The wordlaches, which is not noticed in the above paper, is one of a list of words sent to us by a correspondent who suggests that it is the business of our society to direct the public as to their pronunciation. Like other examples given by Mr. Matthews,lachesseems to be at present in an uncertain condition; and as it is used only by lawyers they will be able to decide its future. What seems clear about it is that the two contending pronunciations are homophones, one withlatchesthe other withlashes. The A having been Englished its closing T seems natural; andlatches(fromlachesse) is thus an exact parallel withriches(fromrichesse). But there seems no propriety in the SS being changed to Z. The pronunciationlátchesswould save it from its awkward and absurd homophonelatches, and would be in order withprowess, largess, noblesse, &c. Moreover, sincelachesis used only as the name of a quality (= negligence) and never (likeriches), as a plural, to connote special acts of negligence, the pronunciationlatchesswould be correct as well as convenient; and the word would be better spelt with double S:lachess.
Of the wordleveetheO.E.D.says, 'All our verse quotations place the stress on the first syllable. In England this is the court pronunciation, and prevails in educated use. The pronunciation' with the accent on the second syllable 'which is given by Walker, is occasionally heard in Great Britain, and appears to be generally preferred in the U.S.', but the dictionary does not quote Burns
'Guid-mornin' to your Majesty!May Heav'n augment your blisses,On ev'ry new birthday ye see,A humble poet wishes!My bardship here, at your levee,On sic a day as this is,Is sure an uncouth sight to see,Amang thae birthday dressesSae fine this day.'
So that it would seem that the Scotch and American pronunciation of this word is more thoroughly Englished than our own: and the prejudice which opposes straightforward common-sense solutions, however desirable they may be, is brought home to us by the fact that almost all Englishmen would be equally shocked by the notion either of spelling this word as they pronounce it,levay, or of pronouncing it, like Burns, as they spell it,levee.
It would be instructive if we could give a parallel account of what the French do when they adopt an English word into their language.Le Dictionnaire des Anglicismes, lately published by Delagrave, has two hundred pages, and is much praised by a reviewer in theMercure de France, Feb. 15, p. 246: but it does not give the current French pronunciations of the English words. The reviewer writes: 'Ce qui me gène bien davantage, c'est que M. Bonnaffé supprime, partout, avec rigueur, la façon française de prononcer le mot anglais. Était-il superflu de dire comment nous articulonsshampooing? Nous n'avons, je crois, qu'une forme orale pourboy, petit domestique, parce qu'il est dû à l'oreille; mais nous sommes partagés quant àboy-scout, qui est arrivé par tracts et par journaux. L'anglais donne un mothigh-life, le français en fait cinq:haylayf, aïlaïf, ichlif, ijlif, iglif.' p. 247. It would seem fromhigh-lifethat English words in French sometimes look as strange as French words do when represented in make-shift English phonetics. On p. 228 of the sameMercurethere is notice of 'un petit manuel de conversation' in which 'Toutes les nuances de la "phonetic pronunciation" sont notées, à l'usage des Américains désireux de se faire comprendre en français. Cette notation (says the reviewer) m'a tellement amusé que je ne puis résister au plaisir d'en citer quelques exemples: Av-nü' day Shawn Zay-lee-zay', Plass de la Kown-kord' to Plass der lay-twal. Fown-ten day Zeen-noh-sawn,—Oh-pay-râ Kum-meek,—Foh-lee Bair-zhair,—Bool-vâr day Kâ-pu-seen,—Beeb-lee-oh-tech Sant Zhun-vee-ayv',—Lay Zan-vâ-leed,—May-zown' der Veck-tor' U-goh',—Hub-bay-leesk',—Rü San Tawn-twan, &c., &c....' There would seem to be errors in this 'citation'. Vecktor should be Veektor? and H looks like a misprint for L in Hub-bay-leesk. -tech was probably -teck. Bonnaffé's book is noticed inThe Modern Language Reviewof last January.
In the original prospectus of the S.P.E., reprinted in Tract I, and again in III, p. 9, one of the objects of the Society is stated to be the 'enrichment and what is called regeneration of the language from the picturesque vocabularies of local vernaculars'. Since a young poet, Mr. Edmund Blunden, has lately published a volume in which this particular element of dialectal and obsolescent words is very prominent, it will be suitable to our general purpose to consider it as a practical experiment and examine the results. The poetic diction and high standard of his best work give sufficient importance to this procedure; and though he may seem to be somewhat extravagant in his predilection for unusual terms, yet his poetry cannot be imagined without them, and the strength and beauty of the effects must be estimated in his successes and not in his failures.
