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102-472: The word "buckle" enters Middle English via Old French and the Latin buccula or "cheek-strap," as for a helmet. Some of the earliest buckles known are those used by Roman soldiers to strap their body armor together and prominently on the balteus and cingulum . Made out of bronze and expensive, these buckles were purely functional for their strength and durability - vital to the individual soldier. The baldric

204-408: A better quality nitrocellulose. The product then must be rinsed to wash away any free acids that did not react with the fibers, dried, and kneaded. During this time, a solution of 50% camphor in alcohol is added, which then changes the macromolecule structure of nitrocellulose into a homogeneous gel of nitrocellulose and camphor. The chemical structure is not well understood, but it is determined that it

306-417: A buckle trim or slide. It may have been designed this particular way or it may have lost its prongs through continuous use. This type was frequently used in home dress-making (belt end being secured with the simple hook-and-eye) and was purely used for decoration for items such as shoe fronts to conceal unattractive elastic fitting. The belt buckle is the conventional buckle with a frame, bar and prong gives

408-404: A buckle, if it consists of two separate pieces with one for a hook and the other for a loop, it should be called a clasp. Clasps became increasingly popular at the turn of the 19th century with one clear disadvantage: since each belt end was fixed to each clasp piece, the size of the belt was typically not adjustable unless an elastic panel was inserted. A buckle without a chape or prongs is called

510-491: A bulk material for forming objects was made in 1855 in Birmingham , England, by Alexander Parkes , who was never able to see his invention reach full fruition, after his firm went bankrupt due to scale-up costs. Parkes patented his discovery as Parkesine in 1862 after realising a solid residue remained after evaporation of the solvent from photographic collodion. Parkes patented it as a clothing waterproofer for woven fabrics in

612-431: A cheap alternative since it was easily worked by hand or simple machinery by impressing the designs onto the wood. But there were problems using wood. Any attempt to brighten the wood’s dull appearance with painted designs or plasterwork embellishments immediately came off if the buckle were to be washed. Buckles were not entirely made out of leather because a frame and bar of leather would not be substantial enough to carry

714-732: A demonstrative ( þis , þat ), after a possessive pronoun (e.g., hir , our ), or with a name or in a form of address. This derives from the Old English "weak" declension of adjectives. This inflexion continued to be used in writing even after final -e had ceased to be pronounced. In earlier texts, multisyllable adjectives also receive a final -e in these situations, but this occurs less regularly in later Middle English texts. Otherwise, adjectives have no ending and adjectives already ending in -e etymologically receive no ending as well. Earlier texts sometimes inflect adjectives for case as well. Layamon's Brut inflects adjectives for

816-412: A film product. ( Ansco , which purchased Goodwin's patent after he died, was eventually successful in a patent-infringement suit against Kodak). This ability to produce photographic images on a flexible material (as opposed to a glass or metal plate) was a crucial step toward making possible the advent of motion pictures. Most movie and photography films prior to the widespread move to acetate films in

918-493: A largely Anglo-Saxon vocabulary (with many Norse borrowings in the northern parts of the country) but a greatly simplified inflectional system. The grammatical relations that were expressed in Old English by the dative and instrumental cases were replaced in Early Middle English with prepositional constructions. The Old English genitive - es survives in the -'s of the modern English possessive , but most of

1020-486: A lengthened – and later also modified – pronunciation of a preceding vowel. For example, in name , originally pronounced as two syllables, the /a/ in the first syllable (originally an open syllable) lengthened, the final weak vowel was later dropped, and the remaining long vowel was modified in the Great Vowel Shift (for these sound changes, see Phonology , above). The final ⟨e⟩ , now silent, thus became

1122-488: A lesser extent), and, therefore, it cannot be attributed simply to the influence of French-speaking sections of the population: English did, after all, remain the vernacular . It is also argued that Norse immigrants to England had a great impact on the loss of inflectional endings in Middle English. One argument is that, although Norse and English speakers were somewhat comprehensible to each other due to similar morphology,

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1224-451: A manner similar to veneer . This celluloid was printed to look like expensive woods, or materials like marble or granite. The Seth Thomas clock company bought rights for its use as a durable coating from Celluloid Manufacturing Company in September, 1880 and marketed it as, "Adamantine". Celluloid enabled clockmakers to make the typical late Victorian style of black mantel clock in such

1326-601: A method of covering billiard balls with the addition of collodion. With assistance from Peter Kinnear and other investors, Hyatt formed the Albany Billiard Ball Company (1868–1986) in Albany, New York , to manufacture the product. In 1870, John and his brother Isaiah patented a process of making a "horn-like material" with the inclusion of cellulose nitrate and camphor. Alexander Parkes and Daniel Spill (see below) listed camphor during their earlier experiments, calling

