'Jack Jugler' has
_scacely_
(which I have often
heard, though _skurce_ is the common form), and Donne and Dryden make
_great_ rhyme with _set_.
heard, though _skurce_ is the common form), and Donne and Dryden make
_great_ rhyme with _set_.
James Russell Lowell
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. ' 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.
'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. ' 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.
