No More Learning

In the same way after
Norman-French influence had softened the _l_ out of _would_ (we already
find _woud_ for _veut_ in N. F. poems), _should_ followed the example,
and then an _l_ was foisted into _could_, where it does not belong, to
satisfy the logic of the eye, which has affected the pronunciation and
even the spelling of English more than is commonly supposed. I meet with
_eyster_ for _oyster_ as early as the fourteenth century. I find _viage_
in Bishop Hall and Middleton the dramatist, _bile_ for _boil_ in Donne
and Chrononhotonthologos, _line_ for _loin_ in Hall, _ryall_ and _chyse_
(for choice) _dystrye_ for _destroy_, in the Coventry Plays. In
Chapman's 'All Fools' is the misprint of _employ_ for _imply_, fairly
inferring an identity of sound in the last syllable. Indeed, this
pronunciation was habitual till after Pope, and Rogers tells us that the
elegant Gray said _naise_ for _noise_ just as our rustics still do. Our
_cornish_ (which I find also in Herrick) remembers the French better
than _cornice_ does. While clinging more closely to the Anglo-Saxon in
dropping the _g_ from the end of the present participle, the Yankee now
and then pleases himself with an experiment in French nasality in words
ending in _n_. It is not, so far as my experience goes, very common,
though it may formerly have been more so. _Capting_, for instance, I
never heard save in jest, the habitual form being _kepp'n_. But at any
rate it is no invention of ours. In that delightful old volume, 'Ane
Compendious Buke of Godly and Spirituall Songs,' in which I know not
whether the piety itself or the simplicity of its expression be more
charming, I find _burding_, _garding_, and _cousing_, and in the State
Trials _uncerting_ used by a gentleman. I confess that I like the _n_
better than _ng_.

Of Yankee preterites I find _risse_ and _rize_ for _rose_ in Beaumont
and Fletcher, Middleton and Dryden, _clim_ in Spenser, _chees_ (_chose_)
in Sir John Mandevil, _give_ (_gave_) in the Coventry Plays, _shet_
(_shut_) in Golding's Ovid, _het_ in Chapman and in Weever's Epitaphs,
_thriv_ and _smit_ in Drayton, _quit_ in Ben Jonson and Henry More, and
_pled_ in the Paston Letters, nay, even in the fastidious Landor.
_Rid_
for _rode_ was anciently common. So likewise was _see_ for _saw_, but I
find it in no writer of authority (except Golding), unless Chaucer's
_seie_ and Gower's _sigh_ were, as I am inclined to think, so sounded.
_Shew_ is used by Hector Boece, Giles Fletcher, Drummond of Hawthornden,
and in the Paston Letters. Similar strong preterites, like _snew_,
_thew_, and even _mew_, are not without example. I find _sew_ for
_sewed_ in 'Piers Ploughman. ' Indeed, the anomalies in English
preterites are perplexing. We have probably transferred _flew_ from
_flow_ (as the preterite of which I have heard it) to _fly_ because we
had another preterite in _fled_. Of weak preterites the Yankee retains
_growed_, _blowed_, for which he has good authority, and less often
_knowed_. His _sot_ is merely a broad sounding of _sat_, no more
inelegant than the common _got_ for _gat_, which he further degrades
into _gut_. When he says _darst_, he uses a form as old as Chaucer.

The Yankee has retained something of the long sound of the _a_ in such
words as _axe_, _wax_, pronouncing them _exe_, _wex_ (shortened from
_aix_, _waix_). He also says _hev_ and _hed_ (_h[=a]ve_, _h[=a]d_ for
_have_ and _had_). In most cases he follows an Anglo-Saxon usage. In
_aix_ for _axle_ he certainly does. I find _wex_ and _aisches_ (_ashes_)
in Pecock, and _exe_ in the Paston Letters. Golding rhymes _wax_ with
_wexe_ and spells _challenge_ _chelenge_.