1428-505: A military purpose. Aside from the practical use found in Roman buckles, Scythian and Sarmatian buckles incorporated animal motifs that were characteristic to their respective decorative arts. These motifs often represented animals engaged in mortal combat. These motifs were imported by many Germanic peoples and the belt buckles were evident in the graves of the Franks and Burgundies. And throughout

1530-455: A mold and allowed to harden for as long as three months. A typical formulation of celluloid might contain 70 to 80 parts nitrocellulose , nitrated to 11% nitrogen , 30 parts camphor , 0 to 14 parts dye, 1 to 5 parts ethyl alcohol , plus stabilizers and other agents to increase stability and reduce flammability. Celluloid is made from a mixture of chemicals such as nitrocellulose, camphor, alcohol, as well as colorants and fillers depending on

1632-572: A process called apophony ), as in Modern English. With the discontinuation of the Late West Saxon standard used for the writing of Old English in the period prior to the Norman Conquest, Middle English came to be written in a wide variety of scribal forms, reflecting different regional dialects and orthographic conventions. Later in the Middle English period, however, and particularly with

1734-430: A prong or the full weight of the belt and anything the belt and buckle intend to support. However, leather (or dyed suede, more common to match a lady’s garment color) was used more as a “cover-up” for cheap materials to create a product worthy of buying. Buckles were not made out of glass; rather the glass was used as a decorative feature that covered the entire frame of a metal buckle. One method of creating glass buckles

1836-411: A retaining block that terminates at the front end. The female buckle member has a front open side and two side holes which hold and secure the two spring arms of the male buckle member. This sort of buckle may be found connecting many strapped items such as pet harnesses , safety harnesses , personal flotation jackets , fanny packs and other bags, belts , gun slings , and boots . It is also known as

1938-518: A variant of the Northumbrian dialect (prevalent in northern England and spoken in southeast Scotland ). During the Middle English period, many Old English grammatical features either became simplified or disappeared altogether. Noun, adjective, and verb inflections were simplified by the reduction (and eventual elimination) of most grammatical case distinctions. Middle English also saw considerable adoption of Anglo-Norman vocabulary, especially in

2040-539: A way that the wooden case appeared to be black marble, and the various pillars and other decorative elements of the case looked like semi-precious stone. Celluloid was also a popular material in the construction of slide rules . It was primarily used to coat wooden slide rule faces, such as in early A.W. Faber rules, as well as cursor end pieces, such as in Keuffel and Esser rules. Celluloid remains in use for musical instruments, especially accordions and guitars. Celluloid

2142-399: A wider commercial scale. After World War II, the chemical industry saw a great expansion where Celluloid and other plastics such as Casein and Bakelite formed the basis of the buckle-making industry. Many thermoplastic polymers such as nylon are now used in snap-fit buckles for a wide variety of applications. Although any device that serves to secure two loose ends is casually called

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2244-696: Is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman Conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English period. Scholarly opinion varies, but the University of Valencia states the period when Middle English was spoken as being from 1150 to 1500. This stage of the development of the English language roughly coincided with

2346-476: Is as celluloid ages, the camphor molecules are ‘squeezed’ out of the mass due to the unsustainable pressure used in the production. That pressure causes the nitrocellulose molecules to bind back to each other or crystallize, and this results in the camphor molecules being shoved out of the material. Once exposed to the environment, camphor can undergo sublimation at room temperature, and the plastic reverts to brittle nitrocellulose. Also, with exposure to excess heat,

2448-421: Is attached to the strap for holding the tip of the belt/strap in place that is sometimes also called a 'keeper'. Chapes or "caps" of various designs could be fitted to the bar to enable one strap end to be secured before fastening the other, adjustable end. This made buckles easily removable and interchangeable, leading to a significant advantage since buckles were expensive. Unfortunately, the teeth or spikes on

2550-433: Is now rare and used only in oxen and as part of a double plural , in children and brethren . Some dialects still have forms such as eyen (for eyes ), shoon (for shoes ), hosen (for hose(s) ), kine (for cows ), and been (for bees ). Grammatical gender survived to a limited extent in early Middle English before being replaced by natural gender in the course of the Middle English period. Grammatical gender

2652-574: Is one molecule of camphor for each unit of glucose. After the mixing, the mass is pressed into blocks at a high pressure and then is fabricated for its specific use. Nitrating cellulose is an extremely flammable process in which even factory explosions are not uncommon. Many western celluloid factories closed after hazardous explosions, and only two factories in China remain in business. Many sources of deterioration in celluloid exist, such as thermal, chemical, photochemical, and physical. The most inherent flaw

