For both words we now have the spelling of the
noun and the pronunciation of the verb.
noun and the pronunciation of the verb.
Cambridge History of English Literature - 1908 - v14
The remedy, obviously, was to educate the teachers and
to make possible a higher education for women, for which purpose
the energetic women who had the cause at heart turned to the
universities. In 1865, girls were allowed to present themselves at
the ‘Local' examinations of Cambridge, and, in this way, periodical
authoritative statements as to girls' education were made pos-
sible. In 1869, Cambridge and London universities instituted
## p. 430 (#460) ############################################
430
[CH.
Education
6
examinations for women. Emily Davies then started the college at
Hitchin which, in 1873, was removed to Girton; in 1869, courses
of lectures were begun in Cambridge, which led to the foundation of
Newnham college. A period of great expansion followed. With
the help of the Endowed Schools commissioners, many girls'
schools were opened or revived, many endowments on revision
were divided between boys' schools and girls' schools. In 1871,
* The National Union for improving the education of women of all
classes' (among whose founders lady Stanley of Alderley and
Emily Shirreff, Mistress of Girton College, were prominent)
took up the concurrent policy of starting good, cheap das-
schools for girls and of making teaching by women a profession.
The policy was realised in the creation of The Girls' Public
Day School company in 1872 and of The Maria Grey Training
college in 1878. The university of London threw open its degree
examinations to women in 1878, Cambridge opened the triposes to
them in 1881, and, three years later, Oxford allowed women to
pass the examinations of certain of its schools. ' Colleges for
women had been instituted at Oxford in 1879. The new universi-
ties made no distinction of sex in respect of teaching, emoluments
or degrees. The project of a women's university which animates
Tennyson’s Princess (1847) has failed to secure favour ; but the
less unsubstantial elements of the poet’s ‘medley' have come near
to realisation.
No doubt, girls' schools, at the beginning, voluntarily handi-
capped themselves by trying to teach most of the things taught
in boys' schools, as well as those things which women either
need to know, or are conventionally expected to know, or to be
skilled in. But this mistake was not slow to disclose itself and be
corrected. On the other hand, they were not handicapped by
traditional methods; and the professional bent encouraged by the
advocates of a better education for girls gave the teachers a
critical attitude towards educational principles and their own work
which has resulted in a high level of teaching and of organisation,
and a freedom from routine. If this professional bias also tended
to present teaching as the most appropriate occupation of women
--which could scarcely fail to affect courses of study-later ex-
perience has reduced these early tendencies to their due proportion.
Apart from its administrative character, the relation of the
colleges of Oxford and Cambridge to the universities underwent no
great immediate change in consequence of the legislation of 1854–6.
The energy of college tutors was expended on the education of
## p. 431 (#461) ############################################
XIV]
Universities and Research
431
1
1
!
undergraduates ; it was almost a commonplace of speakers and
writers that, in striking contrast with some foreign universities,
Oxford and Cambridge produced but little original work in science
or learning. No reformers were more dissatisfied with the state
of affairs than many of the university teachers themselves.
Newman believed that a university could not at the same time
be a place of education and a home of research and learning ;
Mark Pattison, on the contrary, boldly asserted that, unless
teachers were actively engaged in advancing knowledge, their
teaching would be inadequate and barren.
All attempts to stimulate the teaching activity (of Oxford) without adding
to its solid possession of the field of science will only feed the unwholesome
system of examinations which is now undermining the educational value of
the work we actually dol.
As Pattison read the early history of colleges, their founders
intended them for the promotion of learning and the technical
instruction of priests, ecclesiastical lawyers and men of affairs; the
most urgently needed reform was the appropriation of a large part
of the college revenues to the encouragement of research and the
provision of the highest type of scientific technical instruction.
It was Pattison's hope that such a readjustment of finances would
ensure a numerous body of fairly paid teachers, who would have
time and opportunity to continue their own studies, to the ad-
vantage of the world beyond their own lecture rooms. The act
of 1877, which appointed, in both universities, commissions with
executive powers to deal with college statutes, rendered possible
the partial realisation of this policy. The abolition of religious
tests at Oxford, Cambridge and Durham in 1871 removed the last
disability which rested upon nonconformists, with the double
advantage of admitting them into the full current of national
education and of rendering university life a truer mirror of the
life of the nation at large. The greatly increased activities of both
universities since 1870 are reflected in the number and variety of
'schools' and 'triposes'instituted since that date.
The growth of university colleges' (under this or some similar
name), which was remarkable during the period 1872–84, was
the result of the development of physical science, of a better
appreciation of the dependence of industry upon science and a
more widely extended faith in the power conferred by knowledge
and intellectual cultivation, added to a growing sense of our
national deficiencies in these respects. In some places, these
1 Suggestions on academical organisation (1868).
6
## p. 432 (#462) ############################################
432
[CH.
Education
currents of opinion were strengthened or liberalised by 'university
extension,' the movement in favour of which was due, in the first
place, to the desire, already described, of making teaching a pro-
fession for women. In 1872, James Stuart was invited to give
lectures to women on the art of teaching. He preferred, however,
to deliver a course on astronomy, which he repeated in several of
the great northern cities. These lectures proved the existence of
a demand for teaching which Cambridge met in the following year
by inaugurating the plan of extra-mural lecturing and tuition, a
plan adopted by the London society (instituted in 1876) and by
Oxford in 1878. The development of all these new centres of
intellectual life led, in due course, to the creation of new uni-
versities, none of which is confined to the study of science, applied
or pure, while some have already made notable contributions to
the advancement of letters in many directions.
Owens college, founded so far back as 1851 in response to
demands very like those which had led to the creation of the
university of London, was the earliest of the university colleges
outside the capital to seek academical independence. In 1880, a
royal charter was granted to Victoria university with its seat in
Manchester, and Owens college was, at first, its only college. In
1884, it was joined by University college, Liverpool, and, in 1887,
by the Yorkshire college, Leeds, as constituted colleges of the
university. A university charter having been granted to Mason's
college, Birmingham, in 1900, the three colleges of Victoria
university were by fresh charters created the Victoria university
of Manchester (1903), the university of Liverpool (1903) and that
of Leeds (1904) respectively. The university of Sheffield was
founded in 1905, and that of Bristol in 1909. University college,
Dundee, had been affiliated to the university of St Andrews in
1897; and the Irish university system had been remodelled in
1880 and 1908—9.
The University of London act of 1898 led to the restoration of
its teaching function and the possibility of unifying the higher
education of the metropolis. It is worth remarking that, of the
eleven universities now existing south of Tweed, nine were founded
later than the reign of George IV. 'I wish we had several more
universities,' said Seeley, ‘our material progress has outrun our
intellectual? ' The worship of material success and the indiffer-
ence to “ideas' with which Mill, Arnold, Pattison, Seeley and others
charged the English middle class are, perhaps, not much less
Essays on a liberal education (1867).
1
## p. 433 (#463) ############################################
XIV]
Legislation of 1902 433
prevalent today than they were fifty years ago; but the agents for
overcoming them and the reasons why they should be overcome
have, in the interval, been greatly multiplied.
Wales preceded England in the organisation of secondary
education. The Welsh Intermediate Education act of 1889 gave
the principality a scheme which filled the gap between public
elementary schools and her three colleges, Aberystwyth, Cardiff
and Bangor; the system was completed by the incorporation of
these colleges as the university of Wales in 1893. English legisla-
tion of 1889–90, dealing with technical instruction, brought about
a chaos which rendered organisation imperative. The immediate
consequence of the acts of parliament was to stimulate the Science
and Art department's mischievous system of examination grants,
the transformation of all but the strongest grammar schools into
schools of science, the entire discouragement of literary instruction
and ruinous competition between new and old institutions. The
great school boards, assisted by the Education department, had en-
deavoured to compensate for the lack of secondary education within
their areas by the creation of higher grade schools,' which, in some
respects, partook of the nature of secondary schools, while, in others,
they resembled the higher primary schools of the continent. These,
also, became competitors, in some places, with the older schools
under boards of governors, while they bred confusion in the public
mind as to the respective functions of elementary' and 'secondary'
instruction. The Bryce commission, appointed in 1894 to review
.
the whole field of secondary instruction, reported in 1896, the chief
measures proposed being first, the creation of a Board of Educa-
tion, under a minister, to absorb the functions of the Education
department, the Science and Art department and the educational
side of the Charity commission, the new body thus becoming the
central authority for elementary, technical and secondary education;
second, the institution of a consultative committee of independent
persons competent to advise the minister; and the erection in
counties and county boroughs of Local Education authorities. In
the meantime, voluntary schools' had fallen into financial dis-
tress and denominational education suffered correspondingly. The
general policy long before indicated by Matthew Arnold, reiterated
by the Bryce commission and emphasised by the condition of the
country and the menace of foreign competition was at length
embodied in the Board of Education act of 1899 and the Education
acts of 1902—3. The English state had, after a century of hesita-
tion, consented to accept full responsibility for national education.
28
a
E. L. XIV.
CH. XIV.
## p. 434 (#464) ############################################
CHAPTER XV
CHANGES IN THE LANGUAGE SINCE
SHAKESPEARE'S TIME
In a general view of the fortunes of the English language since
Shakespeare's time, one of the first things to strike an observer is
the world-wide expansion of its use. At the beginning of the seven-
teenth century it was, with slight exceptions, confined to England.
The exceptions were Ireland, where English colonisation had begun
in the previous century, and Scotland, where literary English was
already influencing the speakers of a tongue descended from the old
Northumbrian dialect. Even today, English does not completely
occupy the whole of the United Kingdom. Celtic exists in Ireland,
in Wales and in the Scottish Highlands, while, in the Channel
islands, Norman-French has by no means disappeared. Till into the
eighteenth century, Cornish survived in Cornwall, and Norse in
Orkney and Shetland. Outside the British isles, the language has
followed the flag, and is spoken all over the empire—in Canada,
in Australia, in New Zealand, in Africa, and in the East and
West Indies. Beyond the boundaries of the empire, it possesses
a vigorous life and literature among many millions in the United
States of North Americal
Since in those regions English was planted at different times
and has been subjected to varying influences, the types of language,
especially as spoken, differ from standard English and from one an-
other. The vocabulary, in particular, is notably dissimilar. Strange
objects, new conditions of life, have either added native words, or
caused special adaptations of old words or extensions of meaning.
