On Fri, Aug 18, 2023 at 6:33 AM jeremy ardley via Dng
<dng@???> wrote:
> English has a number of words where the initial letter migrated to
> attach to the preceding 'a'
>
> e.g.
>
> An umpire <-- a noumpere
>
> An orange <-- a norange
>
> An egg <-- a negg
>
> So it would be accurate but anachronistic to talk about having a negg
> with a norange drink for breakfast

Not quite, while the wrong division is a fact which solved the mystery
why it's called an adder in English what's a Natter in German for me, only
your first example fits. Albeit the orange had an initial n in Old
Persian, the word already lost that in Old French, before it was
imported into English, and the egg has evolved from Norse and never had
a leading n.
Another example proper is the apron which was a napron before wrong
division occurred.