It was only through a question on the buy vaccines site (which, I regret to say, is considerable lamer than the freerice site) that I learned yesterday that a 'mickle' is, in fact, a large quantity, not an infinitesimal one. Because of the proverb I had always thought a mickle was like a drop in the bucket.
But it could also be argued that it's counterintuitive to have the two words mean the same thing. One is inclined to think of analogies like 'micro/macro', where the vowel change indicates a shift in meaning.
I had a few Scots swear white and blue at me that sionny's version of the proverb was correct. I claimed it wasn't, based essentially on what qroqqa has explained. Modern usage decoupled from history again.
'Mickle' and 'muckle' are dialectal variants of the same word; it is related to Latin magn-, Greek megal-, Sanskrit mah-. Its palatalized form is seen in Tolkien's Michel Delving in the Shire; and a variant of this gave rise to Middle English 'much'.
The confusion of the proverb—treating 'mickle' and 'muckle' as opposites instead of synonyms—is first recorded in the papers of one George Washington, who calls it 'a Scotch addage'.
Mickle is supposed to mean a lot? This is quite confounding.
It was only through a question on the buy vaccines site (which, I regret to say, is considerable lamer than the freerice site) that I learned yesterday that a 'mickle' is, in fact, a large quantity, not an infinitesimal one. Because of the proverb I had always thought a mickle was like a drop in the bucket.
But it could also be argued that it's counterintuitive to have the two words mean the same thing. One is inclined to think of analogies like 'micro/macro', where the vowel change indicates a shift in meaning.
I had a few Scots swear white and blue at me that sionny's version of the proverb was correct. I claimed it wasn't, based essentially on what qroqqa has explained. Modern usage decoupled from history again.
'Mickle' and 'muckle' are dialectal variants of the same word; it is related to Latin magn-, Greek megal-, Sanskrit mah-. Its palatalized form is seen in Tolkien's Michel Delving in the Shire; and a variant of this gave rise to Middle English 'much'.
The confusion of the proverb—treating 'mickle' and 'muckle' as opposites instead of synonyms—is first recorded in the papers of one George Washington, who calls it 'a Scotch addage'.
I'd always heard this proverb as "many a mickle makes a muckle".
Proverb: Many a little makes a mickle.
"And whiles they spake the door of the castle was opened and there nighed them a mickle noise as of many that sat there at meat. "
Joyce, Ulysses, 14