The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #97728   Message #1927181
Posted By: GUEST,Captain Ginger
05-Jan-07 - 06:27 AM
Thread Name: BS: The crack down
Subject: RE: BS: The crack down
Mais nous ne sommes pas Francais, ma chere!
The OED has five meanings for mail as a noun:
1 - Payment, tax, tribute, rent (first found in the Anglo Saxon Chronicle of 1049)
2 - A bag, pack, or wallet; a travelling bag, a portmanteau. (first found c1275) From which comes the letters, packages, etc., delivered to or intended for one address or individual (first found, in the USA, in 1844)
3 - Any of the metal rings (or plates) of which mail-armour is composed, or armour composed of interlaced rings or chain-work or of overlapping plates fastened upon a groundwork. (first found c1330)
4 - A small coin, normally a half denomination (first found in 1290)
5 - The game of pall-mall; a place where the game was played. Hence: a public promenade bordered by trees, thus The Mall in London (first found in 1660)


But for 'maille' the OED lists only an obsolete, historical construct of '3' above, found once in Sir Firumbras, a mid-14th century alliterative poem, once in Chaucer's Clerk's Tale of the late 14th century, and thereafter reappearing only in Fairholt's Costume in England of 1846:
Forms: ME mailye, mayl, maylle, meile, ME-15 mayll, ME-16 maile, maill, mayle, ME-17 mayl, ME-16, (18 hist.) maille, ME- mail, 15 mal, 15-16 male; Sc. pre-17 maile, mailee, mailie, maille, maillie, maily, mailye, mailyhe, mailyie, mailzie, malee, male, malie, malye, malyie, meale, mealie, mele. Plural mails; also ME -ez, -is, -us, -ys, ME-18 -es.
Thus, unless one is speaking French, it's as silly to talk today of 'maille' as it would be to use archaisms like 'yclept' and 'fysshes'.
Sorry, kat, it's just me being a terrible pedant and dragging the thread drastically off-topic.