In the Teachers' Prayer Book, published three years ago by Dr. Barry (now Bishop and Metropolitan of Sydney), the following passage occurs at p. 224: "The answer 'N. or M.' appears to be a corruption of the 'N. or N. N.' (nomen or nomina) of the Latin." Having noticed this, I wrote to Dr. B., an old friend and colleague as sub-warden at Trinity College, Glenalmond, to ask whether he had ever heard of my explanation, and if so, what he thought of it. He replied: "I had known of the Nicholas' and Mary' theory, though I did not know to whom it was due, but what puzzles me on this and on any hypothesis is the conversion of the M.' for the man, and the 'N.' for the woman, in the marriage service." To this I made answer as follows: "I had considered the objection from the marriage service, and satisfied myself that nothing more was to be inferred from the use of the letters there than the fact that those two letters, from their use in the Catechism, had come to be adopted generally for indefinite persons, and that this was the case first with 'N.,' and for both sexes. Are you aware that in the original copies of all the six revisions of the Prayer Book (see Pickering's Facsimiles) the true reading is, 'I, N., take thee, N.,' etc.? When the present reading of 'M.' for the man and 'N.' for the woman began to be introduced I cannot say, but it is plainly due to the fancy or the carelessness of the printer." One objection to your interpretation (which I first saw, I think, in an American Church journal many years ago) is, that double Christian names, supposed in the explanation of M. for N. N., though common now, were rarely, if ever, known in the olden time, when the inverted alphabetical order, N. or M.,' was first introduced into the ante Reformation catechisms. I am, dear sir, yours faithfully, C. WORDSWORTH, Bishop of St. Andrews. Bishopshall, St. Andrews, Oct. 2, 1874. P. S. In Dr. Laing's edition of Knox's Works, vol. I, p. 5, the following note occurs: "The letter N. was an abbreviation of Non nemo, i.e., aliquis, or somebody, a mode adopted from the Canon Law when the name of a person was not ascertained." Valeat quantum. If my own theory is not accepted, the next best explanation appears to be that N. or M. represents the two consonants of the word Name. C. W. |