently modified into es. As s was a common plural termination in Norman French also, the termination es came to be gradually applied to large numbers of words which originally formed their plurals in other ways. We still retain the termination es in the case of nouns ending in the singular in a sibilant, i.e. a hissing sound (s, x, z, sh, soft ch), e.g. gases, kisses, boxes, topazes, fishes, churches. We also use it to form the plurals of some nouns ending in o, as potatoes, heroes. The following nouns in o form their plurals by adding s only, bravo, zero, solo, tyro, folio, quarto. Nouns ending in y, preceded by a vowel, form their plurals by the addition of s, as keys, boys, days. If they be preceded by a consonantal sound, s is added, and the y is changed into ie, e.g. ruby, rubies; lady, ladies. In M.E. the singular ended in ie, so that the plural in ies was then regular. Soliloquy has for its plural soliloquies, the u before the y forming part of the consonantal sound cw. Many nouns of native origin ending in f or fe form their plurals in ves, e.g. calf, calves; leaf, leaves; knife, knives. Some nouns in f, of Norman-French origin, as chief, brief, relief; and some of native origin, as puff, ruff, stuff, roof, cliff, dwarf, strife, and fife, form their plurals in 8. Fat the end of O.E. words had probably the sound of v, a sound which it still retains in of and in the Lancashire pronunciation of if. Comp. strife, strive; wife, wive; calf, calve; half, halve; shelf, shelve. Dwarf did not originally terminate in ƒ, but in h or g, its old forms being dreorh and dweorg, and the final letter being gutturalized. Comp. genoh, the old form of enough, pronounced enuff. In (2) By adding en to the singular, as ox, oxen. brethren and children we have double plurals, the old plurals being brothra or brothru and cildru. The termination en would appear to have been added when the old plural endings in ra and ru had become obsolete. In northern English the plurals brether and childer are still heard. Chicken (O.E. cycen from cock) was used in M.E. both as a singular and plural, but the original form of the plural was cycenu. Comp. Children and chicken Will always be picking.-Old Proverb. Bracken is probably a plural of brake (a fern so called from its broken appearance); kine, the plural of cow, is a double plural, the old plural being cý. (The Scotch still use kye as a plural.) Swine is probably connected with sow, but is not the plural of it. In O.E. it is used as a singular as well as a plural. In our early writers we find treen (trees), fone (foes), eyne and een (eyes), been (bees), pesen (peas), toon (toes), fleen (flees). In the Bible we find hosen (Dan. iii. 21). In provincial English may still be heard 'eye-breen' (eyebrows), housen, 'shoon and hone' (shoes and stockings). (3) By changing the vowel sound, without adding any new ending, e.g. man, men (O.E. man, menn); woman, women (O.E. wif-man, wif-menn); foot, feet (O.E. fót, fét); mouse, mice (O.E. mús, mýs). The addition of a syllable in O.E. was nearly always accompanied by a modification of the vowel sound in the root-word. In the foregoing words the change of vowel indicates that a syllable has been lost. The O. Saxon plural of foot was fóti. The plurals of nouns directly borrowed from other lan C |