Why may not goods be a plural noun formed from the adjective good, exactly as the Romans formed bona and the Germans have formed Güter?
Why does MR. HICKSON compel us to treat goods as singular, and make us go back to the Gothic? Does he say that die Güter, the German for goods or possessions, is singular? Why too must riches be singular, and be the French word richesse imported into our language? Why may we not have a plural noun riches, as the Romans had divitæ, and the Germans have die Reichthumer? and what if riches be irregularly formed from the adjective rich? Are there, MR. HICKSON, no irregularities in the formation of a language? Is this really so?
If "from convenience or necessity" words are and may be imported from foreign languages bodily into our own, why might not our forefathers, feeling the convenience or necessity of having words corresponding to bona, nova, divitiæ, have formed goods, news, riches, from good, new, rich?
News must be singular, says MR. HICKSON; but means "is beyond all dispute plural," for Shakspeare talks of "a mean:" with news, however, there is the slight difficulty of the absence of the noun new to start from. Why is the absence of the singular an insuperable difficulty in the way of the formation of a plural noun from an adjective, any more than of plural nouns otherwise formed, which have no singulars, as clothes, measles, alms, &c. What says MR. HICKSON of these words? Are they all singular nouns and imported from other languages? for he admits no other irregularity in the formation of a language.
2. Noise.—I agree with MR. HICKSON that the old derivations of noise are unsatisfactory, but I continue to think his monstrous. I fear we cannot decide in your columns which of us has the right German pronunciation of neues; and I am sorry to find that you, Mr. Editor, are with MR. HICKSON in giving to the German eu the exact sound of oi in noise. I remain unconvinced, and shall continue to pronounce the eu with less fullness than oi in noise. However, this is a small matter, and I am quite content with MR. HICKSON to waive it. The derivation appears to me nonsensical, and I cannot but think would appear so to any one who was not bitten by a fancy.
I do not profess, as I said before, to give the root of noise. But it is probably the same as of noisome, annoy, the French nuire, Latin nocere, which brings us again to noxa; and the French word noise has probably the same root, though its specific meaning is different from that of our word noise. Without venturing to assert it dogmatically, I should expect the now usual meaning of noise to be its primary meaning, viz. "a loud sound" or "disturbance;" and this accords with my notion of its alliances. The French word bruit has both the meanings of our word noise; and to bruit and to noise are with us interchangeable terms. The French bruit also has the sense of a disturbance more definitely than our word noise. "Il y a du bruit" means "There is a row." I mention bruit and its meanings merely as a parallel case to noise, if it be, as I think, that "a loud sound" is its primary, and "a rumour" its secondary meaning.
I have no doubt there are many instances, and old ones, among our poets, and prose writers too, of the use of the noun annoy. I only remember at present Mr. Wordsworth's—
"There, at Blencatharn's rugged feet,
Sir Lancelot gave a safe retreat
To noble Clifford; from annoy