2754-401: Is very robust and easy to mold in difficult forms, and has great acoustic performance as cover for wooden frames since it does not block wood's natural pores. Instruments covered with celluloid can easily be recognized by the material's typical nacre -like flaming pattern. Thick celluloid panels are cooked in a bain-marie which turns them into a leather-like substance. Panels are then turned on

2856-513: The Augustinian canon Orrm wrote the Ormulum , one of the oldest surviving texts in Middle English. The influence of Old Norse aided the development of English from a synthetic language with relatively free word order to a more analytic language with a stricter word order. Both Old English and Old Norse were synthetic languages with complicated inflections. Communication between Vikings in

2958-592: The Danelaw and their Anglo-Saxon neighbours resulted in the erosion of inflection in both languages. Old Norse may have had a more profound impact on Middle and Modern English development than any other language. The effect of Old Norse on Old English was substantive, pervasive, and of a democratic character. Like close cousins, Old Norse and Old English resembled each other, and with some words and grammatical structures in common, speakers of each language roughly understood each other, but according to historian Simeon Potler

3060-600: The Early Modern English and Modern English eras. Middle English generally did not have silent letters . For example, knight was pronounced [ˈkniçt] (with both the ⟨k⟩ and the ⟨gh⟩ pronounced, the latter sounding as the ⟨ch⟩ in German Knecht ). The major exception was the silent ⟨e⟩ – originally pronounced but lost in normal speech by Chaucer's time. This letter, however, came to indicate

3162-472: The High and Late Middle Ages . Middle English saw significant changes to its vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, and orthography . Writing conventions during the Middle English period varied widely. Examples of writing from this period that have survived show extensive regional variation. The more standardized Old English literary variety broke down and writing in English became fragmented and localized and was, for

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3264-566: The Norman Conquest , had normally been written in French. Like Chaucer's work, this new standard was based on the East Midlands-influenced speech of London. Clerks using this standard were usually familiar with French and Latin , influencing the forms they chose. The Chancery Standard, which was adopted slowly, was used in England by bureaucrats for most official purposes, excluding those of

3366-603: The Plastics Historical Society of London. There is a plaque on the wall of the site of the Parkesine Works in Hackney , London. In the 1860s, an American, John Wesley Hyatt , acquired Parkes's patent and began experimenting with cellulose nitrate with the intention of manufacturing billiard balls , which until that time were made from ivory . He used cloth, ivory dust, and shellac , and on April 6, 1869, patented

3468-691: The "parachute buckle". They are often used in conjunction with tri-glide slides . In the United States , during the American Civil War of the 1860s, some members of the military wore brass belt buckles. These buckles had a pin that was inserted directly into the belt, thus not having any moving parts. In 1920, this type of buckle was awarded to winners of professional rodeo contests at the San Francisco Cow Palace in California . Throughout

3570-621: The 12th century, incorporating a unique phonetic spelling system; and the Ancrene Wisse and the Katherine Group , religious texts written for anchoresses , apparently in the West Midlands in the early 13th century. The language found in the last two works is sometimes called the AB language . Additional literary sources of the 12th and 13th centuries include Layamon's Brut and The Owl and

3672-422: The 13th century and was replaced by thorn. Thorn mostly fell out of use during the 14th century and was replaced by ⟨th⟩ . Anachronistic usage of the scribal abbreviation [REDACTED] ( þe , "the") has led to the modern mispronunciation of thorn as ⟨ y ⟩ in this context; see ye olde . Wynn, which represented the phoneme /w/ , was replaced by ⟨ w ⟩ during

3774-409: The 13th century. Due to its similarity to the letter ⟨p⟩ , it is mostly represented by ⟨w⟩ in modern editions of Old and Middle English texts even when the manuscript has wynn. Under Norman influence, the continental Carolingian minuscule replaced the insular script that had been used for Old English. However, because of the significant difference in appearance between

3876-467: The 14th century, even after the loss of the majority of the continental possessions of the English monarchy . In the aftermath of the Black Death of the 14th century, there was significant migration into London , of people to the counties of the southeast of England and from the east and central Midlands of England, and a new prestige London dialect began to develop as a result of this clash of

3978-597: The 1540s after the printing and wide distribution of the English Bible and Prayer Book , which made the new standard of English publicly recognizable and lasted until about 1650. The main changes between the Old English sound system and that of Middle English include: The combination of the last three processes listed above led to the spelling conventions associated with silent ⟨e⟩ and doubled consonants (see under Orthography , below). Middle English retains only two distinct noun-ending patterns from

4080-471: The 17th century. The frame is the most visible part of the buckle and holds the other parts of the buckle together. Buckle frames come in various shapes, sizes, and decorations. The shape of the frame could be a plain square or rectangle, but may be oval or made into a circular shape. A reverse curve of the frame indicated that the whole buckle was intended to be used for securing a thick material, such as leather. This reverse curve shape made it easier to thread

