Ever since I posted an email comment on the ayenbite of inwyt (remorse of conscience) to all the members of the Armidale Bridge Club, I've been deluged by erudite responses on:
- the origins, uses and significance of the term,
- the quality of education in the 1930s,
- the merits of James Joyce's Ulysses,
- the etymology of Middle English (ME),
- 14th century monastic living, and so on.
Two of my correspondents have been two Professors, one of Economics and the other of Chemistry, who remember with great clarity being taught about the Ayenbite at high school., and their average age is 88! They both play a good game of bridge, by the way. I would have thought that a bridge club was the last place to have such a discussion, so I was pleasantly surprised. One of the things that exicted me is the simplcity of word construction in ME. When you think about it, conscience is made up of two stems, (in) and (wit) or (in mind). Do any of my readers know the origin of ayenbite?
I'm posing that question without much hope because my readers here, unlike bridge players, are apparently immune to the joys of ME. I don't like criticising people because I might lose my remaining readership, so I'll presume that you've all been fiendishly busy! I hope that at least some of you will be moved to respond in ME!
AS
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