In the following remarks no appreciation of the poetry will be attempted: our undertaking is merely to tabulate the 'new' words, and examine their fitness for their employment. The bracketed numbers following the quotations give the page of the book where they occur. The initialsO.E.D.andE.D.D.stand for theOxford English Dictionaryand theEnglish Dialect Dictionary(Wright).
1. 'And churning owls and goistering daws'. (1)
Herechurningis a mistake; we are sorry to begin with an animadversion, but the word should bechurring.Churris an echo-word, and though there may be examples of echo-words which have been bettered by losing all trace of their simple spontaneous origin, this is not one. It is likeburr, purr,andwhirr; and these words are best spelt with double R and the R should be trilled. The absurdity of not trilling this final R is seen very plainly inburr, because that word's definition is 'a rough sounding of the letter R.' This is not represented by the pronunciation bə:. What that 'southern English' pronunciation does indicate is the vulgarity and inconvenience of its degradations.Burroccurs in these poems:
'There the live dimness burrs with droning glees'. (23)
Burris, moreover, a bad homophone and cannot neglect possible distinctions: the Oxford Dictionary has eight entries of substantives underburr.
Our author also useswhirr:
'And the bleak garrets' crevicesLike whirring distaffs utter dread', (26)
and again of the noise of wind in ivy, on p. 54, and
'The damp gust makes the ivy whir', (48)
whirrhyming here withexecutioner.
Sincechurring(in the first quotation) would automatically preserve its essential trill, the intruderchurningis the more obnoxious; and unless the R can be trilled it would seem better for poets to use only the inflected forms of these words, and preferchurrethtochurrs.
Ifchurnis anywhere dialectal forchurr, it must have come from the common mistake of substituting a familiar for an unknown word: and this is the worst way of making homophones.
2. 'goistering daws'.
Goisterorgausteris a common dialect verb; the latter form seems the more common and is recognized in the Oxford Dictionary, where it is defined 'to behave in a noisy boisterous fashion ... in some localities to laugh noisily'. If jackdaws are to appropriate a word to describe their behaviour, no word could be better thangoistering, and we prefergoistertogauster. Its likeness toboisterouswill assist it, and we guess that it will be accepted. In the little glossary at the end of the bookgoisteringis explained asguffawing. That word is not so descriptive of the jackdaw, since it suggests 'coarse bursts of laughter', and the coarseness is absent from the fussy vulgarity and mere needless jabber of the daw.
3. 'A dor flew by with crackling cry'. (7)
This to the ear is
'A daw flew by with crackling cry';
and though our poet's glossary tells us that dor = dor-hawk or nightjar, it really is not so. A dor is a beetle so called from its making adorringnoise, and the name, likechurrandburr, is better with its double R and trill.Dor-hawkmay be a name for thenightjar, but properlydorris not; and if it were, it would be forbidden bydawso long as it neglected its trill. Note also the misfortune that four lines below we read
'The pigeons flaunted round his door',
where the full correct pronunciation ofdoor(d[ɔə) will not quite protect it. The whole line quoted from p. 7 is obscure, because a nightjar would never be recognized by the description of a bird that utters a crackling cry when flying. That it then makes a sound different from its distinctive whirring note is recorded. T.A. Coward writes 'when on the wing it has a soft call co-ic, and a sharper and repeated alarm quik, quik, quik.' It is doubtful whethercracklingcan be accepted.
4. 'The grumping miller picked his way'. (8)
Grumpingis a good word, which appears from the dictionaries to be a common-speech term that is picking its way into literature.
5. 'The golden nobs and pippens swell'. (12)
nobisknob. Golden-nob is 'a variety of apple'; seeE.D.D.: and as a special name, which the passage implies, it should be hyphened.
6. 'where the pollards frown,Notched, dumb, surly images of pain'. (13)
Notched.This word well describes the appearance of old pollard willows after they have been cropped; but its full propriety may escape notice. A very early use of the verbto notchwas to cut or crop the hair roughly, andnotchedwas so used. The Oxford Dictionary quotes Lamb, 'a notched and cropt scrivener'. Thenpollarditself is frompoll, and means an animal that has lost its horns as well as a tree that has been 'pollarded'.