4182-632: The 1920s and later, they were used as trophies awarded to champions of bull riding , barrel racing , steer roping , bronc riding and other rodeo skill competitions. By the 1950s, Hollywood Westerns featured cowboys wearing large, shiny belt buckles and this influenced country/western fashion . During the 1990s, country/western dance competitions mirrored the practice by awarding championship buckles to their dance champions. Modern-day western belt buckles are commonly made of silver , brass , pewter , zinc alloy , or stainless steel . Middle English Middle English (abbreviated to ME )

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4284-649: The 1950s were made of celluloid. Its high flammability was legendary since it self-ignites when exposed to temperatures over 150 °C in front of a hot movie-projector beam. While celluloid film was standard for 35mm theatrical productions until around 1950, motion-picture film for amateur use, such as 16mm and 8mm film, were on acetate "safety base", at least in the US. Celluloid was useful for producing cheaper jewellery, jewellery boxes, hair accessories and many items that would earlier have been manufactured from ivory, horn or other expensive animal products. In these applications it

4386-568: The Church and legalities, which used Latin and Law French respectively. The Chancery Standard's influence on later forms of written English is disputed, but it did undoubtedly provide the core around which Early Modern English formed. Early Modern English emerged with the help of William Caxton 's printing press, developed during the 1470s. The press stabilized English through a push towards standardization, led by Chancery Standard enthusiast and writer Richard Pynson . Early Modern English began in

4488-607: The Hyatts' claims and pursued the brothers in a number of court cases between 1877 and 1884. Initially the judge found in Spill's favor, but ultimately it was judged that neither party held an exclusive claim and the true inventor of celluloid/xylonite was Alexander Parkes, due to his mention of camphor in his earlier experiments and patents. The judge ruled all manufacturing of celluloid could continue both in Spill's British Xylonite Company and Hyatt's' Celluloid Manufacturing Company. The main use

4590-487: The Middle Ages, the buckle was used mostly for ornamentation until the second half of the 14th century where the knightly belt and buckle took on its most splendid form. Buckles remained exclusively for the wealthy until the 15th century where improved manufacturing techniques made it possible to easily produce a cheaper molded item available to the general population. The buckle essentially consists of four main components:

4692-545: The Nightingale . Some scholars have defined "Early Middle English" as encompassing English texts up to 1350. This longer time frame would extend the corpus to include many Middle English Romances (especially those of the Auchinleck manuscript c.  1330 ). Gradually, the wealthy and the government Anglicised again, although Norman (and subsequently French ) remained the dominant language of literature and law until

4794-571: The Norse speakers' inability to reproduce the ending sounds of English words influenced Middle English's loss of inflectional endings. Important texts for the reconstruction of the evolution of Middle English out of Old English are the Peterborough Chronicle , which continued to be compiled up to 1154; the Ormulum , a biblical commentary probably composed in Lincolnshire in the second half of

4896-544: The Old English -eþ , Midland dialects showing -en from about 1200, and Northern forms using -es in the third person singular as well as the plural. The past tense of weak verbs was formed by adding an -ed(e) , -d(e) , or -t(e) ending. The past-tense forms, without their personal endings, also served as past participles with past-participle prefixes derived from Old English: i- , y- , and sometimes bi- . Strong verbs , by contrast, formed their past tense by changing their stem vowel (e.g., binden became bound ,

4998-680: The Old Norse influence was strongest in the dialects under Danish control that composed the southern part of the Northern England (corresponding to the Scandinavian Kingdom of Jórvík ), the East Midlands and the East of England , words in the spoken language emerged in the 10th and 11th centuries near the transition from Old to Middle English. Influence on the written languages only appeared from

5100-710: The abundance of Modern English words for the mechanisms of government that are derived from Anglo-Norman, such as court , judge , jury , appeal , and parliament . There are also many Norman-derived terms relating to the chivalric cultures that arose in the 12th century, an era of feudalism , seigneurialism , and crusading . Words were often taken from Latin, usually through French transmission. This gave rise to various synonyms, including kingly (inherited from Old English), royal (from French, inherited from Vulgar Latin), and regal (from French, which borrowed it from Classical Latin). Later French appropriations were derived from standard, rather than Norman, French. Examples of

5202-419: The advent of safer methods, celluloid's common present-day uses are for manufacturing table tennis balls , musical instruments, combs, office equipment, fountain pen bodies, and guitar picks . Nitrocellulose-based plastics slightly predate celluloid. Collodion , invented in 1848 and used as a wound dressing and an emulsion for photographic plates, is dried to a celluloid like film. The first celluloid as