Sometimes, also, as in the United States, the language is splitting
1 Attempts have been made to calculate how many persons employ English.
Exact figures are not obtainable ; but, in round numbers, 120,000,000 may be considered
a tolerably safe estimate-about double the aggregate of those who speak French,
or Italian, or Spanish; and half as many again as speak German, or Russian. It is
believed that, in 1600, English was spoken by about 6,000,000, much fewer than then
spoke French, or German, or Italian, or Spanish.
## p. 435 (#465) ############################################
CH, XV]
Pronunciation
435
into dialects. To discuss all these varieties of English as well as
the numerous dialects in Britain, with their chequered history
during the last three centuries, would be impossible here, for
want of space, if for no other reason. We must, accordingly,
restrict ourselves to the standard literary language, which is every-
where practically homogeneous. Its principal changes we shall
now consider under the three divisions of pronunciation, grammar
and vocabulary
Pronunciation
A book printed in the early decades of the seventeenth century
presents little difficulty in one respect. It can be read without
much trouble; for the differences in orthography are trifling, and
whole sentences may occur with present-day spelling. But, if a
chapter from The Authorised Version or a scene from one of
Shakespeare's plays were read to us with the contemporary
pronunciation, the ear would be considerably puzzled to recognise
certain of the words. For, while the spelling has remained
tolerably constant, many of the sounds have changed a great
deal.
To begin with the vowels. Middle English i and è, in wit and
men for example, have, as a rule, continued unaltered. Not so
the other vowels, whether single or diphthongal. Sometimes, one
Middle English sound has, in modern times, split into several,
as a in man, was, path. Sometimes different Middle English
sounds have converged : name, day, which have now one and the
same vowel sound, had distinct sounds (ā, ai) in Middle English.
Today see and sea are indistinguishable in pronunciation. In
Middle English, the former had tense ē, the latter slack ē; and
their pronunciation was dissimilar till into the eighteenth century.
This explains and justifies the rimes in Pope :
But for the wits of either Charles's days,
The mob of gentlemen who wrote with ease;
and in Cowper :
I am monarch of all I survey,
My right there is none to dispute,
From the centre all round to the sea
I am lord of the fowl and the brute.
The vowel sound in sea, meat, heat, treat, deal was then identical
with the vowel sound in day, name: it is now the same as in meet,
feel, see. There are exceptions, however : great, break, steak have
not followed the example of the others. Middle English Ō also
2842
## p. 436 (#466) ############################################
436
Changes in the Language [CH.
had a tense and a slack value. Tense 7 changed to ū, which
remains in such words as too, soon, moon. Sometimes ū has been
shortened and made slacker: hence, the sound we have in book,
good. Slack 7 has been diphthongised to the sound heard in go,
stone, coat. Middle English ŭ was unrounded in the seventeenth
century. Then, in words like sun, son, come it was lowered to its
present value; but, in other words, it was again rounded, as in bull,
full, put. Consequently, cut and put no longer rime. Middle
English i and ū were gradually diphthongised till they acquired
their modern sounds, as in wine and house. The diphthong oi has
now the same sound as in Middle English ; but that does not imply
that it has undergone no change. It altered from time to time till
its accepted value closely resembled the current pronunciation of
the diphthong in wine, to which it was then assimilated. Dryden
rimes coin'd, mind; choice, vice; join, line. Similarly, Pope rimes
night with doit, mind with join'd; and writes :
Waller was smooth; but Dryden taught to join
The varying verse, the full-resounding line,
The long majestic march, and energy divine.
In those days, the oi sound was considered 'low'in such words as
join; now it is correct, while the other pronunciation is vulgar,
dialectic, or comic as in “strike ile. The influence of the spelling
helped, in comparatively recent times, to restore the old sound of oi.
During the last three centuries the consonants have, on the
whole, been more stable than the vowels ; but they, also, have
suffered certain changes. In words like night, gh seems to have
been mute by 1600, while the vowel received compensatory
lengthening. In laugh, enough, thought, sought, gh continued
to be pronounced into the seventeenth century, though not un-
modified. Then it disappeared, or was replaced by an f sound.
In the same century, the k sound was vanishing from know, knee,
and the g sound from gnaw, gnarled. The first step was for kn to
become tn—a combination still heard in parts of Perthshire and
Forfarshire. J. M. Barrie (Auld Licht Idylls, chap. VIII) has
T''nowhead instead of Knowhead. Colonel Lovelace (To Lricasta)
could sing,
For whether he will let me pass
Or no, I'm still as happy as I was.
But the voicing of s in is, was, and other words, has made such a
rime inadmissible, though Byron (Childe Harold, iv, 1473—5) and
Keats (Lamia, 126—7) employ was with voiceless 8. Certain
## p. 437 (#467) ############################################
Xv]
Phonetic Changes
437
8 sounds changed in the seventeenth century to sh, as in passion,
sure, sugar, ocean, nation; others to zh, as in leisure, osier, usual.
During the same period, t following 8 or f and followed by l, m,
or n, regularly became silent, as in castle, chestnut, Christmas,
soften. Towards the close of the eighteenth century, changes
started in the pronunciation of initial h and wh. H came to be
regularly dropped, but it has since reappeared in standard speech,
partly because of the spelling, partly because it had been retained
in Ireland and Scotland. So strong was the reaction that h is now
heard in words where it had all along been silent, as herb, hospital,
humour, humble. One of the marks of Uriah Heep's vulgarity is
his iteration of 'umble. In words like when, white, wh began to
be levelled under w. Purists have sought to revive the sound
of wh, especially where confusion might result, as in whet con-
trasted with wet. In recent times one of the most noteworthy
developments has been the loss of r as a trill. Dr Johnson speaks
of the 'rough snarling sound of r in his day. Now, it is lost
medially before other consonants, and finally, in most cases, except
in combinations where a vowel sound follows, as far away. Early
in modern English, r modified preceding vowels. Contrast Middle
English sterre, hert, herte with present-day star, hart, heart; and
note the modern sound of clerk and Derby. In addition, r levelled
distinct vowels under one sound, as in bird, word, fur; while it
sometimes caused a vowel murmur to develop, as in fire, fair, cure.
Phonetic changes do not necessarily make a language better
or worse in its essential character of an instrument to reveal our
thoughts. The modern pronunciation of house, wine, fair need
not be more expressive, or less expressive, than the older pro-
nunciation. But, in certain instances, the change may produce
ambiguity or may be useful only for puns. In the following
groups, for example, the words were formerly distinct in sound
but are now identical-father, farther; no, know; ruf, rough.
Phonetic change, as we have seen, forbids rimes formerly allow-
able, as days with ease, makes with speaks, great with cheat,
though poetic tradition may admit an obsolete rime and call it
an eye-rime, as love with move. On the other hand, new rimes
may develop: the change in the sound of Middle English slack ē now
permits sweet to rime with meat. Alliteration may, also, be upset
by an altered pronunciation. When chivalry is sounded with initial
sh (as if the word were a recent importation from France) instead
of tch, the alliterative effect in Campbell's Hohenlinden is ruined-
And charge with all thy chivalry.
## p. 438 (#468) ############################################
438
Changes in the Language [CH.
The untrilling of r may spoil the force of onomatopoeia, where that
depends on the 'rough snarling sound. '
In Middle English, words of French origin (as courage, honour,
nature) sometimes had the stress shifted from the last syllable to
the first. This tendency has increased in modern English, and in
such words the stress is now permanent on the first syllable. In
certain words, the throwing back of the stress has taken place
quite recently. In the seventeenth century, bigoted had the stress
and spelling of bigoťted. The spelling lingered into the eighteenth
century, as in Burke's Present Discontents. Till about 1820,
balcoʻny was almost the only stress. Cowper, in John Gilpin,
has
At Edmonton his loving wife
From the balcony spied;
and Byron, in Beppo, rimes balcony with Giorgione. The Oxford
English Dictionary points out that, though con'templatel occurs
from the sixteenth century to the nineteenth, orthoepists generally
have contem'plate down to the third quarter of last century. Since
then, con'template has more and more prevailed. Similar shifting of
stress is found in concentrate, confiscate, compensate, demonstrate,
enervate, illustrate, but not in remonstrate. Some eighteenth-
century authorities stressed the last syllable of recondite, others
(as Dr Johnson) the middle. Dr Johnson's way still has followers;
but The Oxford English Dictionary stresses the first syllable.
Till about 1800, revenue regularly had the stress on the middle
syllable, a pronunciation which to a much later date was current
in legal and parliamentary circles.
In spite of the changes in the pronunciation of English since
the close of the sixteenth century, the spelling has altered little.
Middle English spelling was phonetically defective; but, still, every
writer tried to make it represent his own pronunciation. The result
was a varying orthography. This continued into the modern
English period, with additional variations caused by attempts at
etymological spelling. In the early years of the seventeenth
century, the same volume, sometimes the same page, has such
differences as the following: beene, bene, bin; detter, debter;
guests, ghests; yles, isles; vitaile, victuals; hautie, haughtie; he,
hee; least, lest. But it began to be felt more convenient to keep
one spelling for a word; and, by the end of the eighteenth century,
our orthographical system was practically in its present shape
Early in that century, Robinson Crusoe has surprize, lyon, tyger,
1. Con'template,' said Samuel Rogers, 'is bad enough, but balcony makes me sick. '
## p. 439 (#469) ############################################
Xv]
Modern Spelling
439
cloaths, taylor. Fifty years later, controul, publick, dutchy, cryer,
interiour occur in Burke's Present Discontents. Johnson spent
much time and trouble in adjusting what he calls our 'unsettled
and fortuitous' orthography; but he confesses that he was often
obliged 'to sacrifice uniformity to custom': to write convey and
inveigh, deceit and receipt, fancy and phantom. An examination
of his Dictionary will show that he successfully anticipated the
orthography that triumphed, or, perhaps, his way commended itself
to writers and printers; for, with a few exceptions like chymist,
domestick, dutchess, translatour, his spellings are ours.
