#  Old English Inflection Survivors 

 



 The English language has seen a widespread reduction of inflections over the past 1000 years, but there are a number of survivals—some surprising and others not. For example, the common plural ending for nouns (*lasers*, *malaises*, *plates*) derive from the Old English masculine ending *-as*, as in *cyningas* "kings." Similarly, the possessive's *-'s* ending (as in *rocket's*) derives from the masculine and neuter genitive ending *-es*, as in *cyninges* and *scipes*. These are almost universal in today's English.

 But there are some some weird survivals of earlier inflections, like those listed below. The last few invite you to do some investigative work in the OED.

Sort    willy nilly 

  From an Old English construction using the subjunctive mood of the verb meaning "to wish, will":  
*wille he, ne wille he*  
"whether he wants to or not" (lit. "whether he may wish or may not wish") 

    she works nights 

  *nights* is not the plural originally but a holdover construction, where the genitive was used to indicate increments of time. 

    go get 'em 

  The *'em* is an oral survival of the Old English dative pronoun *him*, either singular or plural. Contrary to what you may have learned elsewhere, it is **not** a contraction of *them*. 

    ten foot pole 

  The noun *foot* only looks singular; historically it comes from the OE genitive plural *fota*, so the older phrase means literally "ten of feet." For similar reasons we might also say "a ten mile walk," where "mile" was once a genitive plural. However, we can still say "I jumped ten *feet* and ran ten *miles*," where the nouns have the more usual plurals for today's English. 

    oxen 

  This is the only genuine survival of the weak noun endings, once quite common in Old English, where the plural ending was *-an*, as in *naman* "names." Other, near survivors: *shoe* had *shoen* alongside the more familiar *-s* plural for centuries; cf. Chaucer's Chauntecleer: "Lyk asure were his legges and his *toon*" (again) alongside the more common *toes*. The plurals *children* and *brethren* are 12th century inventions, where the uncommon *-en* ending was added to words that already had an uncommon plural (*childru, brether*). We now use *brothers* regularly as the plural; the wonder is that *childs* never caught on as a plural. 

    seldom 

  The more common spelling of this word in OE was *seldan*, but it was influenced by the dative plural ending -um, which eventually came to be spelled *-om*. The *-um* ending (dative plural used adverbially) was once quite common. Chaucer, Spenser, and even later writers like Dryden and Fielding still used *whilom* from OE *hwilum* "at times." 

    the more, the merrier 

  The *the* in phrases like this one involving a comparative is not the same as in "the dog chased the cat." Instead it's a relic from an old Indo-European case, the Instrumental, which was falling out of use even during the Old English period, but it was retained in such constructions as the one here. It remains today as a fossilized form. The simplest way to describe the instrumental case is that it answers the question "by means of what?" Today's unusual *the* descends from the instrumental case of the OE definite article, spelled *þy*. So a comparative phrase like the one above literally means "by means of more, by that much merrier." 

    amongst 

  Look up this word in the [OED](http://www.oed.com.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/). Is the ending a survival of an older inflection? What about *amidst*, *whilst*? 

    if I were you 

  Is *were* historically the plural (e.g., "they were old") or another inflection? 

    lest, nonetheless 

  What do these two words have in common? And what do they have in common with one of the earlier examples?