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5304-494: The areas of politics, law, the arts, and religion, as well as poetic and emotive diction. Conventional English vocabulary remained primarily Germanic in its sources, with Old Norse influences becoming more apparent. Significant changes in pronunciation took place, particularly involving long vowels and diphthongs, which in the later Middle English period began to undergo the Great Vowel Shift . Little survives of early Middle English literature , due in part to Norman domination and

5406-567: The beginning of the 13th century, this delay in Scandinavian lexical influence in English has been attributed to the lack of written evidence from the areas of Danish control, as the majority of written sources from Old English were produced in the West Saxon dialect spoken in Wessex , the heart of Anglo-Saxon political power at the time. The Norman Conquest of England in 1066 saw the replacement of

5508-414: The clergy for written communication and record-keeping. A significant number of Norman words were borrowed into English and used alongside native Germanic words with similar meanings. Examples of Norman/Germanic pairs in Modern English include pig and pork , calf and veal , wood and forest , and freedom and liberty . The role of Anglo-Norman as the language of government and law can be seen in

5610-487: The common use term used for this type of plastic. In 1878 Hyatt was able to patent a process for injection moulding thermoplastics, although it took another fifty years before it could be realized commercially, and in later years celluloid was used as the base for photographic film . The development of celluloid was partially spurred by the desire to reduce reliance on ivory, with its shortages caused by overhunting. An 1883 invention allowed celluloid manufacturers to imitate

5712-507: The comparative and superlative (e.g., greet , great; gretter , greater). Adjectives ending in -ly or -lich formed comparatives either with -lier , -liest or -loker , -lokest . A few adjectives also displayed Germanic umlaut in their comparatives and superlatives, such as long , lenger . Other irregular forms were mostly the same as in modern English. Middle English personal pronouns were mostly developed from those of Old English , with

5814-413: The desired product. The first step is transforming raw cellulose into nitrocellulose by conducting a nitration reaction. This is achieved by exposing the cellulose fibers to an aqueous solution of nitric acid; the hydroxyl groups (-OH) will then be replaced with nitrate groups (-ONO 2 ) on the cellulose chain. The reaction can produce mixed products, depending on the degree of substitution of nitrogen, or

5916-478: The development of the Chancery Standard in the 15th century, orthography became relatively standardised in a form based on the East Midlands-influenced speech of London. Spelling at the time was mostly quite regular . (There was a fairly consistent correspondence between letters and sounds.) The irregularity of present-day English orthography is largely due to pronunciation changes that have taken place over

6018-488: The different dialects, that was based chiefly on the speech of the East Midlands but also influenced by that of other regions. The writing of this period, however, continues to reflect a variety of regional forms of English. The Ayenbite of Inwyt , a translation of a French confessional prose work, completed in 1340, is written in a Kentish dialect . The best known writer of Middle English, Geoffrey Chaucer , wrote in

6120-497: The distinctive graining of ivory, and by the end of 19th century celluloid was marketed as a lighter (and three times cheaper ) ivory substitute under the names "Ivarine", "Ivaleur", "French Ivory", "Parisian Ivory", "Grained Ivory", and "Ivory Pyralin". English inventor Daniel Spill had worked with Parkes and formed the Xylonite Co. to take over Parkes' patents, describing the new plastic products as Xylonite . He took exception to

6222-531: The double consonant represented a sound that was (or had previously been) geminated (i.e., had genuinely been "doubled" and would thus have regularly blocked the lengthening of the preceding vowel). In other cases, by analogy, the consonant was written double merely to indicate the lack of lengthening. The basic Old English Latin alphabet consisted of 20 standard letters plus four additional letters: ash ⟨æ⟩ , eth ⟨ð⟩ , thorn ⟨þ⟩ , and wynn ⟨ƿ⟩ . There

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6324-468: The end of the Middle English period only the strong -'s ending (variously spelled) was in use. Some formerly feminine nouns, as well as some weak nouns, continued to make their genitive forms with -e or no ending (e.g., fole hoves , horses' hooves), and nouns of relationship ending in -er frequently have no genitive ending (e.g., fader bone , "father's bane"). The strong -(e)s plural form has survived into Modern English. The weak -(e)n form

6426-418: The exception of the third person plural, a borrowing from Old Norse (the original Old English form clashed with the third person singular and was eventually dropped). Also, the nominative form of the feminine third person singular was replaced by a form of the demonstrative that developed into sche (modern she ), but the alternative heyr remained in some areas for a long time. As with nouns, there

6528-421: The frame that strap goes through prior to putting the tongue/prong through the hole is often referred to as the 'end bar'. The 'center bar' holds the tongue and the part (if present) that holds the tip of the strap in place is called the 'keeper' or 'keeper bar' these terms are used when additional information is needed to describe a buckle for measurements or design. Note that if a separate piece of leather or metal

