--- title: "Old English theru and Modern English Tharf-Cakes (1995)" description: "Finally, she proposes a second unreduced- f example in the Old English Leviticus. Among them: 0." authors: ["Carole P. Biggam"] year: 1995 venue: "SELIM 5" source: "https://reunido.uniovi.es/index.php/SELIM/article/view/13585" doi: "10.17811/selim.5.1995.113-119" licence: "CC BY-NC-ND (journal licence per DOAJ; SELIM)" licence_url: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/" summary_licence: "Elamur Cosmic License" canonical: "https://research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/biggam-2019-old-english-theru-modern-english/" --- [Elamur Research](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/biggam-2019-old-english-theru-modern-english/) [home](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [papers](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/) / [1995](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/1995/) / Old English theru and Modern English Tharf-Cakes # Old English theru and Modern English Tharf-Cakes **Authors:** Carole P. Biggam · **Year:** 1995 · **Venue:** [SELIM 5](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/venues/selim-journal-of-the-spanish-society-for-medieval-english-language-and/) ([SELIM Journal of the Spanish Society for Medieval English Language and Literature 1995](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/venues/selim-journal-of-the-spanish-society-for-medieval-english-language-and/1995/)) · **Publisher:** [University of Oviedo](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/publishers/university-of-oviedo/) · **Licence:** [CC BY-NC-ND (journal licence per DOAJ; SELIM)](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) **Links:** [Publisher's page](https://doi.org/10.17811/selim.5.1995.113-119) · [PDF](https://reunido.uniovi.es/index.php/SELIM/article/download/13585/12298) · [DOI 10.17811/selim.5.1995.113-119](https://doi.org/10.17811/selim.5.1995.113-119) · [OpenAlex](https://openalex.org/W6944122889) **Citations:** 0 citations (OpenAlex, 2026-10-14) ## Summary Biggam's short philological note (SELIM 5; the article itself is dated 1996) addresses the obscure word *þeru*. It appears in King Offa's grant of Westbury-on-Trym (793–6), in a list of goods owed to the king. Andrew Breeze had already argued from Welsh and Breton parallels that the word means "loaves". Biggam extends his argument by proposing that *þeru* is related to OE *þeorf* "unleavened (bread)", which survives as Modern English *tharf-cake*. The obstacle is the missing *-f*. She explains it through two observations: - Old English often simplified clusters of three consonants in speech. - The related verb *\*þurfan* ("need, be obliged") lost its *-f* in Middle English. She suggests the reduced form may reflect everyday speech among estate scribes. She also accounts for why unleavened bread could be high-status then but disparaged later: the word combines "obligation/dues" with "need/poverty", and Biblical tradition gave unleavened bread a sense of purity. Finally, she proposes a second unreduced-*f* example in the Old English Leviticus. ## Key points - The sole witness for *þeru* is Cotton Tiberius A xiii (Hemming's cartulary), dated to around 1016–1025. The phrase is "VI lang þero", meaning six long loaves. - The plural ending implies a short-stemmed neuter noun with a nominative singular *\*þer*, reduced from *þerf*. - The earliest recorded *-f* loss in *tharf/thar* is c. 1290 (OED). Campbell's grammar, however, documents Old English cluster reduction, including *þorleas* from *þorfleas*. - In Leviticus 8:31, Biggam reads the manuscript form *þæra* (in both Cotton Claudius B iv and Laud Misc. 509) as a partitive genitive meaning "unleavened loaves". This rejects Crawford's emendation to *þær þa* ("there then"). - Dialect evidence from the EDD shows that *tharf* later acquired negative senses such as "lumpish" and "unsociable". ## Interesting ideas - A puzzling form is explained by a documented phonological process (cluster reduction) attested in a related word, rather than by an ad hoc story. - The grammatical number and stem class of an unknown noun are inferred from its context (a numeral) together with its inflectional ending. - A genitive object of a verb of eating is read as partitive, meaning "eat some of", which changes how the object relates to the event. - The author challenges an editor's "correction" and shows the original reading makes sense under a better hypothesis. - Two seemingly unrelated senses (obligation, flatness) are linked under one superordinate concept (pressing weight), which also explains an apparent contradiction in social status across periods. ## For Mova How these ideas could serve Mova, our small open language model — its files, stages and tests: - **I1** (tokens): The lemmatizer could map unknown variant spellings to known lemmas through a small set of attested reduction and variation rules, logging which rule fired so the mapping stays explainable. - **I2** (tokens): When a noun is out of vocabulary, morphology could combine syntactic cues such as numerals and determiners with suffix evidence to guess number and lemma instead of tagging it blindly. - **I3** (frames): Role assignment could flag partitive objects of consumption verbs so that the world model records partial rather than total consumption. - **I4** (learn): Self-induced repair rules should be checked against the unrepaired input, keeping the original whenever a coherent analysis exists, to avoid over-correcting silver data. - **I5** (world): The ontology could store polysemy as senses hanging off a shared abstract feature, which would help explain metaphorical uses and shifts in evaluative connotation. *Our summary of the paper, in our own words — not its text. The work belongs to its authors; read it at the links above.* 📚 Shelves (3): [🎭 Arts and Humanities](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/arts-and-humanities/) · 9,296 works · [🗣️ Language and Linguistics](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/arts-and-humanities/language-and-linguistics/) · 9,206 works · [🎭 Classics](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/arts-and-humanities/classics/) · 67 works 🧭 Topics (2): [English](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/topics/english/) · 1,373 works · [⏳ Historical linguistics & language change](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/topics/language-change/) · 159 works ## Cite Cite as: Carole P. Biggam. 1995. Old English theru and Modern English Tharf-Cakes. SELIM 5. The paper itself, not this page. BibTeX from the library's record of the work. ```bibtex @inproceedings{biggam1995old, title = {{Old English theru and Modern English Tharf-Cakes}}, author = {Carole P. Biggam}, booktitle = {SELIM 5}, year = {1995}, doi = {10.17811/selim.5.1995.113-119}, url = {https://doi.org/10.17811/selim.5.1995.113-119} } ``` - [← previous Eurotra, history and results](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/maegaard-1995-eurotra-history-results/) - [next → Problems with the second generation architecture and new trends in MT](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/somers-1995-problems-second-generation-architecture-new/) - [↑ back to papers of 1995](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/1995/) *Updated 24 October 2026*