Eftsoons

Eftsoons (pronounced eft-soonz)

(1) Once again; another time (obsolete).

(2) Soon after, presently (archaic).

Pre 1000: From the Middle English eftsone, from the Old English eftsona (eft sōna) (second time, repeatedly, soon after, again (literally “afterwards soon”)).  The construct was eft (afterward, again, a second time), from the Proto-Germanic aftiz, from the primitive Indo-European root apo- (off, away) +‎ sona (immediately) +‎ -s (the the adverbial genitive) and both senses in which the word was used derive from those attached to eft, which was related to “after”.  Eftsoons is an adverb.

Were it not for the frequency with which Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s (1772-1834) Rime of the Ancient Mariner (1798) has appeared in print and latterly on-line, “eftsoons” may have been more unknown even than it is and in over 600 lines, the poet used it just the once (in line 12).

It is an ancient Mariner,
And he stoppeth one of three.
'By thy long grey beard and glittering eye,
Now wherefore stopp'st thou me?
 
The Bridegroom's doors are opened wide,
And I am next of kin;
The guests are met, the feast is set:
May'st hear the merry din.'
 
He holds him with his skinny hand,
'There was a ship,' quoth he.
'Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon!'
Eftsoons his hand dropt he.
 
He holds him with his glittering eye—
The Wedding-Guest stood still,
And listens like a three years' child:
The Mariner hath his will.

Opening four stanzas, Rime of the Ancient Mariner (1798) by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

It’s certainly rare and etymologists draw a technical distinction between the meaning eftsoons enjoyed between the eleventh & seventeenth centuries (once again; another time) which is listed as obsolete while the sense which began after the thirteenth to run in parallel (soon after, presently) is regarded as merely archaic and it’s the occasional use of the latter which means it’s never quite gone extinct.  Coleridge aside however, the more rigorous arbiters of the way English should be used have seldom approved of the deliberate revivals of archaic forms, especially ones where the meaning is unlikely to be known by many.  Henry Fowler (1858–1933) in his A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (1926) decried such vocabular flashiness as a “pride of knowledge”, describing it as “a very un-amiable characteristic and the display of it sedulously should be avoided”.  He underlined his disapprobation by mentioning some of the most “disagreeable” types including “Gallicisms, irrelevant allusions, literary critics’ words & novelty hunting”.  So, use has been rare since the mid-eighteenth century and the only objective reason it faded was probably simply that to say “eftsoons” rather than “soon” was just one syllable too many and speakers of English (if not the Romantic poets) being a lazy lot, the word which took the least effort prevailed.

Lindsay Lohan and her lawyer in court, Los Angeles, December 2011.

There’s also the matter of whether William Shakespeare (1564–1616) actually used the word, his imprimatur a thing of significance. It does appear once in Pericles, Prince of Tyre (1608) but scholars have decided it was not all his own work and that he wrote only acts 3 & 4 and it’s in Act 5, Scene 1 that eftsoons makes its one appearance.  The first two acts have variously been attributed, including to one who was, inter alia, the keeper of a brothel, so for those whose pride of knowledge extends to that, when searching for a precedent, they would probably prefer to cite Coleridge.  Still, even though it wasn’t included in the First Folio (1623) and did not appear in any compilation until the Third Folio (1664), it was one of the seventeen plays in print during Shakespeare's life and was republished several times between 1609-1635.  It's certainly part of the canon.

Chorus V: On board Pericles' ship, off Mytilene.

Pericles:

My purpose was for Tarsus, there to strike
The inhospitable Cleon; but I am
For other service first: toward Ephesus
Turn our blown sails; eftsoons I'll tell thee why.

[To Lysimachus]

Shall we refresh us, sir, upon your shore,
And give you gold for such provision
As our intents will need?

Lysimachus:

Sir,
With all my heart; and, when you come ashore,
I have another suit.

Pericles:

You shall prevail,
Were it to woo my daughter; for it seems
You have been noble towards her.

William Shakespeare, Pericles, Prince of Tyre, Act 5, Scene 1.