Stepped aside

[Wilson Gray]

I'm no expert on older English, but you do have your facts straight.
Briliiant analysis!

-Wilson Gray

On 5/26/05, Douglas G. Wilson <douglas at nb.net> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Douglas G. Wilson" <douglas at NB.NET>
> Subject:      Re: Stepped aside
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>
> >         Did ye ever hear of such a piece of Impudence!  The former part
> >of our Account came out on Monday, but before Tuesday-night he was
> >march'd off, or in other terms Step'd aside.  Only the ungrateful
> >Varlet, had first exercised a faculty of his (which ye shall presently
> >hear of) on the Money and other purloinables, of such Friends as had
> >civilly Entertained him.  His very Shirt (being Stolen, you must note)
> >had the Courage to take a Thief by the Throat.
> >         Boston News-Letter, #82, November 5, 1705, p. 2, cols. 1-2
> >
> >The passive voice (he was marched off or stepped aside) makes it seem
> >that this means "arrested", a sense not in the OED, but it's clear from
> >the article as a whole that the villain was still at large.  The OED
> >has only from English sources.
> >
> >OED (step, verb, 39b, to abscond) 1620 in Crt. & Times Jas. I (1848)
> >II. 210 Sir John Samms is stept aside and gone for
> >Bohemia,..being..ready to sink under the burthen of his debts. 1689
> >LUTTRELL Brief Rel. (1857) I. 595 The cook was sent to Newgate, but the
> >lord Griffin himself, hearing of it, is stept aside. a1715 BURNET Own
> >Time (1823) II. 153 They did not know whether he might not have stepped
> >aside for debt.
>
> It seems to me that this is not really passive voice but rather a
> participle, with "step [aside]" intransitive.
>
> "He goes" > "He has gone"/"He is gone".
> "He flees" > "He has fled"/"He is fled".
> "He steps aside" > "He has stepped aside"/"He is stepped aside".
>
> I guess this is an old-fashioned form in English, although parallel to
> usual forms in German and Dutch (I think).
>
> If I don't have things right, maybe one of the experts can correct me.
>
> -- Doug Wilson
>


--
-Wilson Gray