7. 'In elver-peopled crevices'. (19)
We are grateful forelver. This form has carefully differentiated itself fromeel-fare, which means the passage of the young eels up the rivers, and has come to mean theeel-frythemselves.
8. 'For Sussex cries from primrose lags and breaks'. (22)
E.D.D., among many meanings oflag, explains this as a Sussex and Somerset term for 'a long marshy meadow usually by the side of a stream'. Since the word seems as if it might be used for anything somewhere, we cannot question its title to these meadows, but we doubt its power to retain possession, except in some favoured locality.
9. 'And chancing lights on willowy waterbreaks'. (22)
We have to guess what awaterbreakis, having found no other example of the word.
10. 'Of hobby-horses with their starting eyes'. (23)
Hobby-horseas a local or rustic name for dragon-fly can have no right to general acceptance.
11. 'Stolchy ploughlands hid in grief.' (24)
Stolchyis so good a word that it does not need a dictionary. Wright gives only the verbstolch'to tread down, trample, to walk in the dirt'. The adjective is therefore primarily applicable to wet land that has become sodden and miry by beingpoachedby cattle, and then to any ground in a similar condition. Sincepoachis a somewhat confused homophone, its adjectivepoachyhas no chance againststolchy.
12. 'I whirry through the dark'. (24)
Whirryis another word that explains itself, and perhaps the more readily for its confusion (in this sense) withworry, seeE.D.D.where it is given as adjective and verb, the latter used by Scott in 'Midlothian'. 'Her and the gude-man will be whirrying through the blue lift on a broom-shank.' In theCentury Dictionary, with its pronunciation hwér'i, it is described as dialectal form ofwhirror ofhurry, to fly rapidly with noise, also transitive to hurry.
13. 'No hedger brished nor scythesman swung'. (25)
and
'The morning hedger with his brishing-hook'. (62)
These two lines explain the wordbrish.O.E.D.givesbrishas dialectal ofbrush, and soE.D.D.has the verbto brushas dialect for trimming a tree or hedge. Brush is a difficult homophone, and it would be useful to have one of its derivative meanings separated off asbrish.
14. 'A hizzing dragonfly that dapsAbove his mudded pond'. (28)
Hizzingis an old word now neglected. Shakespeare has
'To have a thousand with red burning spitsCome hizzing in upon 'em'.—Lear, III. vi. 17.
and there are other quotations inO.E.D.
15.Dapis used again, 'the dapping moth'. (45.) This word is well known to fishermen and fowlers, meaning 'to dip lightly and suddenly into water' but is uncommon in literature.
16. 'The glinzy ice grows thicker through'. (28)
Author's glossary explainsglinzyas slippery.E.D.D.gives this word asglinceyand derives from Frenchglincerasglisser, to slide or glide.Glinzyandglinceycarry unavoidable suggestion ofglint. Compare the words in No. 19.Glisserywould be convincing.
17. 'The green east hagged with prowling storm'. (30)
InO.E.D.haggedis given as monopolized by the sense of 'bewitched', or of 'lean and gaunt', related to haggard. This does not suit. The intention is probably an independent use of the p.p. of the transitive verb 'to hag'; defined as 'to torment or terrify as a hag, to trouble as the nightmare'.
18. 'where with the browsing thaive'. (31)
Thaiveis a two-year-old ewe. Wright givestheaveortheeveas the commoner forms, and in the Paston letters it istheyve, which perhaps confirmsthaive, rhymed here with 'rave'. Certainly it is most advisable to avoidthieves, the plural of thief, althoughO.E.D.allows this pronunciation and indeed puts it first of the alternatives.
19. 'On the pathway side ... the glintering flint'. (32)
O.E.D. givesglinteras a 'rare' word. We haveglinting, glistening, glittering, andglistering, and Scotchglisting.
20. 'The wind tangs through the shattered pane'. (34)
Echo-words, like ting-tang, ding-dong, &c., must have their liberty; but oftangit should be noted that, though the verb may raise no inconvenience, yet the substantive has a very old and well-established use in the sense of a projecting point or barb (especially of metal), or sting, and that this demands respect and recognition. It is something less than prong, and is the proper word for the metal point that fixes the strap of a buckle. The homophonic ambiguity is notorious in Shakespeare's
'She had a tongue with a tang',
where, as theO.E.D.suggests, the double sense of sting and ring were perhaps intended.
