Immers ik heb alle deelen en byzonderheden der Spraak, in het algemeen en byzonder, en tot in het minste, getracht na te sporen, en dus op te helderen niet slechts, maar te doen VERSTAAN. Niet getracht exters het klappen te leeren, maar menschen wier wezen redenlyk is, aan de reden te verbinden en verstandelyk te leeren spreken, 'tgeen niet anders is, of mag zijn, dan zijn denken en gevoelen in worden te uiten. Bilderdijk. My intention has always been, to trace all the parts and peculiarities of Language up to the minutest particles of it's consistence, and thus not merely to display it, but to make it evident to the understanding. I am not trying to instruct magpies how to chatter, but to unite Man, as a rational being, with his distinctive Faculty, and to teach him to speak in accordance with that Faculty; which is, or should be, no other than to express his thoughts and feelings in congruent articulation. Howe 10-1-29 20161 P R E F A СЕ. For the guidance and principle by which the ensuing contents are brought forward, I refer to the four prefaces contained in the first of the two volumes of the second edition of this Essay. However distinct in appearance, the primitive and now usual form may be to the eye, the enunciation or sound, adopting the then pronunciation of our language, will be found identical, and is the real clue to their true import, at least as far as regards customary colloquial phrases and terms. But on the score of Nursery Rhymes, as they are now called, the unparallelled corruption of verbal intercommunication, from circumstances (as well as time) peculiar to our country, has afforded our Friarhood of a subsequent day a mean to muffle up, in a precise indentity of sound, terms, either carrying no rational import in connection, or else one utterly irrelevant to the original sense, and was intended by this crafty tool of the Pope, then established here, to obliterate, or at least disarm of danger, this popular and bitter display of the disgust of the naturally and truly religious Heathen Saxon at having a greedy, and to him heretical mountebank, imposed upon him. In the smothering of these pungent, and then truly favourite and popular satyrisings of this tool of superstition, the craft and ingenuity of those interested in so doing, have been displayed by returning the exact cadence and sound of the originals, and thus preserving at least a share of their popularity to the eye and ear of their dupes; whilehowever it left, unforeseeingly, to future research the means of reviving them. Of the fluctuating utterance represented by letter, none of us need be advised, when we have before our eyes, that of the vowel a, in flea, sea, soap, may, say, dawn, claw, glad, tread, thread, &c.; of e in deed, creed, fled, lead, knee, sure, some, head, &c.; of the i in clipped, tie, night, spite, ditty, certain, plain, phial, bird, &c. In the saxon day ij, i had the sound, as now with the french of ee, e, and undotted, i. e. y, as with us now; v, at the beginning of a word in dutch, is as f with us. with us, still To suppose the present form of these, universally popular tunes, was that of their original devisers, would be to assume an unexampled misuse of the human understanding, and, taking their mess of nonsense, true sense, and gratifying cadence, into ac count, I may safely say, not only an absurdity, but an impossibility. The original form has been here traced by the true and simple clue of sound-sense, that is, identity of sense from sound; and the tenour of all I have yet tried, has been expression of the reasons of the Heathen Saxon for not receiving one who disturbed his family and publick peace, and who disgusted him by an incomprehensible dogma; besides the having to feed him out of hard-earned means. Phrases and Sayings WHICH BY THEIR LITERAL FORM DO NOT BEAR OUT I WISH MY CAKE WAS DOUGH AGAIN. As the well known expression attributed to those whose fate in marriage has not corresponded with their anticipation seems. Ei! n' hissche my keke was d' houw er geen; q. e. what is it that wispers within me repentance! Oh that there was no such thing as marriage! Eh! how comes this reproachful feel within me! would that matrimony had never been invented; a sentence resounding precisely into the travesty, and carrying the original form and that meaning which the literal form has acquired by inheritance and use. The hei! of the latin is the dutch ei! Eh! probably the ground of heyen, hijen, to work hard, to drive piles, and as the burst of sound that comes from him with the stroke he makes at each down-sent effort; w,wie, how? in what way? hische, the present tense of hisschen, to mutter, to buzz, to wisper: hour, marriage, matrimony; geen, none, not any, no such thing as; not one; keke, reproach, check. BAD. The adjective; seems, by had; q. e. looked upon, or reckoned that which is to be laid aside; held as to be put away, and so as that which is unfit or improper to have, to deal with, to use, say, see, feel. The travesty and original sound alike. The latin habere, the italian avere, our to have, spanish aver, the french avoir, the B |