"M. or N."

I do not think that "M. or N." are used as the initials of any particular words; they are the middle letters of the alphabet, and, at the time the Prayer Book was compiled, it seems to have been the fashion to employ them in the way in which we now use the first two. There are only two offices, the Catechism and the Solemnisation of Matrimony, in which more than one letter is used. In the former, the answer to the first question has always stood "N. or M." In the office of Matrimony, however, in Edward the Sixth's Prayer Books, both the man and woman are designated by the letter N—"I, N., take…