Modern spelling is marked by two features: fixity (such
diversities as judgment by the side of judgement notwithstand-
ing), and an almost entire dissociation from the spoken language.
Phonetic representations like bet, fin, hop, put, are few. On the
whole, we spell by the eye, not by the ear. The ear helps little
in a language where one sign may represent several sounds, as
ch in which, chemistry, machine; and i in pick, pike, pique; or
where one sound may be represented by a variety of signs, as in
go, oath, stone, dough, sow, sew; and in call, keen, deck, chaos,
quoit.
Though a fixed orthography has not generally checked phonetic
change, the spelling has, in certain instances, helped to restore an
older pronunciation, as noted before in regard to oi and h. So,
too, in words like backward, forward, Edward, where, in the
seventeenth century, the w sound was regularly dropped. The n
sound is now generally heard in kiln, where it became mute in
early modern English. A number of words had letters inserted,
rightly or wrongly, as a clue to the etymology. In some of these,
the insertion has not affected the pronunciation, as b in doubt;
c in scent, victuals; g in foreign; 1 in salmon; 8 in island. In
others, the letter has gradually come to be pronounced, as c in
perfect, verdict; th (for t) in apothecary, author, anthem; 1 in
fault, vault, falcon, solder. The struggle of perfet to keep its
ground against perfect is visible in Milton's poems, where perfect
and imperfect occur thirty-four times, twenty-two of them without
His Areopagitica has perfeted and autority. Fault was pro-
nounced without the l sound till into the eighteenth century.
Pope rimes it with ought, thought; Dr Johnson says, “The 1 is
sometimes sounded, sometimes mute. In conversation it is generally
suppressed'; and Goldsmith writes,
Yet he was kind, or, if severe in aught,
The love he bore to learning was in fault.
## p. 440 (#470) ############################################
440 Changes in the Language [CH.
At the present day, solder and falcon may be pronounced with or
without l; while falconry and falconer have no l sound.
Finally, three of the eccentricities of English spelling and
pronunciation may be mentioned. Originally, the noun ache
differed in spelling and in pronunciation from the verb ake, as
speech from speak. About 1700, however, the noun began to be
confused in pronunciation with the verb, and then in spelling.
Dr Johnson registers both formas but makes no distinction. He
derives the word-wrongly-from Greek ăxos, and, consequently,
prefers ache.
For both words we now have the spelling of the
noun and the pronunciation of the verb. The old pronunciation
of the noun lingered as a stage tradition into the nineteenth
century, which explains the saying of the O. P. rioters (1809), “John
Kemble's head aitches,' where they gave the verb the sound of
the noun. Evidently, Thackeray considered this pronunciation
sufficiently well known to his readers in 1849—50, for he writes,
perhaps imitating Shakespeare's pun in Much Ado-
. . . Lady Brouncker; who was a druggist's daughter, or some such thing,
and as Tom Wag remarked of her, never wanted medicine certainly, for she
never had an h in her life. (Pendennis, chap. VII. )
Bowl, a vessel, and bowl, a ball, are now spelled and pronounced
,
alike. Originally different, they continued distinct into the
eighteenth century. Later, the pronunciation of the former word
and the spelling of the latter came to be adopted for both. Colonel,
with the first l sounded as l, was trisyllabic in the early part of the
seventeenth century, as in Milton's
Captain or Colonel or Knight in Arms.
Soon after the restoration it became disyllabic. “It is now,' says
Dr Johnson, 'generally sounded with only two distinct syllables,
colnel. But another form coronel had lived in popular usage;
and, in the nineteenth century, while the spelling with l remained,
the pronunciation with r was adopted.
Grammar
The story of English grammar is a story of simplification, of
dispensing with grammatical forms. Though a few inflections have
survived, yet, compared with Old English, the present-day language
has been justly designated one of lost inflections. It is analytic,
and not synthetic. This stage had virtually been reached
by the beginning of the seventeenth century, though certain
modifications have taken place since then.
## p. 441 (#471) ############################################
xv]
Inflectional Shortening
441
One of those is the supersession, in the standard language,
of verb forms like cometh (originally midland and southern) by
northern forms like comes. In the early seventeenth century,
the prose usage was still -eth. The Authorised Version has nothing
else. In poetry, especially dramatic poetry, the form in -8 was a
licence borrowed from colloquial speech, and helpful for metre or
euphony, as when Shakespeare has in The Merchant of Venice,
Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves;
and
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
For a time, the custom prevailed of writing -eth, but pronouncing -8.
In 1643, Richard Hodges says,
howsoever wee use to write thus, leadeth it, maketh it, noteth it, raketh it,
perfumeth it, etc. Yet in our ordinary speech. . . we say leads it, makes it,
notes it, rakes it, perfumes it.
He also gives a list of words alike in sound and unlike in their
signification and writing,' where we find such groups as,
Cox, cocks, cocketh up the hay.
Furze, furreth, furs.
Jests, gests, gesteth.
Mr Knox, hee knocketh many knocks.
Rites, rights, wheel-wrights, righteth, writeth.
Waits, weights, waiteth1.
Gradually, -8 predominated, but -eth did not disappear. It was
heard in church, though, even there, -8 was frequently sounded
instead. In The Spectator (no. 147), Steele denounces
a set of readers, who affect forsooth a certain gentlemanlike familiarity of
tone and mend the language as they go on, crying instead of pardoneth and
absolveth, pardons and absolves.
In an earlier Spectator (no. 135), Addison speaks of
the change which has bappened in our language by the abbreviation of
several words that are terminated in eth, by substituting an s in the room
of the last syllable, as in drowns, walks, arrives. . . which in the pronunciation
of our forefathers were drowneth, walketh, arriveth. This has wonderfully
multiplied a letter which was before too frequent in the English tongue, and
added to that hissing in our language, which is taken so much notice of by
foreigners; but at the same time humours our taciturnity and eases us of
many superfluous syllables.
In the days of the romantic revival, poets resuscitated the
-eth, which continues to live in poetry and, also, to some extent,
in prose. The poet finds it advantageous for rhythm, or rime,
1 Ellis, Early English Pronunciation, iv, 1018 ff.
## p. 442 (#472) ############################################
442 Changes in the Language [CH.
or euphony. Swinburne, in Atalanta in Calydon, rimes saith with
breath, while Tennyson, in The Lady of Shalott, sings,
And so she weaveth steadily,
And little other care hath she.
Another inflectional shortening occurs in the -ed of verbs. In
early modern English, the weak vowel here was dropped in the
spoken language, except, of course, in forms like mended, rooted.
In the higher language, however, -ed was fully sounded after all
consonants, especially by poets for the sake of metre, who naturally
also dropped the vowel if necessary, as Shakespeare in
Hugg'd and embracëd by the strumpet wind.
Gradually, the colloquial usage encroached upon the literary.
In the passage of The Spectator already cited, Addison protests
against this loss of a syllable.
"The same natural aversion to loquacity,' he says, 'has of late years made a
very considerable alteration in our language by closing in one syllable the
termination of our praeterperfect tense, as in these words, drown'd, walk'd,
arrivd, for drowned, walked, arrived, which has very much disfigured the
tongue, and turned a tenth part of our smoothest words into so many clusters
of consonants. '
The full syllable has lived on in the liturgical language, where we
have blessëd, cursëd, beloved, believed.
During the last two centuries, the second person singular of
verbs (as lovest, lovedst, wilt love) has gradually vanished from
ordinary usage. This has gone hand in hand with the disuse of thou.
In Middle English, French influence led to the employment of ye,
you as a ceremonious substitute for thou, thee; and, by 1600, the
plural had come to be the regular polite form of address, while
the singular remained chiefly in family use (parent to child, master
to servant) and for contempt. Thou, consequently, became gene-
rally obsolete, though still retained in poetry, in liturgical language,
sporadically in dialects, and by quakers—who employ thee as
nominative construed with third singular. The surrender of thou
is, to some extent, a loss. English has no longer the advantage
of a familiar as well as a polite style of address nor the clearness
arising from the power to make a formal distinction in number.
Further simplification in the verb is found in the disappearance
of subjunctive forms. The only remaining parts are be and were,
and the forms without -8 in the third singular of the present tense.
The syntax, also, of the subjunctive has greatly shrunk since
Middle English days, and is still shrinking. At times, however,
the tendency has been checked. In the seventeenth and the
a
## p. 443 (#473) ############################################
6
xv]
Losses in Syntax
443
eighteenth century, were of rejected conditions and unfulfilled
wishes seemed to be regularly giving place to was.
But it has
recovered lost ground, and in such constructions was for were
is now a distinct vulgarism. The subjunctive, however, has
been entirely or almost entirely abandoned in the following-
indirect assertions : 'I think he be transformed into a beast'
(As You Like It); indefinite adjective clauses : 'a prone and
speechless dialect such as move men' (Measure for Measure);
concessive clauses regarded as real : ‘no marvel though thou
scorn thy noble peers, when I, thy brother, am rejected thus'
(Edward II); and clauses of future time. The last construction
is still, occasionally, found, especially in poetry : Tennyson writes,
Till in all lands and through all human story
The path of duty be the way to glory.
At the present time, Othello’s ‘Judge me the world' would
regularly be expressed by 'Let the world judge me’; and,
generally, forms with may, might, should, would, are, for clearness,
preferred to simple subjunctives. In ‘Hadst thou been here, my
brother had not died,' the apodosis would take the compound form.
Other syntactical losses since Shakespeare's day include the
constructions 'good my lord' and 'I know thee who thou art';
against and without as conjunctions; the ethic dative; the
accusative and infinitive as subject, now superseded by the
construction with for: 'for a man to behave so is absurd’; be
as the auxiliary of perfect tenses in certain intransitive verbs, a
usage still existing in instances like ‘he is gone. ' In the Elizabethan
age, me as the ethic dative was sometimes felt to be obscure
and was easily mistaken for the direct object. This ambiguity
Shakespeare (The Taming of the Shrew, 1, 2, ad init. ) seized upon
to bewilder the clown Grumio-
Petruchio. Villain, I say, knock me at this gate
And rap me well, or I'll knock your knave's pate.
