Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 2.djvu/475

. ii. NOV. 12, ISM.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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except perhaps in Norfolk. It is extremely common in Shropshire, and neither my cook, who comes from Bucks, nor the other servants, who hail from different parts of Kent, are ever guilty of an aspirated h. It has often been observed that the London dialect of the present day is quite different from that which prevailed in the time oi Dickens. This is probably due to the growth of the city in the direction of Essex, where lidy for lady, piper for paper, &c., are gener ally heard, though this pronunciation is not altogether confined to that county.

W. F. PRIDEAUX.

In the poetry of Chaucer and Spenser, as well as in the Bible, we find an before h. Shakspeare generally, not always, and Bacon, I think, always use a before h in such words as horse, &c. But in the Spectator of Addison and Steele an is found frequently before words beginning with h which would be aspirated in the present day. It seems likely that our ancestors aspirated less than we do. E. YARDLEY.

There is room for an instructive study of the use and the decadence of this aspirate if any one has time to tackle the subject in a painstaking and scholarly way. There are several districts where the failure of the aspirate is a feature of the dialect, far beyond the sound of Bow bells notably in Warwick- shire, Worcestershire, and Yorkshire. It is unquestionably caused by the alien element. Wherever the French, Italian, or Flemish immigrant has mixed with our population, the English tongue has been corrupted in more than one direction ; but most specially is this traceable in the loss of the letter h. The Latin or Romance languages scarce possess any aspirate, a circumstance that will be noticed in any verbal intercourse with foreigners in England at this very day. The reason why educated persons adhere to the aspirate lies in the fact that they do not follow the slipshod, hasty speech of the uneducated, who have never thought to appreciate the glory of their mother tongue as derived from Scandinavian ancestors. Most probably the reason why "Shakespeare did not notice the cockney in his plays" was that in his day the corruption had scarcely begun. It was not developed till long after his time. Even the dramatists of the eighteenth century do not make game of the cockney's h. Not until the more general admission of foreigners into this country, at the period of the French Revolution and afterwards, did this distinctive vulgarism appear to any great extent.

I I do not believe the thing is incurable.

I From experiments of my own, I should say

j it would be possible to inspire our boys witJi

i greater pride in linguistic purity. I have

spoken to Board School teachers on the point,

with discouraging results, the excuse for

neglect of the matter being thrown upon

home influence, which was thought likely to

overbear any efforts made in school hours to

improve the popular speech. But as it is not

uncommon to hear pupil-teachers drop their

h, it would seem that there is extreme

apathy in the business. EDWARD SMITH.

Wandsworth.

May I suggest that the misuse of the h in cockney is explicable on simple psychological principles, without having recourse to theories of Huguenot tradition or the like ? Correct pronunciation is the automatic product of a cultivated ear, and the self-conscious struggles of a semi-educated person to speak elegantly prevent him from using the natural and easy pronunciation, and thus lead to cacophonous blunders, as certainly as the struggles of a person learning to bicycle impel him to run into every passing cart. Affectation and the teaching of grammar in elementary schools are responsible for most of the vulgarisms of our present diction. C.

CORKS (10 th S. ii. 347). There are two games an outdoor and an indoor known &sjeu de bouchon in France. The former is a mixture of quoits and bowls. The players throw discs of lead (or five-franc pieces) at a cork placed on the ground some six or eight yards 3ff. The cork may be knocked away from its original position, and points are scored by the players whose discs lie nearest the cork at the end of the round.

The indoor game is played on a billiard table, and is a variety of " skittle-pool." A cork is placed in the centre of the table in the middle of a lozenge formed by four *' skittles," or wooden pegs. Each player puts a stake

usually a sou) on the cork. Only two balls the red and a white are used. Each player plays with the red ball on the white, and if the white strikes a cushion and after- wards knocks down the cork, the player of the stroke takes the pool ; but if either ball

nocks down a skittle, the player has to put down another stake. As the game mentioned jy Stevenson was played in a cafe in the evening, it was, no doubt, the billiard game. ROBERT B. DOUGLAS.

64, Rue des Martyrs, Paris.

It is, I think, the French feu de boiuchon, well known in Belgium too. An ordinary