Page:The Cambridge History of American Literature, v4.djvu/151

Pronunciation 563 produced a secondary stress in such words as secretary, extra- ordinary. The eighteenth-century refinement of ' ' dropping the g" in going, seeing, which still persists as a "smart " pronuncia- tion in England, almost all Americans, though they use it oftener than they could be got to confess, would regard with horror because it violates what seems to them the obvious principle that all the letters should be pronounced."^ The same state of mind leads to the retention of h in hotel, hostler, rein- forces the distinction between w and wh, and induces many to persist in pronouncing an r final and before consonants, in spite of the frankly expressed disgust even of their own countrymen of the East and South. Figure has lost its fine old pronuncia- tion ("figger") for a spelling pronunciation "figyure. " As for lieutenant, Coxe (1813, p. 36) notes that "lef-tenant prevails most generally, but lew-tenant appears to be becoming more popular ' ' ; spelling has now completely carried the day. Out of deference to spelling Americans pronounce a g in physiognomy, recognisance, and sometimes even in suggest. Enough has been offered in support and illustration of the contention that the roots of American speech Ue deep in history. The same might be done for less literary speech. Lowell es- tablished the antiquity of much in the Yankee dialect of his Hosea Biglow, and it is to be presumed that research, of which there has been far too little in this field, may establish the an- tiquity, if nothing more, of many other dialectical peculiarities. ' There is not an oddity in the "coarse, uncouth dialect" of the Deerslayer and Hurry Harry {The Deer slayer, 1841) that has not its root deep in the soil of the eighteenth and preceding centu- ries. "^ Cooper has Noah Webster's own creatur', ventur', ferce. Sarpint, desarted, vartue, lamed, s'ile, app'inted, expl'ite can all be found recommended in grammars of the eighteenth cen- tury. The Oxford Spelling Book (1726) says that sigh is pro- nounced sithe "according to the common way of speaking," just as Natty Bumppo pronounces it. His ven'son is still good English. His consait (conceit), ginerous,fri'nd, 'arth sound Irish, but that is as much as to say that they belong to the old, " For the literary use of American dialects see Book III, Chap. v. ^An interesting list of "vulgar errors" may be found in Elliot and John- son's A Selected Pronouncing and Accented Dictionary, SuflBeld [Conn.], 1800, p. 16.