Editor's Corner

Recently, I was listening to a Facebook reel about affixes—more about those another day. I skipped onto this bit of information about monosyllabic words made up from multiple words. The grammarian’s name is Jess Zafarris, and she talked about the history of the following words: yes, nay, lest, doff, and don.

Our sweet little word yes is from the Old English words gea, which meant “yea, so” and si “be it”(from the verb wesan, “to be”). I’m glad they made it a bit shorter by cramming the “yea, so be it” all together! I can just imagine them changing it because a dragon flies in, and as Sir Gerald asks Sir Richard if he needs help, he responds, “Yea, so…” and the dragon’s fire burns Sir Richard to a crisp.

Then there’s nay, meaning no. If you ever visit Greece, remember this, “nay” means yes! Be careful before you make any deals with someone who keeps answering your questions, “nay, nay, nay.” Nay, in English, is from the Old Norse nei, which is a compound of ne “not” + ei “ever.” I thought “never” might be from the same roots, but it is not.

Moving on, our next word is lest. I don’t know if I’ve ever used the word “lest,” except for maybe while performing in a Shakespearean play. But who knows, maybe you use it all the time. For this one, I’m going to share a screen from the video, because I don’t know how to say or type these letters:

I can just hear, “Judge not, lest ye be judged.” I guess the bible still plays with some Old English.

And finally, we have doff and don, two words having to do with not wearing or wearing particular articles of clothing. While doff and don are from Middle English and have faded out a bit, they saw a resurgence in 19th Century literature. Writers in the 1800s wanted to use language that evoked medieval times, so these two words had a comeback. The word doffen meant “do,” and so you get doff (“do” + “off”) and don (“do” + “on”). More specifically today, we talk about someone “doffing their hat” and then donning some kind of attire, for example, “If you go to the ball, make sure you don your coattails and other finery.”

I’m off to don my suit of armor, to help Sir Gerald with the next dragon!

Kara Church | Technical Editor, Advisory | Knowledge Enablement

Pronouns: she/her | Call via Teams | jackhenry.com

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