It is not, so far as my experience goes, very common,
though it may formerly have been more so.
though it may formerly have been more so.
James Russell Lowell
One other Gallicism survives in our
pronunciation. Perhaps I should rather call it a semi-Gallicism, for it
is the result of a futile effort to reproduce a French sound with
English lips. Thus for _joint_, _employ_, _royal_, we have _jynt_,
_emply_, _r[)y]le_, the last differing only from _rile_ (_roil_) in a
prolongation of the _y_ sound. I find _royal_ so pronounced in the
'Mirror for Magistrates. ' In Walter de Biblesworth I find _solives_
Englished by _gistes_. This, it is true, may have been pronounced
_jeests_, but the pronunciation _jystes_ must have preceded the present
spelling, which was no doubt adopted after the radical meaning was
forgotten, as analogical with other words in _oi_. 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.
pronunciation. Perhaps I should rather call it a semi-Gallicism, for it
is the result of a futile effort to reproduce a French sound with
English lips. Thus for _joint_, _employ_, _royal_, we have _jynt_,
_emply_, _r[)y]le_, the last differing only from _rile_ (_roil_) in a
prolongation of the _y_ sound. I find _royal_ so pronounced in the
'Mirror for Magistrates. ' In Walter de Biblesworth I find _solives_
Englished by _gistes_. This, it is true, may have been pronounced
_jeests_, but the pronunciation _jystes_ must have preceded the present
spelling, which was no doubt adopted after the radical meaning was
forgotten, as analogical with other words in _oi_. 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.
