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The Rise, Progress, and Present Structure of the English Language
The Rise Progress and Present Structure of the English Language Author:Matthew Harrison Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: and Latin, and such French terms as have established themselves in our literature; the Anglo-Saxon terms forming the bulk of the language, in about the proportio... more »n of 2§ths, and still constituting, in a very great degree, the language of the common people. The progress of discovery is every day demanding new terms, in addition to our vocabulary. CHAPTER XVI. NAMES OF THINGS IN COMMON USE GENERALLY ANGLO- SAXON. The names of things in common use are almost universally Anglo-Saxon. The names of the days of the week are still pagan, and, with a slight difference in orthography, are the same as they existed amongst our forefathers before they were converted to Christianity. Thus we have Sun-day, the day sacred to the sun; Moon-day, or Monday; Tuisco-day, or Tuesday; Wodens- day, or Wednesday; Thors-day, or Thursday; Friga- day, or Friday; /Seater-day, or Saturday. The idols, to which these days were sacred, were all represented under appropriate emblems. The figures are all given by Verstegan, and described in the following beautiful language:— " Idoll of the Sun. "It was made, as here appeareth, like half a naked man, set upon a piller, his face, as it were, brightened with gleames of fire,and holding with both his arms stretched out a burning wheele upon his breast, the wheele being to signify the course which he runneth round about the world, and the fiery gleames and brightness, the light and heat wherewith he warmeth and comforteth the things that live and grow." " TJie Idoll of the Moone. " The form of this idoll seemeth very strange and ridiculous; for, being made for a woman, shee hath a short coat, like a man; but more strange it is to see her hood, with such two long cares. The holding of a moone before her breast may seem to have been to expresse what...« less