Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 2.djvu/403

 ii. NOV. 12,

NOTES AND QUERIES.

395

wholly without reserve. It certainly doe: not explain the circumstance objected to by Mr. Grant White (as quoted 9 th S. i. 430), that many modern American orthoepists " now require a flattened sound like the vowel sound of fat, or one between the sounds of far and fat, in the following words : calm, calf, half, aunt, alas, pass, bask, path, lath, laugh, staff, raft, and after,' whereas Mr. White and the class of well-bred Americans to which he belonged were accus- tomed in all these cases to give the vowel "the broad ah sound of a in far and father. ,' Moreover, Mr. White does not confine this change to his own side of the Atlantic. For, speaking as a lifelong student of English literature and of the English language, he asserts :

" This sound ah has been gradually losing ground in English for centuries. The change is much to be regretted ; for with the vanishing sound has gone much of the dignity, the freedom, the clearness, and the sweetness of our English speech." ' Every- day English,' p. 10.

While, therefore, it is impossible to deny that MR. PENNY'S explanation goes a long way to solve the problem, it will be seen that it does not account for the gradual change of pronunciation which has been going on in the United States as well as in this country. It appears to me that a solution equally worthy of consideration is afforded by Mr. White when he protests (op. cit., pp. 166-7) against

" the false assumption that language is a combina- tion of signs, and!^ that the tones and articulations of those who speak it are, or should be, determined by the signs used by those who write it. On the con- trary, language is a combination of sounds ; and the proper function of the signs of written language is not to express but rather to call to mind those com- binations, so far as it is possible for signs to suggest sounds. This was the original function of letters, and it still is their legitimate function: but the effect of the diffusion of books, and of the ability to read them, has been to make the question prac- tically, for many people, not how certain sounds shall be expressed, out how certain combinations of letters shall be pronounced."

Speaking from a general acquaintance with the various writings of this Trans- atlantic author, I may add that what he held to be the true guide in matters of pronuncia- tion in any country was the usage recognized by people of the best breeding, without regard to pronouncing dictionaries or to the efforts of those who proceeded upon the false assumption indicated in the first sentence of the above paragraph. That the latter class had already affected the speech of his fellow- countrymen he realized with regret ; but this tendency seems to have been even more far-

reaching than he thought. "We write laughter, and speak lahfter," he says in another connexion (op. cit., p. 170). It is rash for a stranger to generalize hastily upon the usages of another country, but a residence of more than a year in trie United States leads me to believe that the majority of his fellow-countrymen no longer "speak lahfter," but Idfter, and that they very rarely use the " Italian a." It is true that far and father are still pronounced as with us ; but when such words as half, calf, laugh, salve, and rather receive the sound of haf, caf, laf, sav, and rather, the time does not seem far off when /or -And father will be pronounced as/ar a,ndfather. The line of reasoning apparently followed by those who would make pronun- ciation the slave of spelling is, in this respect, that since the letter a has only one sound in such words as rat, fat, and 'man, therefore it ought invariably to receive the same sound when similarly situated. Consequently, as the vowel sound in far is not expressed by aa or ah, it ought to be pronounced as.

These remarks are offered partly in supple- ment to the response made to MR. WINNING- TON LEFTWICH'S query as to the usage of the United States, and chiefly with the aim of showing that while "local causes" are an important factor in this question, there is another force at work in determining the present and future pronunciation of the letter a. DAVID MAcRiTCHiE.

Edinburgh.

" HULLABALOO " (9 th ii. 267). This word in the form of " Hub-bub-boo " occurs in 1689 in 'The Irish Hudibras,' p. 31:

the parted brother

Was laid to rest

With Hub-bub-boo

In 1723, in the form of " Holoo-loo-loo," it is to be found in 'The Comical Pilgrim's Pilgrimage into Ireland,' p. 92 : " The wild Irish set up a most hideous Holoo-loo-loo."

The concluding sentence of DR. MURRAY'S query indicates that ululatus is connected with the meaning. ARTHUR MAYALL.

TOWN DRUMMER (9 th S. ii. 227). See 'Waverley,' chap, xxxiv. ad fin. ; also 'The Heart of Midlothian,' chap. vi. (v. in later ditions). JONATHAN BOUCHIER.

JAMSHY'D AND KAIKOBAD (9 th S. ii. 327). Kai Khosru is mentioned in the 'Shah- nameh.' When he is besieging a castle of the Divs he throws a lance, with a perfumed bailsman affixed to the point, into the castle and straightway Divs and castle vanish altogether, The Pivs have a great objection