"Unkindly they slew him, that holp them oft at nede."
Skelton El. on Earl of Northum. l. 47.
In Virginia it is pronounced hope. "Shall I hope you, Sir."
But we must look among the New England common people for ancient English phrases; for they have been 160 years sequestered in some measure from the world, and their language has not suffered material changes from their first settlement to the present time. Hence most of the phrases, used by Shakespear, Congreve, and other writers who have described English manners and recorded the language of all classes of people, are still heard in the common discourse of the New England yeomanry.
The verb be, in the indicative, present tense, which Lowth observes is almost obsolete in England, is still used after the ancient manner, I be, we be, you be, they be. The old plural housen is still used for houses. The old verb wol for will, and pronounced wool, is not yet fallen into disuse. This was the verb principally used in Chaucer's time, and it now lives in the purest branch of the Teutonic, the German.
For many years, I had supposed the word dern in the sense of great or severe, was local in New England. Perhaps it may not now be used any where else; but it was once a common English word. Chaucer uses it in the sense of secret, earnest, &c.
"This clerk was cleped Hende Nicholas
Of derne love he could and of solas."
Mil. Tale, l. 3200.
"Ye mosten be ful derne as in this case."
Ibm. 3297.