Grumio. My master is grown quarrelsome. I should knock you first,
And then I know after who comes by the worst.
These old usages bave been revived in recent times in poetry and
historical fiction ; but, unless skilfully and sparingly employed,
they are apt to offend, as when Stevenson overdoes the ethic dative
in The Black Arrow.
In certain nouns, the same combination of sounds may stand
for different ideas. To the ear, horses represents the genitive
singular as well as all the plural cases. To the eye, this defect is
## p. 444 (#474) ############################################
444 Changes in the Language [Ch.
6
so far remedied by the device of the apostrophe: horse's, horses,
horses'. This distinction began to appear in the seventeenth
century, but it was not a settled usage till the eighteenth.
"The gradual restriction of the apostrophe to the genitive,' says Henry
Sweet in his New English Grammar, 'apparently arose from the belief that
such a genitive as prince's in the prince's book was a shortening of prince
his, as shown by such spellings as the prince his booki!
The employment of his for the genitive suffix was most prevalent
from 1400 to 1750. In the sixteenth and the seventeenth century,
it was chiefly used with proper names ending in a sibilant, or to
avoid an awkward inflectional genitive. It occurs in Dryden, as in
Astraea Redux,
Such is not Charles his too too active age.
The Prayer Book of 1662 has, ' And this we beg for Jesus Christ
his sake. ' The Pilgrim's Progress, part 11, has. Gaius his kindness
to Feeble-mind. ' Many an old tome is inscribed 'John Smith his
book'; and the usage (which still survives, in book-keeping for
example) was turned by Dickens into a joke in ‘Bill Stumps, His
mark. '
Many changes exemplify what Addison calls humouring our
national taciturnity, while they do no injury to clearness of
expression. Old and Middle English revelled in multiplying
negatives for emphasis. The practice was retained by the Eliza-
bethans; but, in time, the principle prevailed that two negatives
contradict each other and make an affirmative. In standard
English, we now find one negative only, though, colloquially, we
may still hear the old redundancy. Double comparison, another
Elizabethan characteristic-Ben Jonson reckoned it an elegancy
of style, 'a certain kind of English Atticism'-began to die out in
the seventeenth century, and now survives only as a vulgarism.
Occasionally, however, it appears in poetry, as in Swinburne's
Atalanta,
Touch the most dimmest height of trembling heaven.
The desire to lop off superfluities accounts for various types of
omissions, as of in 'That is no use'; the verb after to in ‘Are you
going? '--'I should like to,' or 'He must leave now, though he
doesn't want to'; and it is in as usual. ' Swift still wrote the last
in full (Gulliver's Travels, part II, chap. I), ‘Whereof three or four
came into the room, as it is usual in farmers' houses. '
1 'I might here observe that the same single letter [8] on many occasions does
the office of a whole word and represents the His and Her of our forefathers. '
Addison, The Spectator, no. 135.
## p. 445 (#475) ############################################
Xv]
The Attributive Noun
445
Further condensation is seen in the wide use in modern
English of the attributive noun instead of a phrase more or less
lengthy. The usage began in Middle English, and has been
vigorously extended in present-day language. It is regularly
employed in all kinds of new phrases, as when we speak of
birthday congratulations, Canada balsam, a motor garage.
Compound expressions are similarly applied, as loose leaf book
manufacturers, The Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, a
dog-in-the-manger policy.
The attributive noun is not an isolated phenomenon in English.
It belongs to the widespread tendency whereby a part of speech
jumps its category. The dropping of distinctive endings made
many nouns, for example, identical with the corresponding verbs;
and, consequently, form presented no obstacle to the use of the
one for the other. The interchange was also facilitated by the
habit of indicating a word's function or construction by its
position in the sentence. This liberty became licence in the
Elizabethan age. ‘Almost any part of speech,' says E. A. Abbott,
'can be used as any other part of speech? ' Later usage has been
more restrained, but of the liberty advantage has been amply
and profitably taken. The following are examples of nouns con-
verted into verbs in recent times: ape, balloon, burlesque, cartoon,
dovetail, gas, laager, lampoon, loot, palaver, sky, tailor, telescope,
tiptoe, tool; of verbs into nouns: build, futter, haul, shampoo,
sip, sneer, sneeze, splash, tinkle, trend; of adjectives into verbs :
grey, tidy. To distinguish the double function, the pronunciation
is sometimes varied, as a good rec'ord but to record' it; an agëd
man but he ag(e)d rapidly.
An extreme instance of this freedom appears in sentences
transformed, for the nonce, into attributes, as when Dickens writes,
'a little man with a puffy “Say-nothing-to-me-or-I'll-contradict-
you" sort of countenance'; or into verbs, as in Browning's lines,
While, treading down rose and ranunculus,
You Tommy-make-room-for-your-uncle' us.
One might have expected that the tendency to simplify would
lead English to abolish the strong conjugation with its numerous
complications; but, apparently, any bias towards uniformity has
been counteracted by conservatism linked with the superiority
which the strong verbs possess in clearness, brevity and ease of
pronunciation. Weak forms have, indeed, been adopted, as crowed
for crew, climbed for clomb, melted for molten. On the other
1 A Shakespearian Grammar, Introduction ad init. and 8 290.
## p. 446 (#476) ############################################
446
Changes in the Language [ch.
hand, certain verbs, as dig and stick, formerly weak, are now
strong. It was in the eighteenth century that dug prevailed over
digged, which is the only form found in Shakespeare, The
Authorised Version and Milton. Dug and stuck are easier
sounds than digged and sticked. Within the strong conjugation,
numerous changes have been made. In the sixteenth and the
seventeenth century, there was a general movement towards
supplanting the form of the perfect participle by the form of the
past indicative. Shakespeare used mistook for mistaken, drove
for driven, wrote for written. Goldsmith and other eighteenth-
century writers did the same; and, in their days, drank threatened
to supersede drunk. In present-day English, the original parti-
ciples have, as a rule, been restored, though stood has permanently
displaced stonden.
Other parts of speech have been regularised. One instance is
the modern distinction between who and which as relatives. In
the Elizabethan age, these pronouns could refer indifferently to
persons and things, a usage which lasted into the eighteenth
century. In the first half of the preceding century, they had
seemed likely to drive out that; but, in time, that recovered
lost ground and even encroached upon the others. Steele (The
Spectator, no. 78, cf. no. 80) sets forth the grievances of who and
which in a petition to Mr Spectator-
. . . your petitioners, being in a forlorn and destitute condition, know not to
whom we should apply ourselves for relief, because there is hardly any man
alive who has not injured us. Nay, we speak it with sorrow, even you
yourself, whom we should suspect of such a practice the last of all mankind,
can hardly acquit yourself of having given us some cause of complaint. We
are descended of ancient families, and kept up our dignity and honour many
years, till the jacksprat that supplanted us.
Later in the eighteenth century, who and which came again into
favour; and the three relatives have since been advantageously
employed to fulfil different functions.
In Elizabethan English generally, a strange welter appears
in the cases of pronouns-nominative for accusative, accusative
for nominative. Since then, order has been, for the most part,
restored : nominative and accusative are, as a rule, correctly
employed. We have still, however, such expressions as “Who is
that for? ' But 'It is me' is not frequent till the first half of
the eighteenth century. Before that, 'It is I' was general.
In Middle English, the two methods of comparing adjectives—
by inflection and by periphrasis--were employed indiscriminately,
Later, the method was regularised; and inflectional comparison
## p. 447 (#477) ############################################
Xv] Regularising of Parts, of Speech 447
became restricted to monosyllables and to such disyllables as
the addition does not make discordant. Sixteenth-century writers
supply examples of what we now consider uncouth shapes—elo-
quenter, virtuouser, artificialest, excellentest, famousest, learned'st,
tediousest, unwillingest. Sometimes, the pages of recent poets
and prose-writers bristle with forms like daringest, wonderfulest,
wretcheder.
In Middle English and early modern English (for example, in
Shakespeare and The Authorised Version), shall and will, when
employed as auxiliaries, are not in conformity with present-day
usage. This established itself in the seventeenth century, but
only in England. It never got a footing in the Scottish or the
Irish dialect; and natives of Scotland and Ireland find it hard, if
not impossible, to acquire the standard system with its intricate
rules 1.
By the beginning of the modern English period, do was in
regular use as an auxiliary; and it seemed as if the forms with do
and did were to oust those without. At first, no fixed principle
guided the employment of do write, did write, for write, wrote.
It might be euphony, or perspicuity, or metre, or caprice. Com-
pare the following:
So they did eat, and were filled.
Mark, viii, 8.
Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep.
Romans, xii, 15.
It lifted up it head, and did address
Itself to motion.
Hamlet, 1, 2, 215 f.
In the early seventeenth century, however, the language began to
restrict do to certain special functions. 'Does he write? ' came
to take the place of 'Writes he? ' 'He did not write’ the place of
'He wrote not. ' In affirmations, the custom arose of avoiding do
except for emphasis, or in particular cases where the order of
words requires it, as in 'So quietly does he come,’ ‘Nor did he
hesitate. ' But the indiscriminate use of unemphatic do did not
readily vanish; and that gave point to Pope's gibe in 1711,
While expletives their feeble aid do join.
In his Dictionary (1755), Johnson brands unemphatic do 'as a
vicious mode of speech. ' A quarter of a century later, he writes
(Lives of the Poets), 'The words do and did, which so much
degrade in present estimation the line that admits them, were in
1 Gerald Molloy's book on the subject has as its sub-title. The Irish Difficulty';
and J. M. Barrie (When a Man's Single, chap. XVII) uses the mystery to poke fun at
a fellow-Scot.
6
## p. 448 (#478) ############################################
448
Changes in the Language [CH.
the time of Cowley little censured or avoided. ' In spite of Johnson,
later poets have gladly availed themselves of do and did for pur-
poses of metre. Till recent times, doest and dost, doeth and doth
were not differentiated in use. In vain one searches the 1611
edition of The Authorised Version to find why doth appears in
one place, doeth in another. The nineteenth century made doest,
doeth, the verb of full meaning, dost, doth, the auxiliary.