21. 'The grutching pixies hedge me round'. (37)
Grudgeandgrutchare the same word. The use of the obsolete form would therefore be fanciful if there were no difference in the sense; but there is a useful distinction: because grudge has entirely lost its original sense of murmuring, making complaint, and is confined to the consciousness and feeling of discontent, whereasgrutchis recognized as carrying the old meaning of grumble. Thus Stevenson as quoted inO.E.D., 'The rest is grunting and grutching'. It is a very useful word to restore, but it may, perhaps, at this particular time findgrouserather strongly entrenched.
22. 'Where the channering insect channels'. (46)
This is, of course, our old friend
The cock doth craw, the day doth daw,The channerin' worm doth chide',
and it looks like an attempt to define what is there meant, viz. that the worm made achanneringnoise in burrowing through the wood. The notion is perhaps admissible, though we cannot believe the sound to be audible.
23. 'The lispering aspens'. (53)
Lispering.We should be grateful for this word.O.E.D.quotes it from Clare's poems.
24. 'Of shallows with the shealings chalky white'. (64)
Shealis a homophone, 1. a shepherd's hut or shanty; 2. a peascod or seed-shell. Of the first,shielandshielingare common forms; the second is dialectal;E.D.D.givesshealingas the husk of seeds. If this be the meaning in our quotation, the appearance described is unrecognized by the present annotator.
25. 'Dull streamsFlow flagging in the undescribed deep fourmsOf creatures born the first of all, long dead'. (67)
Fourm, explained as a 'hare's lurking place', commonly calledform, widely used and understood because the lair has the shape or form of the animal that lay in it. But perhaps it was originally only the animal's seat or form, as we use the word in schools.Formhas so many derivative senses that it would be an advantage to have this one thus differentiated both in spelling and sound.
26. 'Toadstools twired and hued fantastically'. (68)
Though the wordtwiredis not explained in Mr. Blunden's glossary and the meaning is not evident from the context, we guess that he is using it here of shape, in the sense of 'contorted', which would range with the quotation from Burton (given in some dictionaries) 'No sooner doth a young man see his sweetheart coming, but he ... slickes his haire, twires his beard [&c.]'. Heretwires, as latest edition ofO.E.D.suggests, may be a misprint fortwirls. Older dictionaries give wrong and misleading definitions of this word; and a spurioustwire, to sing, was inferred from a misreading 'twierethe' for 'twitereth' in Chaucer'sBoethius, III m. 2. Modern authorities only allowtwire, to peep, as in Shakespeare's 28th Sonnet,
'When sparkling stars twire not, thou gildst the even'
(whence some had foolishly supposed thattwiremeant twinkle) and in Ben Jonson,Sad Shepherd, II. 1, 'Which maids will twire at, 'tween their fingers'. The verb is still in dialectal use:E.D.D.explains it 'to gaze wistfully or beseechingly'.
27. 'The tiny frogsGo yerking'. (69)
Yerk.The intrans. verb is to kick as a horse. The trans. verb is quoted from Massinger, Herrick, and Burns, who has 'My fancy yerkit up sublime': i.e. roused, lashed.
28. 'There seems no heart in wood or wide'. (8)
Wideas a subst. is hardly recognized. Tennyson is quoted, 'The waste wide of that abyss', but aswasteis a recognized substantive the authority is uncertain.
In the above examples we have taken such words as best answered our purpose, neglecting many which have almost equal claims. The richness of the vocabulary in unusual words and in words carrying unusual meanings forbids complete examination; as will be seen by a rough classification of some of those which we have passed over.
To begin with the words which our author uses well, we will quote as an example all the passages in whichwritheoccurs. The transitive verb which is perhaps in danger of neglect is very valuable, and it is well employed. These passages will also fully exhibit the general quality of Mr. Blunden's diction.
'But no one loves the aguish mistThat writhes its way at eventideAlong the copse's waterside'. (3)'But now the sower's hand is writhedIn livid death '. (25)'To-morrow's brindled shouting storms with floodThe purblind hollows with a leaden rainAnd flat the gleaning-fields to choking mudAnd writhe the groaning woods with bursts of pain'. (42)'The lispering aspens and the scarfed brook-grassesWith wakened melancholy writhe the air'. (53)
Dimplingis well and poetically used in
'While the woodlark's dimpling ringsIn the dim air climb'. (21)
and alsoquag(verb) (2),seething(3),channelled(9),bunch(11),jungled(11),rout(verb) (12),fluster(13),byre(13),plash(shallow water) (19),tantalise(neut. v.) (36),hutched(43),flounce(44),rootle(45),shore(verb) (59).Lair(verb) (43) does not seem a useful word.
