Why should Mr. Hickson (Vol. i., p. 428.) attempt to derive
"news" indirectly from a German adjective, when it is so directly
attributable to an English one; and that too without departing from a
practice almost indigenous in the language?
Have we not in English many similar adjective substantives? Are we
not continually slipping into our _shorts_, or sporting our _tights_,
or parading our _heavies_, or counter-marching our _lights_, or
commiserating _blacks_, or leaving _whites_ to starve; or calculating
the _odds_, or making _expositions_ for _goods_?
Oh! but, says Mr. Hickson, "in that case the '_s_' would be the sign
of the plural." Not necessarily so, no more than an "_s_" to "mean"
furnishes a "means" of proving the same thing. But granting that it
were so, what then? The word "news" _is_ undoubtedly plural, and has
been so used from the earliest times; as (in the example I sent for
publication last week, of so early a date as the commencement of Henry
VIII.'s reign) may be seen in "_thies_ new_es_."
But a flight still more eccentric would be the identification of
"noise" with "news!" "There is no process," Mr. Hickson says, "by
which noise could be manufactured without making a plural noun of it!"
Is not Mr. Hickson aware that _la noise_ is a French noun-singular
signifying a contention or dispute? and that the same word exists in
the Latin _nisus_, a struggle?
If mere plausibility be sufficient ground to justify a derivation,
where is there a more plausible one than that "news," _intelligence,
ought_ to be derived from [Greek: nous], _understanding_ or _common
sense_?