New-York tribune., 1894-04-09
THE DRoPPING OF THE "G."

To the Editor Of The Tribune.
Sir. / have read with special interest the Cd
ltorial I'm The Tribune of Sunday March .. under
tho heading. IAN Oppressed Consonant," particu-
larly the latter part Of IT, regarding the droppn;
0r the nnal g. In words ending I'm Ing by the
Prince NJ Wales and his set characteristic cf
many millions of people who speak th" English
tongue both in this and tho mother country
About two years ago May p ls99 a communca-
tlon from the writer appeared in The Trbane. un-
der the heading. "A Plea for the Peoples English
I'm which a reason given for the wide omis-
sion Of this g. in the speech ~ the postcrity Of
the Anglo-Saxons. p the fact that a. this class Of
words originally ended In "en': the added g or
ing" being probably a bungling innovation by the
defendants OF the Norman invaders TO teach the
natives tho nasal sound Of the final n" as cur
rent in their French speech without the addition of
"g" And as In Websters Dictionary find bong
tong given the pronunciation Of bon ton
This addition the native English largely declined
TO adopt In speaking. hence never had to drop It;
though they acquesced 70 It's use In the written
prdans OF the earlier and later schools That these
earlier teachers were largely ignorant Of the Eng
lish speech and hence naturally brought much con-
fusion and corruption into what may be called the
crystallizatiOn Of language. g evident from the
writing OF Roger Ascham. who, early in the six
tccnth century. commenting On the fulnoss Of the
Greek and Latin 10 express ideas I'm comparison
with the English. remarks: For therein Ohe Eng
llsm the least learned. Tor the most part have
been always most ready 10 write 1t would be
interesting to know whether this disposition. as
said to drop the final g among the notables IN
England speaking is not really that. Ike the com
mon people. they never accepted IT, or II 1t has orig
mated I'm desire TO be recognized as descendants
of the Anglo -Saxons. and as such they wished To
discard the Norman French Innovations from the
speech OF their ancestors. In either case their
charmin'. bloomin and the like might well b. print
cd charmen, bloomen. etc. as In the Anglo-Saxon.
so that the spoken and written language viii cor
respond.
II would greatly add TO the poetic euphony Of our
language II this restoration to the Anglo-SaXon
form universally adopted. The termination
ing IS prosaic and harsh to the ear especially
when II ends line Of poetry by it's nature It
must always be an unaccentcd syllable, and II IL
difficult to pronounce the terminal g without Civ
ing the syllable considerable stress; as the reader
may see by pronouncing loudly the words given -
giving and comparing the melody Of tn former with
the harshness OF the latter termination For a
very clear example of this read aloud that eX-
quislte little poetic gem from Tho Atlanta Const-
tuition entitled Take a Day on on the same
page Of The Tribune the editorial above men
toned In which the final g In such words IS
dropped throughout then read 1t over again. sup
plying the "g" While the remains the same,
ono feels that its flavor has gone.
SAMUEL II. TERRY.
RrOOLlyn March 26 1897