6630-405: The frame, chape, bar, and prong. The oldest Roman buckles are of a simple D-shaped frame, in which the prong or tongue extends from one side to the other. In the 14th century, buckles with a double-loop or "8"-shaped frame emerged. The prongs of these buckles attach to the center post. The appearance of multi-part buckles with chapes and removable pins, which were commonly found on shoes, occurred in

6732-412: The indicator of the longer and changed pronunciation of ⟨a⟩ . In fact, vowels could have this lengthened and modified pronunciation in various positions, particularly before a single consonant letter and another vowel or before certain pairs of consonants. A related convention involved the doubling of consonant letters to show that the preceding vowel was not to be lengthened. In some cases,

6834-420: The intended thick material end over the bar. But the shape of the frame is not limited to simply squares and ovals, the decoration of the frame itself defines the shape it will turn out to be. Since the frame is the largest part of the buckle, any and all decorations are placed on it. Decorations range from wedged shapes, picture references to people and animals, and insignia of a desired organization. The part of

6936-556: The main difference lied on their inflectional endings, which led to much confusion within the mixed population that existed in the Danelaw, this endings tended gradually to become obscured and finally lost, "simplifying English grammar" in the process. In time, the inflections melted away and the analytic pattern emerged. Viking influence on Old English is most apparent in pronouns , modals, comparatives, pronominal adverbs (like hence and together ), conjunctions, and prepositions show

7038-417: The masculine accusative, genitive, and dative, the feminine dative, and the plural genitive. The Owl and the Nightingale adds a final -e to all adjectives not in the nominative, here only inflecting adjectives in the weak declension (as described above). Comparatives and superlatives were usually formed by adding -er and -est . Adjectives with long vowels sometimes shortened these vowels in

7140-427: The more complex system of inflection in Old English : Nouns of the weak declension are primarily inherited from Old English n -stem nouns but also from ō -stem, wō -stem, and u -stem nouns, which did not inflect in the same way as n -stem nouns in Old English, but joined the weak declension in Middle English. Nouns of the strong declension are inherited from the other Old English noun stem classes. Some nouns of

7242-484: The most marked Danish influence. The best evidence of Scandinavian influence appears in extensive word borrowings; however, texts from the period in Scandinavia and Northern England do not provide certain evidence of an influence on syntax. However, at least one scholarly study of this influence shows that Old English may have been replaced entirely by Norse, by virtue of the change from Old English to Norse syntax. While

7344-547: The most part, being improvised. By the end of the period (about 1470), and aided by the invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg in 1439, a standard based on the London dialects (Chancery Standard) had become established. This largely formed the basis for Modern English spelling, although pronunciation has changed considerably since that time. Middle English was succeeded in England by Early Modern English , which lasted until about 1650. Scots developed concurrently from

7446-425: The most reliable and easy-to-use closure for a belt. It is not meant, by design, to offer much space for decoration, but for its time-tested reliability. A conventional snap-fit buckle that is formed by a "male" buckle member—the hook end—and a "female" buckle member—the insertion end. The male buckle member consists of a center rod and two spring prongs equally spaced from the center rod. The two spring arms each have

7548-467: The nitrate groups can break off and expose nitrogen gases, such as nitrous oxide and nitric oxide , to the air. Another factor that can cause this is excess moisture, which can accelerate deterioration of nitrocellulose with the presence of nitrate groups, either newly fragmented from heat or still trapped as a free acid from production. Both of these sources allow the accumulation of nitric acid. Another form of deterioration, photochemical deterioration,

7650-681: The old insular g and the Carolingian g (modern g ), the former continued in use as a separate letter, known as yogh , written ⟨ȝ⟩ . This was adopted for use to represent a variety of sounds: [ɣ], [j], [dʒ], [x], [ç] , while the Carolingian g was normally used for [g]. Instances of yogh were eventually replaced by ⟨j⟩ or ⟨y⟩ and by ⟨gh⟩ in words like night and laugh . In Middle Scots , yogh became indistinguishable from cursive z , and printers tended to use ⟨z⟩ when yogh

7752-423: The other case endings disappeared in the Early Middle English period, including most of the roughly one dozen forms of the definite article ("the"). The dual personal pronouns (denoting exactly two) also disappeared from English during this period. The loss of case endings was part of a general trend from inflections to fixed word order that also occurred in other Germanic languages (though more slowly and to

7854-404: The percent nitrogen content on each cellulose molecule; cellulose nitrate has 2.8 molecule of nitrogen per molecule of cellulose. It was determined that sulfuric acid was to be used as well in the reaction in order to first, catalyze the nitric acid groups so it can allow for the substitution onto the cellulose, and second, allow for the groups to easily and uniformly attach to the fibers, creating

