In the following few notes, merely specimens of a kind of investigation which should be useful for the history of our language, I have meant to give some illustrations of certain common English phrases, without, however, intending to assert that they come from the French. For some of them that origin is more probable than for others. In general I do not mean to include proverbs in such studies, though two or three such have been for special reasons mentioned below. Yet proverbs also may have a foreign origin, and such origin can perhaps be definitely established in some cases.

1. As good as; for instance in "he is as good as dead," which signifies equivalence, not approximation. It is really a comparison; in this example a comparison of the present condition of a man with that of a dead man, and the words say that the one state is as good as, i. e., is the full equivalent (under the circumstances) of the other. It does not mean he is almost dead.' A man may be sentenced to imprisonment for life, whether justly or unjustly, and a friend of his talking to other friends about some plan which would be greatly helped by the prisoner's active coöperation, might say "he is as good as dead." But these words would not imply that he is near death; on the contrary he may be in good health with the prospect of living for years. Our phrase is defined in the Oxford Dict., s. v. good by "Practically, to all intents and purposes," and the earliest citation for it is of the year 1436.

Now there is an Old French phrase which sometimes has, as I think, the same sense, and which is really a comparison of one state with another, though it does not contain a word like good; indeed

it serves often only to make a comparison, to indicate a similarity, like English as with a verb following. This phrase is aussi (or ainsi, ensi) com (or comme, or que), literally meaning 'so as.' From a simple comparison, perhaps sometimes through the idea of equivalence for practical purposes, there might indeed develop the meaning about,' or 'almost,' and this sense really existed, as in Scheler's edition of the Poésies de Froissart, II, p. 351, v. 4: ensi qu'à prangiere, 'about noon.' The editor's glossary explains ensi que by environ, referring to this passage and adding "et souvent."

In the glossary to Froissart's Chroniques Scheler's paragraph devoted to ensi has for ensi que the meaning comme, pour ainsi dire, à peu près, with two examples in both of which I suspect the essential meaning to be like our 'as good as.' In the first of the two the context is such as to make a translation by 'as good as not well possible. Froissart says that certain persons did not concern themselves about les prévos et les jurés et les hommes de la ville ensi que noient, ['like nothing,' 'any more than not at all '], and he goes on (there is only a comma after noient): car la aministration de totes coses estoit réservée à ceuls desus dis. The meaning is, then the attention they gave them was as good as (or almost?) nothing.' The negative ("they did not concern themselves ") makes the sentence awkward, but the clause that follows, which I have quoted, seems to intimate that the sense Froissart meant to convey was rather the attention they gave the prévos and the others was as good as nothing (was practically nothing)' than the attention . . . was almost nothing.' That is, the prévos and the others got no real consideration at all. It seems to me that this is likely to have been the writer's meaning.

In the second example the meaning may be 'almost' or 'as good as,' and I leave the question undecided. But after these two examples the paragraph in the glossary adds: "La formule est parfois renforcée par priès," with the example priès ensi que tout. These four words certainly mean 'almost all,' but priès as a strengthener or emphasizer of ensi que in the sense given in the glossary strikes me as strange. Priès, modern près, means in Old French 'near,' 'nearly,' 'almost,' and the fact that it occurs before our phrase probably indicates that ensi que thus accompanied cannot mean à peu près, about' or 'almost.' That would be like adding to modern presque the words à peu près, and almost about,' almost