"certain" inThe First Noel

[Arnold M. Zwicky]

On Aug 2, 2007, at 8:13 AM, Laurence Urdang wrote:

> As we all recall, the line in The First Noel is,
>   Was to certain poor shepherds in fields as they lay . . .
>
>   It appears to be a special aberration of mine to parse certain as
> a verb, since it cannot, syntactically, be anything else.

OED2 for "certain", a., n., and adv.:

II. 7.    a. Used to define things which the mind definitely
individualizes or particularizes from the general mass, but which may
be left without further indentification in description; thus often
used to indicate that the speaker does not choose further to identify
or specify them: in sing. = a particular, in pl. = some particular,
some definite.

with cites from the 14th century on, including the 1887 police
notice: 'Whereas certain persons unknown did, on the night of...,
feloniously enter...'

"the first Nowell... was to certain poor shepherds" has always seemed
to me to have this use of "certain" in it; it never occurred to me
that there was a problem in interpretation.  (well, the use of "was
to" here strikes modern ears as odd; but the "certain" is ok.)

arnold

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