The Caldwell tribune. [volume] (Caldwell, Idaho Territory [Idaho]) 1883-1928, 1884-11-07
A LOST LETTER.
How the New Englanders Have Left
Slip the G..

1t is sometimes painful surprise t.
hear stranger whose face we hav
been admiring speak. 1t is as if toad
and frogs fell from his lips, as from tn
naughty girls mouth in the old fair,
story. Or, if the words are jewels, ar,
so Clipped and marred, so mingled will
base copper alloy, that the contrast be
tween the good thought and the imper
feet vehicle for conveying it, is painful
A young woman stood last winter be
fore noble painting in an art collec
ton. She, herself, was no mean artist
Her reputation as critic was good
With fine face and figure, she was no
ticeable even in a crowded gallery
On being pointed out to stranger as
Miss Native Genius, he drew near tc
hear her words of criticism to friend
beside her. There was a moments
pause. Then, in silence, the words
smote upon his ear, "How fine the dro-
rim isi'
1t is curious to see how certain acci-
dents have overtaken the English Ian
guage, and how, generation after gen
Grafton, those who speak it perpetuate
these errors rather than repair them.
l1OW, lOl lAotdhCC, uOCo ~ udRPCn ludl
'h' is taken from the word where it be-
longs and given to another that would
do very well without itP Why is sg'
treated in the same way? By what
fatality was kitchen ever converted into
kitching, garden into garding, and
mountain into mountingP Still it is not
of frequent enough occurrence to ac-
count for the missing e. in other
words. Where is the missing 'g' that
belongs to scores of words that end in
ingP 1t is often missed in England,
and in Scotland it is almost unknown;
but, some way. in that soft, musical
tongue there is SO much elision that one
does not so much notice the omission OF
the 'g.' But this side of the water,
from Maine to Texas, there are every
where yawning abysses down which
the e. has dropped and never been
found again.
The child that begins to talk by using
such words as goin', SEEM, eatin,' that
goes through the primary and grammar
schools cipherin', and parsin', and is oc-
cupied in the high schools with COM
posin', and translatin', will wake up
some day perchance to knowledge of
the atrOclty OF SUCH pronunciation, only
to find himself slave to habit as
firmly fixed and difficult of cure as the
opium habit. The old man of the sea
was easy to shake. off in comparison.
If he attempts to pick up 'g' and put
it where it belongs in one case he for
gets it in the next; and he is at last so
overwhelmed with the number of words
with participial endings-or endin's, as
he says-that he gives them all up in
despair and lets the 'g's' slide on one
by one, dotting the background of his
speech at intervals like potatoes laid
out upon the ground for a potato race.
But he will never gather them up into
the basket.
This is no trifling matter. 1t is un-
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 2 years old
i is as easy to say going as goin.
After "goin" has been used for twenty
years going" sounds to such a speaker
lard and formal, and ninety-nine times
,ut of hundred it will never be ac-
Iuired. Parents are responsible for
his slipshod pronunciation, and they
alone can find the missing ''g."