"fairy," OED 4a

[Laurence Horn]

At 12:27 PM -0500 1/17/07, Charles Doyle wrote:
>Tolkien quoted correctly the text as given in Gower's _Complete
>Works_, ed. G. C. Macaulay (Oxford: Clarendon, 1899-1902), 3:146. It
>reads "of"--not "a."
>
>--Charlie

so it's a nice example of an eggcorn of yore.  I can imagine the
reanalysis in action:

"You're of Fairie!"
"Hey, who you clepin' a fairy?!"

LH

>__________________________________________________
>
>---- Original message ----
>>Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 06:28:06 -0800
>>From: Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM>
>>Subject: "fairy," OED 4a
>>To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>>
>>OED offers this as its primary citation of _fairy_, a kind of
>>elf-like supernatural being :
>>
>>   1393 J. Gower _Confessio Amantis_ II. 371 And as he were a fairie.
>>
>>   J. R. R. Tolkien challenged this as an exemplification of the
>>sense so long ago as 1938. In his well-known essay "Tree and Leaf,"
>>Tolkien wrote,
>>
>>   "But this Gower did not say. He wrote _as he were of faerie_, 'as
>>if he were come from Faerie.'"  Tolkien then quotes the passage at
>>length in Middle English.
>>
>>   The online OED hasn't corrected this error, if error it be.
>>
>>   Question: Be this an error ?  Or be Tolkien in error ?
>>
>>   JL
>>
>>
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