Page:Studies in Lowland Scots - Colville - 1909.djvu/104

80 pleading before the House of Lords, said cūrătors in the Scots way, and, being twitted thereupon by Mansfield, who had the English way, curātors, he replied effectively by playing upon senātor and orātor. The Parliament House still keeps to the form cūrător. It is hard for the Scots vernacular ear to be consistent with o, witness—

The last has now quite lost its long ō, absolutely necessary as representing the Latin præpositus.

The Scot seems to have an aversion to the long sound of o and, specially where unaccented in finals, substitutes for its English value his favourite light ending, shown in diminutives like lassie, or a sound similar to final e in German. Examples of the light a substitute are—

of the light ie substitute are—

As a medial the open sound is modified by a contiguous r; for example, firr'm (form, or bench), wurr'm (worm); or, again, lengthened as in coer'n (corn), stoer'm (storm); while an l, following, either preserves the long o (coal, mole), or is itself dropped and a quite different vocalisation appears, as row (roll),