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RFV
Latest comment: 13 years ago20 comments7 people in discussion
In Dalrymple's Leslie's History of Scotland of 1596 we have it: ‘He wastes, burnes, and slayes al that he tocumis’, where "tocomes" means "comes to". It probably survived longer north of the border. There is very little research on it in the OED. It needs some proper examination of older texts, which Google Books is poor at. Ƿidsiþ12:53, 21 October 2010 (UTC)Reply
A second reference is Coleridge, A dictionary of the first, or oldest words in the English language, which has an entry for tocome (same def.). In addition, I found a few nominal uses of the word in The poetical works of Gavin Douglas, bishop of Dunkeld and Virgil's Aeneid (keyword: "now this tocome" or "the contyr or first tocome") meaning "an approach, an onset". Leasnam23:36, 21 October 2010 (UTC)Reply
Tocome (also tocum) are entried as both verb and noun (with derivative tocum(m)ing) in the Scots dictionary. How often is the occurrence of these words in Scottish English? Does anyone know? Even if it's the word cosmetically written as to come (= approach, come to), which I have seen done. Leasnam02:08, 22 October 2010 (UTC)Reply
The difference between Scots and Scottish English is more of a state of mind than a linguistic fact. We may not be able to cite this, although I very strongly suspect it was still in use in early modern English. Also, I must say I'm uncomfortable with using Finnegans Wake as a citation source, unless we're quoting from one of the (few) passages written in standard English as opposed to Joycean awesomeness. Ƿidsiþ08:58, 22 October 2010 (UTC)Reply
From Middle English to + come seems to imply it was formed in Modern English, or else it would be from Middle English tocome (not to + come). Mglovesfun (talk) 10:00, 22 October 2010 (UTC)Reply
Your phrase "a Modern English dictionary listing this as Modern English" is understandable, but IMHO not very well-supported. The headword slot indicates it's obsolete; the etymology slot says this is “ME.” (not “< ME.”, as is done with some words); and the sole citation is in what we would call Middle English. I'm open to the possibility that the dictionary is a Modern English dictionary that only lists words that made it into what we call Modern English, but I haven't seen compelling evidence of that. On the contrary, I see evidence that the dictionary does not consider this word to be what we would consider Modern English. —RuakhTALK16:56, 30 October 2010 (UTC)Reply
Hmm. It is ambiguous no doubt. The normal ME form for the verb would be tocomen rather than tocome, which this word is clearly indicated as a verb. Leasnam16:26, 1 November 2010 (UTC)Reply
The Century dictionary appears to be very inconsistent in its etymology format: Compare todash (" < ME. todashen...") with tobreak or toburst ("ME. tobreken..."; "ME. tobresten..."), which shows that sometimes they use " < ME." and sometimes they do not. Leasnam16:42, 1 November 2010 (UTC)Reply
Sorry, but I don't think any of those are valid: the Dalrymple cite is actually Scots, and the Caxton cites seem to be using tocoming as an adjective meaning "soon-to-be". (Plus, they're not independent of each other.) —RuakhTALK03:27, 8 December 2010 (UTC)Reply
I think I've actually found a suitable one. It's in a letter from James III to King Richard III (therefore it is post 1483), written in what appears to be Scottish English (there are definite Scottish characteristics, but it isn't today's Scots to be sure), where James uses tocome twice as tocum. The spelling of this word may have still been variant (Middle English also having tocumen beside tocomen; cf. betwixt vs. betuix within same passage). Otherwise, if indeed the term itself is a Scots word, it is used in English (?--EME?) context, analogous to how foreign words are adopted into English today--like French à propos or cliché which, when used in English become English words. Same here I think. Clearly, James knew that Richard would have understood what this word meant or he would have refrained from using it. Leasnam21:19, 20 December 2010 (UTC)Reply
Because Wiktionary is insistent on having citations of precise spellings, this would seem to me to fail RFV. Of course, it should probably stay (in some spelling) as a Middle English word, and the Scots word should stay. - -sche(discuss)18:58, 1 August 2011 (UTC)Reply
RFV-failed, because there were not three citations in the entry that met en.Wikt's strict standards on spelling, and division of Middle English and Modern English. - -sche(discuss)02:46, 8 August 2011 (UTC)Reply
