From: ktms@live.com   
      
   "Tony Proctor"  wrote in message news:q8q1mh$74m$1@gioia.aioe.org...   
      
   I came across this phrase ("Index of Parents and Masters"), and associated   
   prefixes "p. to ..." and "p. of ...", in a document of 18th Century Freemen   
   of the city of Leicester.   
      
   The usage is clearly not that of present-day "parents", and appears to be   
   related to apprenticeships.   
      
   Can someone enlighten me of whether this was an accepted usage at that time,   
   whether how it might have differed from "master"?   
      
   Tony Proctor   
      
   I found the following on Google   
      
   Verb   
   (third-person singular simple present prentices, present participle   
   prenticing, simple past and past participle prenticed)   
   (obsolete) To apprentice.   
   Origin   
   An old (Middle English) aphetic form of apprentice; that is, a form which   
   lost the unstressed initial vowel a and reduced the initial double pp to a   
   single p.   
      
   Regards   
      
   Kate   
   Sydney, Australia   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)