St. Landry democrat. (Opelousas, La.) 1878-1894, 1886-01-23
ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION,

ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION.
A Number of Inexplicable British Pecul-
iarities.
I'm the obituary notices which the
death of the Duke of Somerset called
forth curious diversity in the spelling
of the family name was noticeable The
old Duke, plain, rough-tongued, un-
ostentatious man, spelled It Seymour:
the new Duke, who himself is severe.
five years old, writes it St. Maur. A.
as the old brothers disagreed - th;a
point so the nephews of the ,.-s
duke differ, for there is amo ,e~ 49,.
Lord Algernon ST. Maur and vora
Edward Seymour. Whe a,s q noiu ~
the family are themsel, rs ~ tno aa;n
ions it would be ter asrssv indeed for a
mine the riaht Of O. attempt to deter
the or;oinaI no die thing. Apparently
the fsmijr hari >ene was Norman, and
St Manr VIII 1s back to William de
,ndor "I Hon WI o held lands in Monmouth
t;nus oftor ' y III. But three genera
III 49, ward, in the time of Edward
- !; 6ead of the house wrote himself
eli Adeed, he knew how to write at
o., 6oger Seymour. This name they
~ with them when, in Tudor times,
.ey emerged from obscurity by lucky
shance, gained court favor, fattened
themselves on church lands, and finally,
from the pinnacle of the Lord Protector
ship, gained the right to sniff at all the
other families of England, barring only
the Howards. Indeed, l am not sure
that this exception ought to be made,
for although the Dukes of Norfolk
(l483) antedated the Dukes of Somer-
set by some sixty-fou years, it is we'll
known that Howard is corruption of
the excessively commonplace Saxon
name Hogward, while now that Sew
mour is spelled St. Maur, there can be
no manner of doubt about its Norman
blue bloodedness. OF course, it is true
that vulgar tongues corrupted the name
for something over five centuries; but,
thank Heaven, it has been restored now.
and we can all breathe easier.
The name will continue, however, to
be pronounced Seymour, Just as St.
John is called Sinjun, and St.
Leger is spoken Sillinger. Alas! we
did not all know this last until lately
at least the reporters in the Commons
gallery didn 't-and when the aristo-
cratic Marquis of Harrington spoke OF
the correspondents who had been killed
in the Soudan, one of whom was named
st. Leger, the papers next morning all
had it Siliinger. But not that we know
what fashion demands in the matter of
orthoepy it shall never happen again.
Sometime [ am going to make
whole book about the funny things in
English pronunciation. Everybody
knows about Majoribanks being Marsh
banks, and Cholmondeley being Chum-
ley, and Levison-Gower being Lewson-
Gore. These are stock samples familiar
to all. Most people know, too, that
the Norman names of Belvoir and Beau
champs are pronounced Beaver and
Beecham, while the equally Norman
name of Grosvenor retains its French
sound. But these are only sign-posts
on the road to general knowledge of
the subject When you get to know why
Boughton is pronounced Bawton, while
Houghton has the long Q, why Wemys
should be Weems, and Knollys should |
be Knowles, you will be getting on in
the mastery Of the subject But there
are no rules. Some words like Pail Mall,~ I
which b pronounced pell nell, retain
the sound of foreign origin after they
have lost its form. But, then, the word
mall, meaning path, is pronounced NAL, |,
and as they both came from the old
French game of paille maille, 1t may be
seem that the Englishman disdains mere
laws of analogy. He says Rumsted
when he refers to Rothamstead, but he
pronounces Southampton out fully
and clearly. In London, too, he has a
dialect of his own. He says clark, but
the rest of England says clerk He
turns all his long as into long is, say
ing dyly pyper instead of daily paper,
but the country people do not. But,
then, he says Hereford, while the ma
tives of that shire call it Hartford
Londoa, Cor. N. Z. Times.