7956-403: The prestige that came with writing in French rather than English. During the 14th century, a new style of literature emerged with the works of writers including John Wycliffe and Geoffrey Chaucer , whose Canterbury Tales remains the most studied and read work of the period. The transition from Late Old English to Early Middle English had taken place by the 1150s to 1180s, the period when

8058-467: The prong fits through the buckle to secure the material at a pre-set length. The prong is usually referred to as the tongue of the buckle in America, as in 'lock-tongued buckle'. Prong is only used when the tongue is permanently fixed in position. The bar serves to hold the chape and prong to the frame. When prongs and chapes are removed from the buckle design, the buckle incorporated a movable bar relying on

8160-546: The resultant mix "xylonite", but it was the Hyatt brothers who recognized the value of camphor and its use as a plasticizer for cellulose nitrate. They used heat and pressure to simplify the manufacture of these compounds. Isaiah Hyatt dubbed the material "celluloid" in 1872. The Hyatts later moved their company, now called the Celluloid Manufacturing Company, to Newark, New Jersey . Over the years, celluloid became

8262-564: The resulting doublet pairs include warden (from Norman) and guardian (from later French; both share a common ancestor loaned from Germanic). The end of Anglo-Saxon rule did not result in immediate changes to the language. The general population would have spoken the same dialects as they had before the Conquest. Once the writing of Old English came to an end, Middle English had no standard language, only dialects that evolved individually from Old English. Early Middle English (1150–1350) has

8364-402: The same year. Later Parkes showcased Parkesine at the 1862 International Exhibition in London, where he was awarded a bronze medal for his efforts. The introduction of Parkesine is generally regarded as the birth of the plastics industry . Parkesine was made from cellulose treated with nitric acid and a solvent . The Parkesine company ceased trading in 1868. Pictures of Parkesine are held by

8466-795: The second half of the 14th century in the emerging London dialect, although he also portrays some of his characters as speaking in northern dialects, as in " The Reeve's Tale ". In the English-speaking areas of lowland Scotland , an independent standard was developing, based on the Northumbrian dialect . This would develop into what came to be known as the Scots language . A large number of terms for abstract concepts were adopted directly from scholastic philosophical Latin (rather than via French). Examples are "absolute", "act", "demonstration", and "probable". The Chancery Standard of written English emerged c.  1430 in official documents that, since

8568-458: The second person singular in -(e)st (e.g., þou spekest , "thou speakest"), and the third person singular in -eþ (e.g., he comeþ , "he cometh/he comes"). ( þ (the letter "thorn") is pronounced like the unvoiced th in "think", but under certain circumstances, it may be like the voiced th in "that"). The following table illustrates a typical conjugation pattern: Plural forms vary strongly by dialect, with Southern dialects preserving

8670-445: The semi-circular chapes damaged the straps or belts, making frequent repairs of the material necessary. Buckles fitted with "T"-, anchor-, or spade-shaped chapes avoided this problem but needed a slotted end in the belt to accommodate them. The belt buckle chapes are frequently made in a form of a plate, thus the name buckle plate. The prong (also named pin) is typically made out of steel or other types of metal. In conventional belts,

8772-409: The strong type have an -e in the nominative/accusative singular, like the weak declension, but otherwise strong endings. Often, these are the same nouns that had an -e in the nominative/accusative singular of Old English (they, in turn, were inherited from Proto-Germanic ja -stem and i -stem nouns). The distinct dative case was lost in early Middle English, and although the genitive survived, by

8874-407: The tension of the adjusted belt to keep it in place. The first known buckles to be used were made out of bronze for their strength and durability for military usage. For the last few hundred years, buckles have been made from brass (an alloy of copper and zinc). In the 18th century, brass buckles incorporated iron bars, chapes, and prongs due to the parts being made by different manufactures. Silver

8976-440: The top levels of the English-speaking political and ecclesiastical hierarchies by Norman rulers who spoke a dialect of Old French , now known as Old Norman , which developed in England into Anglo-Norman . The use of Norman as the preferred language of literature and polite discourse fundamentally altered the role of Old English in education and administration, even though many Normans of this period were illiterate and depended on

9078-954: Was a later belt worn diagonally over the right shoulder down to the waist at the left carrying the sword, and its buckle therefore was as important as that on a Roman soldier’s armor. Bronze Roman buckles cames in various types. Not only used for practical purposes, these buckles were also decorated. A Type I Roman buckle was a “buckle-plate” either decorated or plain and consisted of geometric ornaments. Type IA Roman buckles were similar to Type I buckles but differed by being long and narrow, made of double sheet metal, and attached to small D-shaped buckles (primarily had dolphin-heads as decorations). Type IB “buckle-loops” were even more similar to Type IA buckles, only difference being that instead of dolphin-heads, they were adorned with horse-heads. There were also Type II buckles (Type IIA and Type IIB) used by Romans, but all types of Roman buckles could have served purposes for simple clothing as well, and predominantly, as

