The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 29.0234  Wednesday, 27 June 2018

 

From:        Gabriel Egan <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>

Date:         June 27, 2018 at 3:25:42 AM EDT

Subject:    Re: Young Shakespeare's Young Hamlet

 

Dear SHAKSPERians

 

In a stimulating assessment of Terri Bourus’s book Young Shakespeare’s Young Hamlet, Steve Roth writes:

 

> . . . “sixten” does not appear even once in Early English

> Books Online; it just wasn’t a spelling for sixteen . . .

 

My EEBO-TCP searches give different results from Steve’s, as I’m finding:

 

“The file being sixten in number” (Aelianus The tactiks of AElian, STC 161, published 1616)

 

“a Ship with [sixten pieces of Ordnance” (Anon., A Briefe relation of the most remarkeable feats Wing B4626, published 1644)

 

“sixten hundred yeare after” (Roger Ascham, The Scholemaster, STC 832, published 1570)

 

“fiue hundreth and sixten” (Johannes Carion, The thre bokes of cronicles, STC 4626, published 1550)

 

“the Sixten Lotts in the Twelve Houses” (John Case, The Angelical guide, Wing C818 , published 1697)

 

“remayning Bishop sixten yeares” (Edward Coffin, A refutation of M. Ioseph Hall, STC 5475, published 1619)

 

“He raigned sixten yeares” (Henry Fitzsimon, A Catholike confutation of M. Iohn Riders clayme, STC 11025, published 1608)

 

“thirten, fourten , fiften , sixten , seuenten, eighten” (B. G. D. L. M. N., _The French alphabet”, STC 6545.5, published 1592)

 

“eight, ten, sixten ,twenty, or any other” (Pierre Gassendi, The vanity of judiciary astrology, Wing G299, published 1659)

 

“after fiften or sixten moneths expired” (Lodovico Guicciardini, The description of the Low countreys, STC 12463, published 1593)

 

Plus another three dozens or so examples. Anyone know why Steve finds no examples of “sixten” as a spelling of “sixteen” and I find so many?

 

Regards

Gabriel Egan

 

 

 

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