Old English give certain evidence of an influence on syntax. The change to Old English from Old Norse was substantive, pervasive, and of a democratic character. Old Norse and Old English resembled each other closely like cousins and with some words in common, they roughly understood each other; in time the inflections melted away and the analytic pattern emerged. It is most "important to recognize that in many words the English and Scandinavian language differed chiefly in their inflectional elements. The body of the word was so nearly the same in the two languages that only the endings would put obstacles in
1601 (Mark Twain) was originally written in 1876 for "a highly respectable, all-male writing group" as an exercise in the style of Rabelais. It was first published in the "incredibly rare" Cleveland edition of 1880, which is believed to number only four copies. The original edition was anonymous. While visiting West Point in 1881, Twain discovered that a man he met there, Charles Erskine Scott Wood, had access to a private printing press. Twain asked Wood to print off a new edition of fifty copies (now known as the "West Point edition") which came out in 1882. Twain acknowledged authorship in 1906. The