But, during the last three centuries, English has not merely
been regularised and simplified. It has also devised new gram-
matical material to improve the old or replace the lost.
to make possible a higher education for women, for which purpose
the energetic women who had the cause at heart turned to the
universities. In 1865, girls were allowed to present themselves at
the ‘Local' examinations of Cambridge, and, in this way, periodical
authoritative statements as to girls' education were made pos-
sible. In 1869, Cambridge and London universities instituted
## p. 430 (#460) ############################################
430
[CH.
Education
6
examinations for women. Emily Davies then started the college at
Hitchin which, in 1873, was removed to Girton; in 1869, courses
of lectures were begun in Cambridge, which led to the foundation of
Newnham college. A period of great expansion followed. With
the help of the Endowed Schools commissioners, many girls'
schools were opened or revived, many endowments on revision
were divided between boys' schools and girls' schools. In 1871,
* The National Union for improving the education of women of all
classes' (among whose founders lady Stanley of Alderley and
Emily Shirreff, Mistress of Girton College, were prominent)
took up the concurrent policy of starting good, cheap das-
schools for girls and of making teaching by women a profession.
The policy was realised in the creation of The Girls' Public
Day School company in 1872 and of The Maria Grey Training
college in 1878. The university of London threw open its degree
examinations to women in 1878, Cambridge opened the triposes to
them in 1881, and, three years later, Oxford allowed women to
pass the examinations of certain of its schools. ' Colleges for
women had been instituted at Oxford in 1879. The new universi-
ties made no distinction of sex in respect of teaching, emoluments
or degrees. The project of a women's university which animates
Tennyson’s Princess (1847) has failed to secure favour ; but the
less unsubstantial elements of the poet’s ‘medley' have come near
to realisation.
No doubt, girls' schools, at the beginning, voluntarily handi-
capped themselves by trying to teach most of the things taught
in boys' schools, as well as those things which women either
need to know, or are conventionally expected to know, or to be
skilled in. But this mistake was not slow to disclose itself and be
corrected. On the other hand, they were not handicapped by
traditional methods; and the professional bent encouraged by the
advocates of a better education for girls gave the teachers a
critical attitude towards educational principles and their own work
which has resulted in a high level of teaching and of organisation,
and a freedom from routine. If this professional bias also tended
to present teaching as the most appropriate occupation of women
--which could scarcely fail to affect courses of study-later ex-
perience has reduced these early tendencies to their due proportion.
Apart from its administrative character, the relation of the
colleges of Oxford and Cambridge to the universities underwent no
great immediate change in consequence of the legislation of 1854–6.
The energy of college tutors was expended on the education of
## p. 431 (#461) ############################################
XIV]
Universities and Research
431
1
1
!
undergraduates ; it was almost a commonplace of speakers and
writers that, in striking contrast with some foreign universities,
Oxford and Cambridge produced but little original work in science
or learning. No reformers were more dissatisfied with the state
of affairs than many of the university teachers themselves.
Newman believed that a university could not at the same time
be a place of education and a home of research and learning ;
Mark Pattison, on the contrary, boldly asserted that, unless
teachers were actively engaged in advancing knowledge, their
teaching would be inadequate and barren.
All attempts to stimulate the teaching activity (of Oxford) without adding
to its solid possession of the field of science will only feed the unwholesome
system of examinations which is now undermining the educational value of
the work we actually dol.
As Pattison read the early history of colleges, their founders
intended them for the promotion of learning and the technical
instruction of priests, ecclesiastical lawyers and men of affairs; the
most urgently needed reform was the appropriation of a large part
of the college revenues to the encouragement of research and the
provision of the highest type of scientific technical instruction.
It was Pattison's hope that such a readjustment of finances would
ensure a numerous body of fairly paid teachers, who would have
time and opportunity to continue their own studies, to the ad-
vantage of the world beyond their own lecture rooms. The act
of 1877, which appointed, in both universities, commissions with
executive powers to deal with college statutes, rendered possible
the partial realisation of this policy. The abolition of religious
tests at Oxford, Cambridge and Durham in 1871 removed the last
disability which rested upon nonconformists, with the double
advantage of admitting them into the full current of national
education and of rendering university life a truer mirror of the
life of the nation at large. The greatly increased activities of both
universities since 1870 are reflected in the number and variety of
'schools' and 'triposes'instituted since that date.
The growth of university colleges' (under this or some similar
name), which was remarkable during the period 1872–84, was
the result of the development of physical science, of a better
appreciation of the dependence of industry upon science and a
more widely extended faith in the power conferred by knowledge
and intellectual cultivation, added to a growing sense of our
national deficiencies in these respects. In some places, these
1 Suggestions on academical organisation (1868).
6
## p. 432 (#462) ############################################
432
[CH.
Education
currents of opinion were strengthened or liberalised by 'university
extension,' the movement in favour of which was due, in the first
place, to the desire, already described, of making teaching a pro-
fession for women. In 1872, James Stuart was invited to give
lectures to women on the art of teaching. He preferred, however,
to deliver a course on astronomy, which he repeated in several of
the great northern cities. These lectures proved the existence of
a demand for teaching which Cambridge met in the following year
by inaugurating the plan of extra-mural lecturing and tuition, a
plan adopted by the London society (instituted in 1876) and by
Oxford in 1878. The development of all these new centres of
intellectual life led, in due course, to the creation of new uni-
versities, none of which is confined to the study of science, applied
or pure, while some have already made notable contributions to
the advancement of letters in many directions.
Owens college, founded so far back as 1851 in response to
demands very like those which had led to the creation of the
university of London, was the earliest of the university colleges
outside the capital to seek academical independence. In 1880, a
royal charter was granted to Victoria university with its seat in
Manchester, and Owens college was, at first, its only college. In
1884, it was joined by University college, Liverpool, and, in 1887,
by the Yorkshire college, Leeds, as constituted colleges of the
university. A university charter having been granted to Mason's
college, Birmingham, in 1900, the three colleges of Victoria
university were by fresh charters created the Victoria university
of Manchester (1903), the university of Liverpool (1903) and that
of Leeds (1904) respectively. The university of Sheffield was
founded in 1905, and that of Bristol in 1909. University college,
Dundee, had been affiliated to the university of St Andrews in
1897; and the Irish university system had been remodelled in
1880 and 1908—9.
The University of London act of 1898 led to the restoration of
its teaching function and the possibility of unifying the higher
education of the metropolis. It is worth remarking that, of the
eleven universities now existing south of Tweed, nine were founded
later than the reign of George IV. 'I wish we had several more
universities,' said Seeley, ‘our material progress has outrun our
intellectual? ' The worship of material success and the indiffer-
ence to “ideas' with which Mill, Arnold, Pattison, Seeley and others
charged the English middle class are, perhaps, not much less
Essays on a liberal education (1867).
1
## p. 433 (#463) ############################################
XIV]
Legislation of 1902 433
prevalent today than they were fifty years ago; but the agents for
overcoming them and the reasons why they should be overcome
have, in the interval, been greatly multiplied.
Wales preceded England in the organisation of secondary
education. The Welsh Intermediate Education act of 1889 gave
the principality a scheme which filled the gap between public
elementary schools and her three colleges, Aberystwyth, Cardiff
and Bangor; the system was completed by the incorporation of
these colleges as the university of Wales in 1893. English legisla-
tion of 1889–90, dealing with technical instruction, brought about
a chaos which rendered organisation imperative. The immediate
consequence of the acts of parliament was to stimulate the Science
and Art department's mischievous system of examination grants,
the transformation of all but the strongest grammar schools into
schools of science, the entire discouragement of literary instruction
and ruinous competition between new and old institutions. The
great school boards, assisted by the Education department, had en-
deavoured to compensate for the lack of secondary education within
their areas by the creation of higher grade schools,' which, in some
respects, partook of the nature of secondary schools, while, in others,
they resembled the higher primary schools of the continent. These,
also, became competitors, in some places, with the older schools
under boards of governors, while they bred confusion in the public
mind as to the respective functions of elementary' and 'secondary'
instruction. The Bryce commission, appointed in 1894 to review
.
the whole field of secondary instruction, reported in 1896, the chief
measures proposed being first, the creation of a Board of Educa-
tion, under a minister, to absorb the functions of the Education
department, the Science and Art department and the educational
side of the Charity commission, the new body thus becoming the
central authority for elementary, technical and secondary education;
second, the institution of a consultative committee of independent
persons competent to advise the minister; and the erection in
counties and county boroughs of Local Education authorities. In
the meantime, voluntary schools' had fallen into financial dis-
tress and denominational education suffered correspondingly. The
general policy long before indicated by Matthew Arnold, reiterated
by the Bryce commission and emphasised by the condition of the
country and the menace of foreign competition was at length
embodied in the Board of Education act of 1899 and the Education
acts of 1902—3. The English state had, after a century of hesita-
tion, consented to accept full responsibility for national education.
28
a
E. L. XIV.
CH. XIV.
## p. 434 (#464) ############################################
CHAPTER XV
CHANGES IN THE LANGUAGE SINCE
SHAKESPEARE'S TIME
In a general view of the fortunes of the English language since
Shakespeare's time, one of the first things to strike an observer is
the world-wide expansion of its use. At the beginning of the seven-
teenth century it was, with slight exceptions, confined to England.
The exceptions were Ireland, where English colonisation had begun
in the previous century, and Scotland, where literary English was
already influencing the speakers of a tongue descended from the old
Northumbrian dialect. Even today, English does not completely
occupy the whole of the United Kingdom. Celtic exists in Ireland,
in Wales and in the Scottish Highlands, while, in the Channel
islands, Norman-French has by no means disappeared. Till into the
eighteenth century, Cornish survived in Cornwall, and Norse in
Orkney and Shetland. Outside the British isles, the language has
followed the flag, and is spoken all over the empire—in Canada,
in Australia, in New Zealand, in Africa, and in the East and
West Indies. Beyond the boundaries of the empire, it possesses
a vigorous life and literature among many millions in the United
States of North Americal
Since in those regions English was planted at different times
and has been subjected to varying influences, the types of language,
especially as spoken, differ from standard English and from one an-
other. The vocabulary, in particular, is notably dissimilar. Strange
objects, new conditions of life, have either added native words, or
caused special adaptations of old words or extensions of meaning.
