Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 5.djvu/510

 498

NOTES AND QUERIES. [9* s. v. JUNE 23, 1900.

below 1 We are all aware of the tendency of pur- language to throw back the accent. But still taking inundate as our example, who sets the ball rolling ? Clearly we do not all begin to make the change simultaneously. I know that many pronunciations are forced on us from below, but no doubt it is otherwise with words, especially long words, where the accent has been thrown back. There is more than one reason for this, the chief being that the uneducated classes find a great difficulty in thus pronouncing some words, even if they can pronounce them at all, and are not likely to have initiated the change. Assuming then that inundate is a case of this, at what point in its history has the change of pronunciation become effective ; and since DR. MURRAY only registers the history of the word, how does he set about to discover this 1 I have little doubt that I could find some people who say inun'date, but then I can equally unearth all sorts of obsoletes. For instance, I have twice lately heard shruck as the past tense of shriek, and shew (pronounced shoo) as the past tense of show interesting survivals no doubt, but not on that account to be registered as in ordinary use.

It may be a little late to ask this question, which is to some extent answered in the ' H.E.D.' under 'Contemplate.' Butallthesame I would plead for a reconsideration of the line hitherto adopted. Take demonstrate, for instance. The 'H.E.D.' gives two pronuncia- tions of this word in the part issued in 1893, the first being demonstrate, and DR. MURRAY supports this order by stating that he first heard demonstrate at Oxford in 1885. This to me is simply astounding. I left Oxford in 1877, and 1 am sure my friends there would have made merry at my expense had I offered to demonstrate anything to them. In fact, I have never used this pronunciation, cannot recall having heard it, and cannot light on any one who has. That a number of people have used it till recently, and may still use it, is clear from the evidence ; but I venture to suggest that it is misleading to cull evidence from one class alone and ignore others with as good, if not better, claims to be heard.

This criticism might he extended to a large number of words which to me, though not necessarily to others, have long passed the transition stage. The old pronunciations will long linger in out-of-the-way corners, and perchance, too, among those bookmen who do not move in general society, but live in an atmosphere of their own. But I desire to call attention in the pages of ' N. & Q.' to this registration in the * H.E.D.' of obsolete or semi - obsolete pronunciations, as if they

were flourishing at the present time, so that a protest may stand on record, and to the crying need of some standard by which words may be judged.

Lastly, in regard to re'monstrate, I would venture to inquire whether this new pronun- ciation has not been adopted by some young men with, perhaps, a craving for notoriety, just as some of our recently coined and transient words have come into being. It is a harmless anticipation, as the change is bound to come ; but, being a newly fledged pronunciation, one would like to make sure of its origin, as well as trace its develop- ment, and find out if its advent be forced or natural. HOLCOMBE INGLEBY.

Heacham Hall, Norfolk.

[We seem to remember within sixty years the change from Illustrated London News to Illustrated London News and Illustrated London News which is now common.]

"CHINK" (9 th S. v. 432). It is an old myth that the wood of oak is with difficulty dis- tinguishable from that of the Spanish chest- nut. There is no real difficulty. All our woods show more or less distinctly on the surface, cut across the grain, a series of lines which in the trunk radiate to its periphery. These are the medullary rays, and constitute the "silver grain." It is these rays which give the variegated pattern to the wood cut with the grain. In the chestnut these rays are all of the same size ; in the oak some of them are always broad. The distinction is so readily observable that no one whose atten- tion has been once drawn to it can ever again fail to recognize it. I send herewith, for the Editor's inspection, illustrative specimens. Wood, when it shrinks in drying, splits along these rays, and its large rays cause the for- mation of wide fissures in the wood of oak. May not this fact be the source of the use of the term "chink" referred to by MR. HOL- COMBE INGLEBY? Descriptive of the fissure formed along the medullary ray, the term has been transferred to the medullary ray itself, whether seen as a band on the cross- section of the wood, as on the bottom of a panel, or as a variegated pattern in its length.

SENGA.

[We acknowledge with thanks two sections of the woods in question elucidating the views of our cor- respondent.]

THE ENGLISH MILE (9 th S. iv. 497 ; v. 1 33). The roads of England and Wales were first surveyed and measured by John Ogilby, who published his * Britannia ' with one hundred maps in 1675. Before that time distances