Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1884-10-02
A Lost letter.

1t IS sometimes u painful surprise to
hear 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 Jew
els, they are so chipped and married, so
mingled with base alloy, that the con-
trast between the good thought and the
imperfect vehicle for conveying it is
painful. A young. woman stood last
winter before noble painting in IN
art collection. She, herself, was no
mean artist. Her reputation as critic
was good. With . fine face and figure,
she was noticeable even in the crowded
gallery. On being pointed out to q
stranger as Miss Native Genius, he
drew near TO hear her words of criti-
cism 10 4 friend beside her. There was
q moments pause. Then in the 81
lence, the words smOtc upon his ear:
How fine the drorin' is.
1t is curious TO see how certain acct
dents have Overtaken the English Ian
guage, and how generation after gen
GRAFTON Of those who speak it perpetu-
ate those errors rather than repair
them. How, for instance, does it hap
pen that b is taken from one word
where it belongs and given to another
that would do very well without it?
Why is g treated in the same way? By
what fatality was kitchen ever con-
verified into kitching, garden into gard
ing, and mountain into mounting? The
conversion is a daily fact in many
homes throughout New England. Still
it is not OF frequent enough occurrence
to account for the missing in other
words. Where is the 9 that belongs
to scores of words ending in Guq? 1t is
often missed in England, and in Scot
land 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 q.
But this side the water, from Maine to
Texas, there are everywhere yawn-
ing abysses down which the q has drop
ped 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 grammar school cipherin' and
parsin', and is occupied in the high
school with composin' and translatin',
Will WINE us SOlu6 uiJ, p0ICudEce, 10
the atrOcity of such pronunciation, on
ly to find himself slave of habit as
firmly fixed and as difficult to cure rs
the opium habit. The Old Man of the
Sea was easy to shake Oft in cOmpari-
son. ii he attempts to pick up and
put it where it belongs in one case he
tOrgets it in the next; and he is at last
SO overwhelmed with words of particip-
ial ending-or endin's, as he would say
that he gives them all up in despair,
and lets the g'S slide off one by one,
dotting the background of his speech
at intervals like potatoes laid on the
ground for q pot9to race. But he will
never win the race; he will never gath
CT 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 speak
er hard and formal, and ninety-nine
times out of hundred it will never be
acquired. Parents are responsible for
this slipshod pronunciation, and they
alone can find the missing g.-BoSto9
Christian Register.