Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1884-08-12

How the English Lose Their HIS and
Americans Their G,s


1t is sometimes painful surprise, SAYS
the Christian Register, to hear a stranger
whose face we have been admiring speak.
1t is as if toads and frogs fell from his
lips, as from the naughty girls mouth in
the old fairy story. Or, if the words are
jewels, they are so Clipped and marred,
so mingled with base alloy, that the con-
trast between the good thought and the
imperfect vehicle for conveying it is paln-
ful. A young woman stood last winter
before a noble painting in an art cOllec-
ton. She herself was no mean artist.
Her reputation as critic was good. With
hne lace and figure, she was noticeable
even IN the crowded gallery. On being
pointed out to a stranger as Miss Native
Genius, he drew near to hear her words
of criticism to a friend beside her. There
was moments pause. Then, in the ST.
lence, the words smote upon his ear.
Chow fine the drOrin' islv Unconsciously
she had spat out toad.
1t is curious to see how certain acct
dents have Oyertaken the English Ian
guage, and how generation after genera
ton of those who speak it perpetuate
these errors rather than repair them.
How, for instance, does it happen that h
IS taken from one word where it belongs
and given to another that would do very
well without it? Why is q treated in the
same wayY BY what fatality was kitchen
ever converted into kitching, garden into
garding, and mountain into mounting
The conversion is daily fact in many
homes throughout New England. Still,
1t is not OF frequent enough occurrence to
account for the missing in other words.
Where is the q that belongs on scores of
words that end in ingY 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 Omis-
sion of the q. But this side the water,
from Maine to Texas, there are every
where yawning abysses down which the
g has dropped and never been found
again.
The child that begins to talk by using
such words as goin', dom, SEEM. eatin'.
that goes through the primary and gram.
mar school cipherin' and parsin', and is
occupied in the high school with compOsin'
and translatin', will wake up some day
perchance to a knowledge of the atrocity
of such pronunciation, only to find HIM
self or herself slave to habit as firmly
fixed and difficult of cure as the opium
habit. The old man of the sea was easy
to shake of in comparison. If he attempts
to pick up q and put it where it belongs
IN one case, he forgets it in the next; and
he is at last so overwhelmed with the
number of words with Participial end
ings-or endin's, as he would say-that
he gives them all up in despair and let's
the g'S slide off one by one, dotting the
background of his speech at intervals
ike 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 trifing matter. 1t is unfOr-
tunate to let child grow up with habits
of speech that will submit him to the SEN
sation of inferiOrity when he is with Gull
tivated people. At two years old it is as
easy to say going as goin'. After ''goin'"
has been used tor twenty years, ''going"
sounds to such a speaker hard and formal,
and ninety-nine times out of hundred 1t
will never be acquired. Parents are re-
sponsible for this slipshod pronunciation,
and they alone can find the missing q.