_News, Noise_ (Vol. ii., p. 82.).--I think it will be found that MR.
HICKSON is misinformed as to the fact of the employment of the Norman
French word _noise_, in the French sense, in England.

_Noyse_, _noixe_, _noas_, or _noase_, (for I have met with each form),
meant then quarrel, dispute, or, as a school-boy would say, a row. It
was derived from _noxia_. Several authorities agree in these points. In
the _Histoire de Foulques Fitz-warin_, Fouque asks "Quei fust _la noyse_
qe fust devaunt le roi en la sale?" which with regard to the context can
only be fairly translated by "What is going on in {138} the King's
hall?" For his respondent recounts to him the history of a quarrel,
concerning which messengers had just arrived with a challenge.

Whether the Norman word _noas_ acquired in time a wider range of
signification, and became the English _news_, I cannot say but stranger
changes have occurred. Under our Norman kings _bacons_ signified dried
wood, and _hosebaunde_ a husbandman, then a term of contempt.

B.W.

* * * * *

"NEWS," "NOISE," AND "PARLIAMENT."

1. _News._--I regret that MR. HICKSON perseveres in his extravagant
notion about _news_, and that the learning and ingenuity which your
correspondent P.C.S.S., I have no doubt justly, gives him credit for,
should be so unworthily employed.

Does MR. HICKSON really "very much doubt whether our word _news_
contains the idea of _new_ at all?" What then has it got to do with
_neues_?

Does MR. HICKSON'S mind, "in its ordinary mechanical action," really
think that the entry of "old newes, or stale newes" in an old dictionary
is any proof of _news_ having nothing to do with _new_? Does he then
separate _health_ from _heal_ and _hale_, because we speak of "bad
health" and "ill health"?

Will MR. HICKSON explain why _news_ may not be treated as an elliptical
expression for _new things_, as well as _greens_ for _green vegetables_,
and _odds_ for _odd chances_?

When MR. HICKSON says _dogmatice_, "For the adoption of words we have no
rule, and we act just as our convenience or necessity dictates; but in
their formation we _must strictly_ conform to the laws we find
established,"--does he deliberately mean to say that there are no
exceptions and anomalies in the formation of language, except
importations of foreign words? If he means this, I should like to hear
some reasons for this wonderful simplification of grammar.

Why may not