St. Landry democrat., 1884-10-11
Il Lost Letter.

: A 5JBSE k.CItcFs
MS sometimes y painful surprise to-
hear stranger whose face we have
been admiring speak. 1t is as il toad5
and frogs fell from his lips, as from the
naughty girls mouth in the old fairy
| story. Or, il the words are jewels,
they are so Clipped and marred, so
mingled with base alloy, that the con-
trast betweets the good thought and tho
imperfect vehicle of conveying it IS
painful. A young woman stood last
winter before noble painting in an art
collection. She herself was no mean
artist. Her reputation as a critic was
good. With fine face and figure she
was noticeable even in the crowded gall
lerY. On being pointed out to
stranger as Miss Native Genius, he drew
near to hear her words of criticism to
friend beside her. There was a mo-
ment's pause. Then in the silence tne
words smote upon his ear: Chow fine
the drorin is!'' Unconsciously, she
had Spat out a toad.
1t is curious to see how certain acci-
dents have ogertaken the English LAM
guage, and how generation after gener-
alton of thosa who speak it perpetuate
these errors rather than repair them.
How, for instance, does it happen that
is taken from one word where it be-
longs and given to another that would
do very we'll without it? Why is g
treated in the same way? By what
fatality was kitchen ever converted in
to kitching, garden into garding, and
mountain into mounting? The con-
version is daily fact in many homes
throughout New England. Still, it is
not of frequent enough occurrence to az
count for the missing e in other words.
Where is the e that belongs on scores
of words thai end in ing? 1t is often
missed in England, and in Scotland it
is almost unknown; but, someway, in
that soft, musical tongue, there is so
so much elision that one does not SO
much notice the omission of the g. But
this side the water, from Maine to
Texas, there are everywhere yaWning
abSsses down which the e has been
dropped and never been found again.
The child chat begins to talk by using
such words as goin', doin', SEEM,
eatin', that goes through the primary
and grammar school cipherin', and
parsin', and is occupied in the high
school composin' and translatin', will
wake up some day perchance to 8
knowledge of the atrocity of such pro-
nunciatiOn, only to find himself or her
self a slave to habit as firmly fixed
and difficult to cure as the opium habit.
The old man of the sea was easy toe
shake off in comparison. If he at
tempts to pick up e and put it where
it belongs in one case, he forgets it in
the next; and he is at last so over
whelmed with the number of words
with participial endings-or endin's as
he would say-that he gives up in de-
spair, and let's the g's slide off one by
one, dotting the background of his
speech at intervals like potatoes laid
out upon the ground for potato race.
But he will never win the race; he will
never gather them up into the basket.
This is no tritling matter. 1t is I'M
fortunate to let child grow up with
habits of speech that will submit him to
the sensation of inferiority when he IS
with cultivated people. At two years
old it is as easy to say going as goin'.
After ''goin' has been used for twenty
years, ''going" sounds to such a
speaker hard and formal, and ninety
nine times out of hundred it will
never be acquired Parents are re-
sponsible for this slipshod pronuncia-
ton, and they alone can find the miss
ing g. Christian Register.