Re: Concocted early 16th Century English

On Wednesday, November 12, 2003, at 10:40  AM, Roger Mills wrote:

> Elliott Lash et al. scripserunt:
>>>>> VOCAB
>>>>> needs:  'of necessity'
>
> "Perforce" is a near-synonym, little used but not yet archaic.........
>
> "Needs" is certainly obsolete, a deliberate archaism, in 20th C.
> speech and
> writing.  In the 19th C. it may have been merely "literary"-- I don't
> recall
> it in Melville (50 years ago...), but do recall a Max Beerbohm cartoon,
> lampooning the aesthetician Roger Fry.  A wispy Mr. Fry is admiring
> IIRC a
> teacup, and the caption is "We needs must love the highest".
> Pedantic oldsters like me might well use it in writing, or for humor in
> speech.
We've talked about this one before; this is not an uncommon expression
around these parts, mostly because it is found in the Book of Mormon:
"For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things. If
not so, ... righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither
wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad.
Wherefore, all things must needs be a compound in one; wherefore, if it
should be one body it must needs remain as dead, having no life neither
death, nor corruption nor incorruption, happiness nor misery, neither
sense nor insensibility." (2 Nephi 2:11) So while people don't
regularly use the expression, their familiarity with this passage (and
others like it) makes it less unusual.

Dirk
--
Dirk Elzinga
Dirk_Elzinga@byu.edu

"I believe that phonology is superior to music. It is more variable and
its pecuniary possibilities are far greater." - Erik Satie