* * * * *
"_M. or N._" (No. 26. p. 415.)--I do not think that "M. or N." are
used as the initials of any particular words; they are the middle
letters of the alphabet, and, at the time the Prayer Book was
compiled, it seems to have been the fashion to employ them in the way
in which we now use the first two. There are only two offices, the
Catechism and the Solemnisation of Matrimony, in which more than one
letter is used. In the former, the answer to the first question has
always stood "N. or M." In the office of Matrimony, however, in Edward
the Sixth's Prayer Books, both the man and woman are designated by
the letter N--"I, N., take thee, N., to my wedded wife;" whilst in
our present book M. is applied to the man and N. to the woman. The
adoption of one letter, and the subsequent substitution of another, in
this service, evidently for the sake of a more clear distinction only,
sufficiently shows that no particular name or word was intended by
either. Possibly some future "J.C." may inquire of what words the
letters "A.B.," which our legislators are so fond of using in their
Acts of Parliament, are the initials.