' So the good man wrote
them, and so the good descendants of his fellow-exiles still pronounce
them.
them, and so the good descendants of his fellow-exiles still pronounce
them.
James Russell Lowell
' (Cf.
German _jenseits_.
) Pecock and
plenty more have _wrastle_. Tindal has _agynste, gretter, shett, ondone,
debyte_, and _scace_. 'Jack Jugler' has _scacely_ (which I have often
heard, though _skurce_ is the common form), and Donne and Dryden make
_great_ rhyme with _set_. In the inscription on Caxton's tomb I find
_ynd_ for _end_, which the Yankee more often makes _eend_, still using
familiarly the old phrase 'right anend' for 'continuously. ' His 'stret
(straight) along' in the same sense, which I thought peculiar to him, I
find in Pecock. Tindal's _debyte_ for _deputy_ is so perfectly Yankee
that I could almost fancy the brave martyr to have been deacon of the
First Parish at Jaalam Centre. 'Jack Jugler' further gives us _playsent_
and _sartayne_. Dryden rhymes _certain_ with _parting_, and Chapman and
Ben Jonson use _certain_, as the Yankee always does, for _certainly_.
The 'Coventry Mysteries' have _occapied, massage, nateralle, materal
(material),_ and _meracles_,--all excellent Yankeeisms. In the 'Quatre
fils, Aymon' (1504),[25] is _vertus_ for _virtuous_. Thomas Fuller called
_volume vollum_, I suspect, for he spells it _volumne_. However, _per
contra_, Yankees habitually say _colume_ for _column_. Indeed, to
prove that our ancestors brought their pronunciation with them from the
Old Country, and have not wantonly debased their mother tongue, I need
only to cite the words _scriptur_, _Israll_, _athists_, and
_cherfulness_ from Governor Bradford's 'History.
' So the good man wrote
them, and so the good descendants of his fellow-exiles still pronounce
them. Brampton Gurdon writes _shet_ in a letter to Winthrop. _Purtend_
(_pretend_) has crept like a serpent into the 'Paradise Of Dainty
Devices;' _purvide_, which is not so bad, is in Chaucer. These, of
course, are universal vulgarisms, and not peculiar to the Yankee. Butler
has a Yankee phrase, and pronunciation too, in 'To which these
_carr'ings-on_ did tend. ' Langham or Laneham, who wrote an account of
the festivities at Kenilworth in honor of Queen Bess, and who evidently
tried to spell phonetically, makes _sorrows_ into _sororz_. Herrick
writes _hollow_ for _halloo_, and perhaps pronounced it (_horresco
suggerens_! ) _hollo_, as Yankees do. Why not, when it comes from _hola_?
I find _ffelaschyppe_ (fellowship) in the Coventry Plays. Spenser and
his queen neither of them scrupled to write _afore_, and the former
feels no inelegance even in _chaw_ and _idee_. _'Fore_ was common till
after Herrick. Dryden has _do's_ for _does_, and his wife spells _worse_
_wosce_. _Afeared_ was once universal. Warner has _ery_ for _ever a_;
nay, he also has illy, with which we were once ignorantly reproached by
persons more familiar with Murray's Grammar than with English
literature. And why not _illy_?
plenty more have _wrastle_. Tindal has _agynste, gretter, shett, ondone,
debyte_, and _scace_. 'Jack Jugler' has _scacely_ (which I have often
heard, though _skurce_ is the common form), and Donne and Dryden make
_great_ rhyme with _set_. In the inscription on Caxton's tomb I find
_ynd_ for _end_, which the Yankee more often makes _eend_, still using
familiarly the old phrase 'right anend' for 'continuously. ' His 'stret
(straight) along' in the same sense, which I thought peculiar to him, I
find in Pecock. Tindal's _debyte_ for _deputy_ is so perfectly Yankee
that I could almost fancy the brave martyr to have been deacon of the
First Parish at Jaalam Centre. 'Jack Jugler' further gives us _playsent_
and _sartayne_. Dryden rhymes _certain_ with _parting_, and Chapman and
Ben Jonson use _certain_, as the Yankee always does, for _certainly_.
The 'Coventry Mysteries' have _occapied, massage, nateralle, materal
(material),_ and _meracles_,--all excellent Yankeeisms. In the 'Quatre
fils, Aymon' (1504),[25] is _vertus_ for _virtuous_. Thomas Fuller called
_volume vollum_, I suspect, for he spells it _volumne_. However, _per
contra_, Yankees habitually say _colume_ for _column_. Indeed, to
prove that our ancestors brought their pronunciation with them from the
Old Country, and have not wantonly debased their mother tongue, I need
only to cite the words _scriptur_, _Israll_, _athists_, and
_cherfulness_ from Governor Bradford's 'History.
' So the good man wrote
them, and so the good descendants of his fellow-exiles still pronounce
them. Brampton Gurdon writes _shet_ in a letter to Winthrop. _Purtend_
(_pretend_) has crept like a serpent into the 'Paradise Of Dainty
Devices;' _purvide_, which is not so bad, is in Chaucer. These, of
course, are universal vulgarisms, and not peculiar to the Yankee. Butler
has a Yankee phrase, and pronunciation too, in 'To which these
_carr'ings-on_ did tend. ' Langham or Laneham, who wrote an account of
the festivities at Kenilworth in honor of Queen Bess, and who evidently
tried to spell phonetically, makes _sorrows_ into _sororz_. Herrick
writes _hollow_ for _halloo_, and perhaps pronounced it (_horresco
suggerens_! ) _hollo_, as Yankees do. Why not, when it comes from _hola_?
I find _ffelaschyppe_ (fellowship) in the Coventry Plays. Spenser and
his queen neither of them scrupled to write _afore_, and the former
feels no inelegance even in _chaw_ and _idee_. _'Fore_ was common till
after Herrick. Dryden has _do's_ for _does_, and his wife spells _worse_
_wosce_. _Afeared_ was once universal. Warner has _ery_ for _ever a_;
nay, he also has illy, with which we were once ignorantly reproached by
persons more familiar with Murray's Grammar than with English
literature. And why not _illy_?