Sometimes, also, as in the United States, the language is splitting
1 Attempts have been made to calculate how many persons employ English.
Exact figures are not obtainable ; but, in round numbers, 120,000,000 may be considered
a tolerably safe estimate-about double the aggregate of those who speak French,
or Italian, or Spanish; and half as many again as speak German, or Russian. It is
believed that, in 1600, English was spoken by about 6,000,000, much fewer than then
spoke French, or German, or Italian, or Spanish.
## p. 435 (#465) ############################################
CH, XV]
Pronunciation
435
into dialects. To discuss all these varieties of English as well as
the numerous dialects in Britain, with their chequered history
during the last three centuries, would be impossible here, for
want of space, if for no other reason. We must, accordingly,
restrict ourselves to the standard literary language, which is every-
where practically homogeneous. Its principal changes we shall
now consider under the three divisions of pronunciation, grammar
and vocabulary
Pronunciation
A book printed in the early decades of the seventeenth century
presents little difficulty in one respect. It can be read without
much trouble; for the differences in orthography are trifling, and
whole sentences may occur with present-day spelling. But, if a
chapter from The Authorised Version or a scene from one of
Shakespeare's plays were read to us with the contemporary
pronunciation, the ear would be considerably puzzled to recognise
certain of the words. For, while the spelling has remained
tolerably constant, many of the sounds have changed a great
deal.
To begin with the vowels. Middle English i and è, in wit and
men for example, have, as a rule, continued unaltered. Not so
the other vowels, whether single or diphthongal. Sometimes, one
Middle English sound has, in modern times, split into several,
as a in man, was, path. Sometimes different Middle English
sounds have converged : name, day, which have now one and the
same vowel sound, had distinct sounds (ā, ai) in Middle English.
Today see and sea are indistinguishable in pronunciation. In
Middle English, the former had tense ē, the latter slack ē; and
their pronunciation was dissimilar till into the eighteenth century.
This explains and justifies the rimes in Pope :
But for the wits of either Charles's days,
The mob of gentlemen who wrote with ease;
and in Cowper :
I am monarch of all I survey,
My right there is none to dispute,
From the centre all round to the sea
I am lord of the fowl and the brute.
The vowel sound in sea, meat, heat, treat, deal was then identical
with the vowel sound in day, name: it is now the same as in meet,
feel, see. There are exceptions, however : great, break, steak have
not followed the example of the others. Middle English Ō also
2842
## p. 436 (#466) ############################################
436
Changes in the Language [CH.
had a tense and a slack value. Tense 7 changed to ū, which
remains in such words as too, soon, moon. Sometimes ū has been
shortened and made slacker: hence, the sound we have in book,
good. Slack 7 has been diphthongised to the sound heard in go,
stone, coat. Middle English ŭ was unrounded in the seventeenth
century. Then, in words like sun, son, come it was lowered to its
present value; but, in other words, it was again rounded, as in bull,
full, put. Consequently, cut and put no longer rime. Middle
English i and ū were gradually diphthongised till they acquired
their modern sounds, as in wine and house. The diphthong oi has
now the same sound as in Middle English ; but that does not imply
that it has undergone no change. It altered from time to time till
its accepted value closely resembled the current pronunciation of
the diphthong in wine, to which it was then assimilated. Dryden
rimes coin'd, mind; choice, vice; join, line. Similarly, Pope rimes
night with doit, mind with join'd; and writes :
Waller was smooth; but Dryden taught to join
The varying verse, the full-resounding line,
The long majestic march, and energy divine.
In those days, the oi sound was considered 'low'in such words as
join; now it is correct, while the other pronunciation is vulgar,
dialectic, or comic as in “strike ile. The influence of the spelling
helped, in comparatively recent times, to restore the old sound of oi.
During the last three centuries the consonants have, on the
whole, been more stable than the vowels ; but they, also, have
suffered certain changes. In words like night, gh seems to have
been mute by 1600, while the vowel received compensatory
lengthening. In laugh, enough, thought, sought, gh continued
to be pronounced into the seventeenth century, though not un-
modified. Then it disappeared, or was replaced by an f sound.
In the same century, the k sound was vanishing from know, knee,
and the g sound from gnaw, gnarled. The first step was for kn to
become tn—a combination still heard in parts of Perthshire and
Forfarshire. J. M. Barrie (Auld Licht Idylls, chap. VIII) has
T''nowhead instead of Knowhead. Colonel Lovelace (To Lricasta)
could sing,
For whether he will let me pass
Or no, I'm still as happy as I was.
But the voicing of s in is, was, and other words, has made such a
rime inadmissible, though Byron (Childe Harold, iv, 1473—5) and
Keats (Lamia, 126—7) employ was with voiceless 8. Certain
## p. 437 (#467) ############################################
Xv]
Phonetic Changes
437
8 sounds changed in the seventeenth century to sh, as in passion,
sure, sugar, ocean, nation; others to zh, as in leisure, osier, usual.
During the same period, t following 8 or f and followed by l, m,
or n, regularly became silent, as in castle, chestnut, Christmas,
soften. Towards the close of the eighteenth century, changes
started in the pronunciation of initial h and wh. H came to be
regularly dropped, but it has since reappeared in standard speech,
partly because of the spelling, partly because it had been retained
in Ireland and Scotland. So strong was the reaction that h is now
heard in words where it had all along been silent, as herb, hospital,
humour, humble. One of the marks of Uriah Heep's vulgarity is
his iteration of 'umble. In words like when, white, wh began to
be levelled under w. Purists have sought to revive the sound
of wh, especially where confusion might result, as in whet con-
trasted with wet. In recent times one of the most noteworthy
developments has been the loss of r as a trill. Dr Johnson speaks
of the 'rough snarling sound of r in his day. Now, it is lost
medially before other consonants, and finally, in most cases, except
in combinations where a vowel sound follows, as far away. Early
in modern English, r modified preceding vowels. Contrast Middle
English sterre, hert, herte with present-day star, hart, heart; and
note the modern sound of clerk and Derby. In addition, r levelled
distinct vowels under one sound, as in bird, word, fur; while it
sometimes caused a vowel murmur to develop, as in fire, fair, cure.
Phonetic changes do not necessarily make a language better
or worse in its essential character of an instrument to reveal our
thoughts. The modern pronunciation of house, wine, fair need
not be more expressive, or less expressive, than the older pro-
nunciation. But, in certain instances, the change may produce
ambiguity or may be useful only for puns. In the following
groups, for example, the words were formerly distinct in sound
but are now identical-father, farther; no, know; ruf, rough.
Phonetic change, as we have seen, forbids rimes formerly allow-
able, as days with ease, makes with speaks, great with cheat,
though poetic tradition may admit an obsolete rime and call it
an eye-rime, as love with move. On the other hand, new rimes
may develop: the change in the sound of Middle English slack ē now
permits sweet to rime with meat. Alliteration may, also, be upset
by an altered pronunciation. When chivalry is sounded with initial
sh (as if the word were a recent importation from France) instead
of tch, the alliterative effect in Campbell's Hohenlinden is ruined-
And charge with all thy chivalry.
## p. 438 (#468) ############################################
438
Changes in the Language [CH.
The untrilling of r may spoil the force of onomatopoeia, where that
depends on the 'rough snarling sound. '
In Middle English, words of French origin (as courage, honour,
nature) sometimes had the stress shifted from the last syllable to
the first. This tendency has increased in modern English, and in
such words the stress is now permanent on the first syllable. In
certain words, the throwing back of the stress has taken place
quite recently. In the seventeenth century, bigoted had the stress
and spelling of bigoťted. The spelling lingered into the eighteenth
century, as in Burke's Present Discontents. Till about 1820,
balcoʻny was almost the only stress. Cowper, in John Gilpin,
has
At Edmonton his loving wife
From the balcony spied;
and Byron, in Beppo, rimes balcony with Giorgione. The Oxford
English Dictionary points out that, though con'templatel occurs
from the sixteenth century to the nineteenth, orthoepists generally
have contem'plate down to the third quarter of last century. Since
then, con'template has more and more prevailed. Similar shifting of
stress is found in concentrate, confiscate, compensate, demonstrate,
enervate, illustrate, but not in remonstrate. Some eighteenth-
century authorities stressed the last syllable of recondite, others
(as Dr Johnson) the middle. Dr Johnson's way still has followers;
but The Oxford English Dictionary stresses the first syllable.
Till about 1800, revenue regularly had the stress on the middle
syllable, a pronunciation which to a much later date was current
in legal and parliamentary circles.
In spite of the changes in the pronunciation of English since
the close of the sixteenth century, the spelling has altered little.
Middle English spelling was phonetically defective; but, still, every
writer tried to make it represent his own pronunciation. The result
was a varying orthography. This continued into the modern
English period, with additional variations caused by attempts at
etymological spelling. In the early years of the seventeenth
century, the same volume, sometimes the same page, has such
differences as the following: beene, bene, bin; detter, debter;
guests, ghests; yles, isles; vitaile, victuals; hautie, haughtie; he,
hee; least, lest. But it began to be felt more convenient to keep
one spelling for a word; and, by the end of the eighteenth century,
our orthographical system was practically in its present shape
Early in that century, Robinson Crusoe has surprize, lyon, tyger,
1. Con'template,' said Samuel Rogers, 'is bad enough, but balcony makes me sick. '
## p. 439 (#469) ############################################
Xv]
Modern Spelling
439
cloaths, taylor. Fifty years later, controul, publick, dutchy, cryer,
interiour occur in Burke's Present Discontents. Johnson spent
much time and trouble in adjusting what he calls our 'unsettled
and fortuitous' orthography; but he confesses that he was often
obliged 'to sacrifice uniformity to custom': to write convey and
inveigh, deceit and receipt, fancy and phantom. An examination
of his Dictionary will show that he successfully anticipated the
orthography that triumphed, or, perhaps, his way commended itself
to writers and printers; for, with a few exceptions like chymist,
domestick, dutchess, translatour, his spellings are ours.