9180-427: Was also used in buckle manufacturing for its malleability and for being strong and durable with an attractive shine. White metal, any bright metallic compound, was also used in all styles of buckles; however, if iron was present, rust will form if it is allowed to be exposed and remain in damp conditions. Pearl buckles have been made from pearly shells and usually for ladies’ dresses. Since a reasonable size flat surface

9282-413: Was contracted for this work, which was done by thinly slicing layers out of celluloid blocks and then removing the slice marks with heated pressure plates. After this, the celluloid strips were coated with a photosensitive gelatin emulsion. It is not certain exactly how long it took for Carbutt to standardize his process, but it occurred no later than 1888. A 15-inch-wide (380 mm) sheet of Carbutt's film

9384-480: Was gluing individual discs of glass to the metal frame. Another more intricate method was to set a wire into the back of a glass disc, and then threading the wire through a hole in the fretted frame of the buckle. The glass was further secured by either bending it over the back of the frame or splayed out like a rivet. Celluloid , a type of thermoplastic invented in 1869, was used sparingly and only for decoration until after World War I where it began to be produced on

9486-476: Was in movie and photography film industries, which used only celluloid film stock prior to the adoption of acetate safety film in the 1950s. Celluloid is highly flammable, difficult and expensive to produce and no longer widely used. English photographer John Carbutt founded the Keystone Dry Plate Works in 1879 with the intention of producing gelatin dry plates. The Celluloid Manufacturing Company

9588-425: Was indicated by agreement of articles and pronouns (e.g., þo ule "the feminine owl") or using the pronoun he to refer to masculine nouns such as helm ("helmet"), or phrases such as scaft stærcne (strong shaft), with the masculine accusative adjective ending -ne . Single-syllable adjectives added -e when modifying a noun in the plural and when used after the definite article ( þe ), after

9690-473: Was needed to make a buckle, oyster was commonly used to make these types of buckles. The quality and color of course vary, ranging from layers of yellow and white to brown or grey. When preferred materials were scarce during the Great Depression of the 1930s and the two World Wars, buckles became a low priority and manufactures needed to find ways to continue to produce them cheaply. Makers turned to wood as

9792-469: Was not available in their fonts; this led to new spellings (often giving rise to new pronunciations), as in McKenzie , where the ⟨z⟩ replaced a yogh, which had the pronunciation /j/ . Celluloid Celluloids are a class of materials produced by mixing nitrocellulose and camphor , often with added dyes and other agents. Once much more common for its use as photographic film before

9894-520: Was not yet a distinct j , v , or w , and Old English scribes did not generally use k , q , or z . Ash was no longer required in Middle English, as the Old English vowel /æ/ that it represented had merged into /a/ . The symbol nonetheless came to be used as a ligature for the digraph ⟨ae⟩ in many words of Greek or Latin origin, as did ⟨œ⟩ for ⟨oe⟩ . Eth and thorn both represented /θ/ or its allophone / ð / in Old English. Eth fell out of use during

9996-459: Was often referred to as "Ivorine" or "French Ivory", after a form of celluloid developed in France with grain lines in made to resemble ivory . It was also used for dressing table sets, dolls, picture frames, charms, hat pins, buttons, buckles, stringed instrument parts, accordions , fountain pens, cutlery handles and kitchen items. The main disadvantage the material had was that it was flammable. It

10098-417: Was ousted by it in most dialects by the 15th. The following table shows some of the various Middle English pronouns. Many other variations are noted in Middle English sources because of differences in spellings and pronunciations at different times and in different dialects. As a general rule, the indicative first person singular of verbs in the present tense ended in -e (e.g., ich here , "I hear"),

10200-469: Was some inflectional simplification (the distinct Old English dual forms were lost), but pronouns, unlike nouns, retained distinct nominative and accusative forms. Third person pronouns also retained a distinction between accusative and dative forms, but that was gradually lost: The masculine hine was replaced by him south of the River Thames by the early 14th century, and the neuter dative him

10302-423: Was soon overtaken by Bakelite and Catalin . Soviet roly-poly dolls were made from celluloid on smokeless powder plants until 1996, and table tennis balls – until 2014. " Parker Brothers ... made some versions [of diabolos ] out of hollow Celluloid--which, because of its 'frictionless' properties, spun even faster than steel." Shelf clocks and other furniture items were often covered with celluloid in

10404-467: Was used by William Dickson for the early Edison motion picture experiments on a cylinder drum Kinetograph. However, the celluloid film base produced by this means was still considered too stiff for the needs of motion-picture photography. By 1889, more flexible celluloids for photographic film were developed, and both Hannibal Goodwin and the Eastman Kodak Company obtained patents for

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