Next, words somewhat obscurely or fancifully used arestarving(1),stark(10),honeycomb(15),cobbled(of pattens) (16),lanterned(24),well(49),bergomask(for village country dances?) (25),belvedere(of the spider's watch tower) (26).
While the following seem to us incorrectly used:mumbling(23) used of wings; the word is confined to the mouth whether as a manner of eating or of speaking:crunch(28) where the frosts crunch the grass: whereas they only make it crunchable.maligns(54) used as a neuter verb without precedent,chinked(58) of light passing through a chink: and note the homophone chink, used of sound. And then the line
'The blackthorns clung with heapen sloes' (55)
contains two reprehensible liberties, becauseclungin its original proper sense means congealed or shrivelled; toclingwas an intransitive verb meaning to adhere together: its modern use is to stick fast [to something]—and secondly,heapenis not a grammatical form; the p.p. isheaped.
Again, in the line
'He well may come with baits and trolls', (11)
we do not know whethertrollshas something to do with pike-fishing, or merely means the reel on the rod. In that sense it lacks authority(?), moreover it is a homophone, used by our poet in
'And trolls and pixies unbeknown'. (18)
Finally, there are a good many English country names for common plants, for example, Esau's-hands, Rabbits'-meat, Bee's balsams, Pepper-gourds, Brandy-flowers, Flannel-weed, and Shepherd's rose; and some of these are excellent, and we very much wish that more of our good English plant-names could be distinctively attached.
We will not open the discussion here, except to say that the casual employment of local names is of no service because so many of these names are common to so many different plants. Our author'sRabbits'-meat, for instance, is applied toAnthriscus sylvestris,Heracleum Spondylium,Oxalis AcetosellaandLamium purpureum; all of which may be suitable rabbits' food. But each one of these plants has also a very wide choice of other names: thusAnthriscus sylvestris, besides beingRabbits-meatmay be familiarly introduced as Dill, Keck, Ha-ho, or Bun, and by some score of other names showing it to be disputed for by the ass, cow, dog, pig and even by the devil himself to make his oatmeal.
Heracleum Spondylium, alias Old Rot or Lumper-scrump, provides provender for cow, pig, swine, and hog, and also material for Bear's breeches.
Oxalis Acetosellais even richer in pet-names. After Rabbits'-meat, sheep-sorrel, cuckoo-spice, we find Hallelujah! Lady's cakes, and God Almighty's bread-and-cheese. These are selected from fifty names.
Lamium purpureumis not so polyonymous. With Tormentil, Archangel, and various forms of Dead-nettle, we find only Badman's Posies and Rabbits'-meat.
The worst perplexity is that well-known names, which one would think were securely appropriated, are often common property. Our authority for the above details—theDictionary of English Plant-names, by James Britten and Robert Holland—tells us thatOrchis mascula, the 'male orchis', is also called Cowslip, Crowsfoot, Ragwort, and Cuckoo-flower. This plant, however, seems to have suggested to the rustic mind the most varied fancies, similitudes of all kinds from 'Aaron's beard' to 'kettle-pad'.
The Committee of the S.P.E. invite the membership of all those who are genuinely interested in the objects of the Society and willing to assist in its work. The Secretary will be glad to receive donations of any amount, great or small, which will be duly acknowledged and credited in the Society's banking account.
Members who wish to have the tracts of the Society forwarded to them as they are issued, should ensure this by sending a subscription of 10s. to the Secretary, who will then supply them for the current year of their subscription. The four tracts published in the last year were thus sent to a number of subscribers; and it would greatly assist the Society if all these would renew their subscriptions, and if others would subscribe for our forthcoming publications in the same manner. All donations and subscriptions should be sent to the Hon. Secretary,
L. PEARSALL SMITH,11 ST. LEONARD'S TERRACE,S.W. 3.
The prospectus of the Society will be found in Tract I, and further details in Tracts III and IV.
1No doubt all these variations of American from British usage will be duly discussed in Professor George Philip Krapp's forthcomingHistory of the English Language in America.
2Savanis quite obsolete in British use, and is not in theCentury Dictionaryor in Webster, 1911.Savantis common, and often written without italics, but the pronunciation is never anglicized.—H.B.
3The Waggoner and other Poems, by Edmund Blunden, pp. 70. Sidgwick and Jackson. London, 1920.