Anglo-Norman words

– Syre, ou pensez vous chivacher anoet? – Sire, a la prochene ville, si Dieu plest. – Sire, que l’apellez la prochyin ville? – Sire, l’apellent Oxone, verement. [...] – Ore, sire, ou serromes loggez quaunt nous voignomes la? – Syre, a le Molyn sur le hope en la rewe de Northyate est le meillour hostelle d’icelle ville come je suppose ( Man Lang ANTS 71.1-23) ( ‘Sir, where do you intend to ride tonight?’ – ‘Sir, to the next town, God permitting’ – ‘Sir, what do you call it, the next town?’ – ‘Sir, they call it Oxford, to be sure’ [...] ‘Well, Sir, where will we stay when we get there?’ ‘Sir, at [the inn with] the sign of the Mill in Northgate Street – it is, in my view, the best hostel of this town’ ) A genuine Anglo-Norman conversation between travellers sorting out their accommodation for the night? Or is this a polite exchange between two itinerant knights, excerpted from some epic romance? Perhaps, the setting of the scene for a fabliaux?  Then again, the s...

One of the other changes in the dictionary entries that users might notice, aside from the new usage tags and the addition of references to cognate words in other dictionaries, involves the content of the entries. The addition that is likely to interest a wide variety of users is that we are beginning to note the use of certain terms as surnames, where we have attestations of such a use. ( Bede roll of the Guild of the Blessed Virgin Mary (1349-50), Parker Library) The inclusion of surnames in dictionaries is not without difficulties. As we mentioned earlier this year in our discussion of the words  pastry/pie , often the language of surnames is problematic: names frequently occur in lists which may follow a bilingual or trilingual text. How then to determine the language of the name? In general, we try to err on the side of inclusion, as frequently surnames attest to Anglo-Norman (as well as Middle English and Latin) words far earlier than they appear in literary or a...