No More Learning

The Yankee pronounces both _too_ and _to_
like _ta_ (like the _tou_ in _touch_) where they are not emphatic. When
they are, both become _tu_. In old spelling, _to_ is the common (and
indeed correct) form of _too_, which is only _to_ with the sense of _in
addition_. I suspect that the sound of our _too_ has caught something
from the French _tout_, and it is possible that the old _too too_ is not
a reduplication, but a reminiscence of the feminine form of the same
word (_toute_) as anciently pronounced, with the _e_ not yet silenced.
Gill gives a Northern origin to _geaun_ for _gown_ and _waund_ for
_wound_ (_vulnus_). Lovelace has _waund_, but




there is something too dreadful in suspecting Spenser (who _borealised_
in his pastorals) of having ever been guilty of _geaun! _ And yet some
delicate mouths even now are careful to observe the Hibernicism of
_ge-ard_ for _guard_, and _ge-url_ for _girl_. Sir Philip Sidney
(_credite posteri! _) wrote _furr_ for _far_. I would hardly have
believed it had I not seen it in _facsimile_. As some consolation, I
find _furder_ in Lord Bacon and Donne, and Wittier rhymes _far_ with
_cur_. The Yankee, who omits the final _d_ in many words, as do the
Scotch, makes up for it by adding one in _geound_. The purist does not
feel the loss of the _d_ sensibly in _lawn_ and _yon_, from the former
of which it has dropped again after a wrongful adoption (retained in
_laundry_), while it properly belongs to the latter. But what shall we
make of _git, yit_, and _yis_? I find _yis_ and _git_ in Warner's
'Albion's England,' _yet_ rhyming with _wit, admit_, and _fit_ in Donne,
with _wit_ in the 'Revenger's Tragedy,' Beaumont, and Suckling, with
_writ_ in Dryden, and latest of all with _wit_ in Sir Hanbury Williams.
Prior rhymes _fitting_ and _begetting_. Worse is to come. Among others,
Donne rhymes _again_ with _sin_, and Quarles repeatedly with _in_. _Ben_
for _been_, of which our dear Whittier is so fond, has the authority of
Sackville, 'Gammer Gurton' (the work of a bishop), Chapman, Dryden, and
many more, though _bin_ seems to have been the common form. Whittier's
accenting the first syllable of _rom'ance_ finds an accomplice in
Drayton among others, and, though manifestly wrong, is analogous with
_Rom'ans_. Of other Yankeeisms, whether of form or pronunciation, which
I have met with I add a few at random. Pecock writes _sowdiers (sogers,
soudoyers)_, and Chapman and Gill _sodder_. This absorption of the _l_
is common in various dialects, especially in the Scottish. Pecock writes
also _biyende_, and the authors of 'Jack Jugler' and 'Gammer Gurton'
_yender_. The Yankee includes '_yon_' in the same catagory, and says
'hither an' yen,' for 'to and fro. ' (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.