Modern spelling is marked by two features: fixity (such
diversities as judgment by the side of judgement notwithstand-
ing), and an almost entire dissociation from the spoken language.
Phonetic representations like bet, fin, hop, put, are few. On the
whole, we spell by the eye, not by the ear. The ear helps little
in a language where one sign may represent several sounds, as
ch in which, chemistry, machine; and i in pick, pike, pique; or
where one sound may be represented by a variety of signs, as in
go, oath, stone, dough, sow, sew; and in call, keen, deck, chaos,
quoit.
Though a fixed orthography has not generally checked phonetic
change, the spelling has, in certain instances, helped to restore an
older pronunciation, as noted before in regard to oi and h. So,
too, in words like backward, forward, Edward, where, in the
seventeenth century, the w sound was regularly dropped. The n
sound is now generally heard in kiln, where it became mute in
early modern English. A number of words had letters inserted,
rightly or wrongly, as a clue to the etymology. In some of these,
the insertion has not affected the pronunciation, as b in doubt;
c in scent, victuals; g in foreign; 1 in salmon; 8 in island. In
others, the letter has gradually come to be pronounced, as c in
perfect, verdict; th (for t) in apothecary, author, anthem; 1 in
fault, vault, falcon, solder. The struggle of perfet to keep its
ground against perfect is visible in Milton's poems, where perfect
and imperfect occur thirty-four times, twenty-two of them without
His Areopagitica has perfeted and autority. Fault was pro-
nounced without the l sound till into the eighteenth century.
Pope rimes it with ought, thought; Dr Johnson says, “The 1 is
sometimes sounded, sometimes mute. In conversation it is generally
suppressed'; and Goldsmith writes,
Yet he was kind, or, if severe in aught,
The love he bore to learning was in fault.
## p. 440 (#470) ############################################
440 Changes in the Language [CH.
At the present day, solder and falcon may be pronounced with or
without l; while falconry and falconer have no l sound.
Finally, three of the eccentricities of English spelling and
pronunciation may be mentioned. Originally, the noun ache
differed in spelling and in pronunciation from the verb ake, as
speech from speak. About 1700, however, the noun began to be
confused in pronunciation with the verb, and then in spelling.
Dr Johnson registers both formas but makes no distinction. He
derives the word-wrongly-from Greek ăxos, and, consequently,
prefers ache.
For both words we now have the spelling of the
noun and the pronunciation of the verb. The old pronunciation
of the noun lingered as a stage tradition into the nineteenth
century, which explains the saying of the O. P. rioters (1809), “John
Kemble's head aitches,' where they gave the verb the sound of
the noun. Evidently, Thackeray considered this pronunciation
sufficiently well known to his readers in 1849—50, for he writes,
perhaps imitating Shakespeare's pun in Much Ado-
. . . Lady Brouncker; who was a druggist's daughter, or some such thing,
and as Tom Wag remarked of her, never wanted medicine certainly, for she
never had an h in her life. (Pendennis, chap. VII. )
Bowl, a vessel, and bowl, a ball, are now spelled and pronounced
,
alike. Originally different, they continued distinct into the
eighteenth century. Later, the pronunciation of the former word
and the spelling of the latter came to be adopted for both. Colonel,
with the first l sounded as l, was trisyllabic in the early part of the
seventeenth century, as in Milton's
Captain or Colonel or Knight in Arms.
Soon after the restoration it became disyllabic. “It is now,' says
Dr Johnson, 'generally sounded with only two distinct syllables,
colnel. But another form coronel had lived in popular usage;
and, in the nineteenth century, while the spelling with l remained,
the pronunciation with r was adopted.
Grammar
The story of English grammar is a story of simplification, of
dispensing with grammatical forms. Though a few inflections have
survived, yet, compared with Old English, the present-day language
has been justly designated one of lost inflections. It is analytic,
and not synthetic. This stage had virtually been reached
by the beginning of the seventeenth century, though certain
modifications have taken place since then.
## p. 441 (#471) ############################################
xv]
Inflectional Shortening
441
One of those is the supersession, in the standard language,
of verb forms like cometh (originally midland and southern) by
northern forms like comes. In the early seventeenth century,
the prose usage was still -eth. The Authorised Version has nothing
else. In poetry, especially dramatic poetry, the form in -8 was a
licence borrowed from colloquial speech, and helpful for metre or
euphony, as when Shakespeare has in The Merchant of Venice,
Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves;
and
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
For a time, the custom prevailed of writing -eth, but pronouncing -8.
In 1643, Richard Hodges says,
howsoever wee use to write thus, leadeth it, maketh it, noteth it, raketh it,
perfumeth it, etc. Yet in our ordinary speech. . . we say leads it, makes it,
notes it, rakes it, perfumes it.
He also gives a list of words alike in sound and unlike in their
signification and writing,' where we find such groups as,
Cox, cocks, cocketh up the hay.
Furze, furreth, furs.
Jests, gests, gesteth.
Mr Knox, hee knocketh many knocks.
Rites, rights, wheel-wrights, righteth, writeth.
Waits, weights, waiteth1.
Gradually, -8 predominated, but -eth did not disappear. It was
heard in church, though, even there, -8 was frequently sounded
instead. In The Spectator (no. 147), Steele denounces
a set of readers, who affect forsooth a certain gentlemanlike familiarity of
tone and mend the language as they go on, crying instead of pardoneth and
absolveth, pardons and absolves.
In an earlier Spectator (no. 135), Addison speaks of
the change which has bappened in our language by the abbreviation of
several words that are terminated in eth, by substituting an s in the room
of the last syllable, as in drowns, walks, arrives. . . which in the pronunciation
of our forefathers were drowneth, walketh, arriveth. This has wonderfully
multiplied a letter which was before too frequent in the English tongue, and
added to that hissing in our language, which is taken so much notice of by
foreigners; but at the same time humours our taciturnity and eases us of
many superfluous syllables.
In the days of the romantic revival, poets resuscitated the
-eth, which continues to live in poetry and, also, to some extent,
in prose. The poet finds it advantageous for rhythm, or rime,
1 Ellis, Early English Pronunciation, iv, 1018 ff.
## p. 442 (#472) ############################################
442 Changes in the Language [CH.
or euphony. Swinburne, in Atalanta in Calydon, rimes saith with
breath, while Tennyson, in The Lady of Shalott, sings,
And so she weaveth steadily,
And little other care hath she.
Another inflectional shortening occurs in the -ed of verbs. In
early modern English, the weak vowel here was dropped in the
spoken language, except, of course, in forms like mended, rooted.
In the higher language, however, -ed was fully sounded after all
consonants, especially by poets for the sake of metre, who naturally
also dropped the vowel if necessary, as Shakespeare in
Hugg'd and embracëd by the strumpet wind.
Gradually, the colloquial usage encroached upon the literary.
In the passage of The Spectator already cited, Addison protests
against this loss of a syllable.
"The same natural aversion to loquacity,' he says, 'has of late years made a
very considerable alteration in our language by closing in one syllable the
termination of our praeterperfect tense, as in these words, drown'd, walk'd,
arrivd, for drowned, walked, arrived, which has very much disfigured the
tongue, and turned a tenth part of our smoothest words into so many clusters
of consonants. '
The full syllable has lived on in the liturgical language, where we
have blessëd, cursëd, beloved, believed.
During the last two centuries, the second person singular of
verbs (as lovest, lovedst, wilt love) has gradually vanished from
ordinary usage. This has gone hand in hand with the disuse of thou.
In Middle English, French influence led to the employment of ye,
you as a ceremonious substitute for thou, thee; and, by 1600, the
plural had come to be the regular polite form of address, while
the singular remained chiefly in family use (parent to child, master
to servant) and for contempt. Thou, consequently, became gene-
rally obsolete, though still retained in poetry, in liturgical language,
sporadically in dialects, and by quakers—who employ thee as
nominative construed with third singular. The surrender of thou
is, to some extent, a loss. English has no longer the advantage
of a familiar as well as a polite style of address nor the clearness
arising from the power to make a formal distinction in number.
Further simplification in the verb is found in the disappearance
of subjunctive forms. The only remaining parts are be and were,
and the forms without -8 in the third singular of the present tense.
The syntax, also, of the subjunctive has greatly shrunk since
Middle English days, and is still shrinking. At times, however,
the tendency has been checked. In the seventeenth and the
a
## p. 443 (#473) ############################################
6
xv]
Losses in Syntax
443
eighteenth century, were of rejected conditions and unfulfilled
wishes seemed to be regularly giving place to was.
But it has
recovered lost ground, and in such constructions was for were
is now a distinct vulgarism. The subjunctive, however, has
been entirely or almost entirely abandoned in the following-
indirect assertions : 'I think he be transformed into a beast'
(As You Like It); indefinite adjective clauses : 'a prone and
speechless dialect such as move men' (Measure for Measure);
concessive clauses regarded as real : ‘no marvel though thou
scorn thy noble peers, when I, thy brother, am rejected thus'
(Edward II); and clauses of future time. The last construction
is still, occasionally, found, especially in poetry : Tennyson writes,
Till in all lands and through all human story
The path of duty be the way to glory.
At the present time, Othello’s ‘Judge me the world' would
regularly be expressed by 'Let the world judge me’; and,
generally, forms with may, might, should, would, are, for clearness,
preferred to simple subjunctives. In ‘Hadst thou been here, my
brother had not died,' the apodosis would take the compound form.
Other syntactical losses since Shakespeare's day include the
constructions 'good my lord' and 'I know thee who thou art';
against and without as conjunctions; the ethic dative; the
accusative and infinitive as subject, now superseded by the
construction with for: 'for a man to behave so is absurd’; be
as the auxiliary of perfect tenses in certain intransitive verbs, a
usage still existing in instances like ‘he is gone. ' In the Elizabethan
age, me as the ethic dative was sometimes felt to be obscure
and was easily mistaken for the direct object. This ambiguity
Shakespeare (The Taming of the Shrew, 1, 2, ad init. ) seized upon
to bewilder the clown Grumio-
Petruchio. Villain, I say, knock me at this gate
And rap me well, or I'll knock your knave's pate.
Grumio. My master is grown quarrelsome. I should knock you first,
And then I know after who comes by the worst.
These old usages bave been revived in recent times in poetry and
historical fiction ; but, unless skilfully and sparingly employed,
they are apt to offend, as when Stevenson overdoes the ethic dative
in The Black Arrow.
In certain nouns, the same combination of sounds may stand
for different ideas. To the ear, horses represents the genitive
singular as well as all the plural cases. To the eye, this defect is
## p. 444 (#474) ############################################
444 Changes in the Language [Ch.
6
so far remedied by the device of the apostrophe: horse's, horses,
horses'. This distinction began to appear in the seventeenth
century, but it was not a settled usage till the eighteenth.
"The gradual restriction of the apostrophe to the genitive,' says Henry
Sweet in his New English Grammar, 'apparently arose from the belief that
such a genitive as prince's in the prince's book was a shortening of prince
his, as shown by such spellings as the prince his booki!
The employment of his for the genitive suffix was most prevalent
from 1400 to 1750. In the sixteenth and the seventeenth century,
it was chiefly used with proper names ending in a sibilant, or to
avoid an awkward inflectional genitive. It occurs in Dryden, as in
Astraea Redux,
Such is not Charles his too too active age.
The Prayer Book of 1662 has, ' And this we beg for Jesus Christ
his sake. ' The Pilgrim's Progress, part 11, has. Gaius his kindness
to Feeble-mind. ' Many an old tome is inscribed 'John Smith his
book'; and the usage (which still survives, in book-keeping for
example) was turned by Dickens into a joke in ‘Bill Stumps, His
mark. '
Many changes exemplify what Addison calls humouring our
national taciturnity, while they do no injury to clearness of
expression. Old and Middle English revelled in multiplying
negatives for emphasis. The practice was retained by the Eliza-
bethans; but, in time, the principle prevailed that two negatives
contradict each other and make an affirmative. In standard
English, we now find one negative only, though, colloquially, we
may still hear the old redundancy. Double comparison, another
Elizabethan characteristic-Ben Jonson reckoned it an elegancy
of style, 'a certain kind of English Atticism'-began to die out in
the seventeenth century, and now survives only as a vulgarism.
Occasionally, however, it appears in poetry, as in Swinburne's
Atalanta,
Touch the most dimmest height of trembling heaven.
The desire to lop off superfluities accounts for various types of
omissions, as of in 'That is no use'; the verb after to in ‘Are you
going? '--'I should like to,' or 'He must leave now, though he
doesn't want to'; and it is in as usual. ' Swift still wrote the last
in full (Gulliver's Travels, part II, chap. I), ‘Whereof three or four
came into the room, as it is usual in farmers' houses. '
1 'I might here observe that the same single letter [8] on many occasions does
the office of a whole word and represents the His and Her of our forefathers. '
Addison, The Spectator, no. 135.
## p. 445 (#475) ############################################
Xv]
The Attributive Noun
445
Further condensation is seen in the wide use in modern
English of the attributive noun instead of a phrase more or less
lengthy. The usage began in Middle English, and has been
vigorously extended in present-day language. It is regularly
employed in all kinds of new phrases, as when we speak of
birthday congratulations, Canada balsam, a motor garage.
Compound expressions are similarly applied, as loose leaf book
manufacturers, The Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, a
dog-in-the-manger policy.
The attributive noun is not an isolated phenomenon in English.
It belongs to the widespread tendency whereby a part of speech
jumps its category. The dropping of distinctive endings made
many nouns, for example, identical with the corresponding verbs;
and, consequently, form presented no obstacle to the use of the
one for the other. The interchange was also facilitated by the
habit of indicating a word's function or construction by its
position in the sentence. This liberty became licence in the
Elizabethan age. ‘Almost any part of speech,' says E. A. Abbott,
'can be used as any other part of speech? ' Later usage has been
more restrained, but of the liberty advantage has been amply
and profitably taken. The following are examples of nouns con-
verted into verbs in recent times: ape, balloon, burlesque, cartoon,
dovetail, gas, laager, lampoon, loot, palaver, sky, tailor, telescope,
tiptoe, tool; of verbs into nouns: build, futter, haul, shampoo,
sip, sneer, sneeze, splash, tinkle, trend; of adjectives into verbs :
grey, tidy. To distinguish the double function, the pronunciation
is sometimes varied, as a good rec'ord but to record' it; an agëd
man but he ag(e)d rapidly.
An extreme instance of this freedom appears in sentences
transformed, for the nonce, into attributes, as when Dickens writes,
'a little man with a puffy “Say-nothing-to-me-or-I'll-contradict-
you" sort of countenance'; or into verbs, as in Browning's lines,
While, treading down rose and ranunculus,
You Tommy-make-room-for-your-uncle' us.
One might have expected that the tendency to simplify would
lead English to abolish the strong conjugation with its numerous
complications; but, apparently, any bias towards uniformity has
been counteracted by conservatism linked with the superiority
which the strong verbs possess in clearness, brevity and ease of
pronunciation. Weak forms have, indeed, been adopted, as crowed
for crew, climbed for clomb, melted for molten. On the other
1 A Shakespearian Grammar, Introduction ad init. and 8 290.
## p. 446 (#476) ############################################
446
Changes in the Language [ch.
hand, certain verbs, as dig and stick, formerly weak, are now
strong. It was in the eighteenth century that dug prevailed over
digged, which is the only form found in Shakespeare, The
Authorised Version and Milton. Dug and stuck are easier
sounds than digged and sticked. Within the strong conjugation,
numerous changes have been made. In the sixteenth and the
seventeenth century, there was a general movement towards
supplanting the form of the perfect participle by the form of the
past indicative. Shakespeare used mistook for mistaken, drove
for driven, wrote for written. Goldsmith and other eighteenth-
century writers did the same; and, in their days, drank threatened
to supersede drunk. In present-day English, the original parti-
ciples have, as a rule, been restored, though stood has permanently
displaced stonden.
Other parts of speech have been regularised. One instance is
the modern distinction between who and which as relatives. In
the Elizabethan age, these pronouns could refer indifferently to
persons and things, a usage which lasted into the eighteenth
century. In the first half of the preceding century, they had
seemed likely to drive out that; but, in time, that recovered
lost ground and even encroached upon the others. Steele (The
Spectator, no. 78, cf. no. 80) sets forth the grievances of who and
which in a petition to Mr Spectator-
. . . your petitioners, being in a forlorn and destitute condition, know not to
whom we should apply ourselves for relief, because there is hardly any man
alive who has not injured us. Nay, we speak it with sorrow, even you
yourself, whom we should suspect of such a practice the last of all mankind,
can hardly acquit yourself of having given us some cause of complaint. We
are descended of ancient families, and kept up our dignity and honour many
years, till the jacksprat that supplanted us.
Later in the eighteenth century, who and which came again into
favour; and the three relatives have since been advantageously
employed to fulfil different functions.
In Elizabethan English generally, a strange welter appears
in the cases of pronouns-nominative for accusative, accusative
for nominative. Since then, order has been, for the most part,
restored : nominative and accusative are, as a rule, correctly
employed. We have still, however, such expressions as “Who is
that for? ' But 'It is me' is not frequent till the first half of
the eighteenth century. Before that, 'It is I' was general.
In Middle English, the two methods of comparing adjectives—
by inflection and by periphrasis--were employed indiscriminately,
Later, the method was regularised; and inflectional comparison
## p. 447 (#477) ############################################
Xv] Regularising of Parts, of Speech 447
became restricted to monosyllables and to such disyllables as
the addition does not make discordant. Sixteenth-century writers
supply examples of what we now consider uncouth shapes—elo-
quenter, virtuouser, artificialest, excellentest, famousest, learned'st,
tediousest, unwillingest. Sometimes, the pages of recent poets
and prose-writers bristle with forms like daringest, wonderfulest,
wretcheder.
In Middle English and early modern English (for example, in
Shakespeare and The Authorised Version), shall and will, when
employed as auxiliaries, are not in conformity with present-day
usage. This established itself in the seventeenth century, but
only in England. It never got a footing in the Scottish or the
Irish dialect; and natives of Scotland and Ireland find it hard, if
not impossible, to acquire the standard system with its intricate
rules 1.
By the beginning of the modern English period, do was in
regular use as an auxiliary; and it seemed as if the forms with do
and did were to oust those without. At first, no fixed principle
guided the employment of do write, did write, for write, wrote.
It might be euphony, or perspicuity, or metre, or caprice. Com-
pare the following:
So they did eat, and were filled.
Mark, viii, 8.
Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep.
Romans, xii, 15.
It lifted up it head, and did address
Itself to motion.
Hamlet, 1, 2, 215 f.
In the early seventeenth century, however, the language began to
restrict do to certain special functions. 'Does he write? ' came
to take the place of 'Writes he? ' 'He did not write’ the place of
'He wrote not. ' In affirmations, the custom arose of avoiding do
except for emphasis, or in particular cases where the order of
words requires it, as in 'So quietly does he come,’ ‘Nor did he
hesitate. ' But the indiscriminate use of unemphatic do did not
readily vanish; and that gave point to Pope's gibe in 1711,
While expletives their feeble aid do join.
In his Dictionary (1755), Johnson brands unemphatic do 'as a
vicious mode of speech. ' A quarter of a century later, he writes
(Lives of the Poets), 'The words do and did, which so much
degrade in present estimation the line that admits them, were in
1 Gerald Molloy's book on the subject has as its sub-title. The Irish Difficulty';
and J. M. Barrie (When a Man's Single, chap. XVII) uses the mystery to poke fun at
a fellow-Scot.
6
## p. 448 (#478) ############################################
448
Changes in the Language [CH.
the time of Cowley little censured or avoided. ' In spite of Johnson,
later poets have gladly availed themselves of do and did for pur-
poses of metre. Till recent times, doest and dost, doeth and doth
were not differentiated in use. In vain one searches the 1611
edition of The Authorised Version to find why doth appears in
one place, doeth in another. The nineteenth century made doest,
doeth, the verb of full meaning, dost, doth, the auxiliary.
But, during the last three centuries, English has not merely
been regularised and simplified. It has also devised new gram-
matical material to improve the old or replace the lost.
