"And his maister shette the dore anon."
Ibm. 16, 610.
And in a variety of other places. This word is almost universally pronounced shet among all classes of people, not only in New England, but in Great Britain and the southern states of America. How the spelling came to be changed, is not known; but it was certainly a corruption.
An for if is seen in most old authors. It remains among the common people, both in England and America. "An please your honor;" that is, "if your honor please." In New England, the phrases in which it occurs most frequently are, "Let him go, an he will;" "Go, an you will;" and others of a similar kind.
Because and becase were used promiscuously by our ancestors. Becase is found in some ancient writings, tho not so frequently as because. In New England, we frequently hear becase to this day. It is pronounced becaze. It is a compound of be and cause or case; both of these words with the verb be make good English; but becase is vulgar.
The vulgar pronunciation of such is sich. This is but a small deviation from the ancient elegant pronunciation, which was swich or swiche, as the word is spelt in Chaucer. Such is the force of national practice: And altho the country people in New England, sometimes drawl their words in speaking, and, like their brethren, often make false concord, yet their idiom is purely Saxon or English; and in a vast number of instances, they have adhered to the true phrases, where people, who despise their plain manners, have run into error. Thus they say, "a man is going by," and not going past, which is nonsense: They say, "I purpose to go," and not propose to go, which is not good English. They say, "a ship lies in harbor," not lays, which is a modern corruption. They say, "I have done," and never "I am done," which is nonsense. They say, "it was on Monday evening," not "of a Monday evening," which is an error. They never use the absurd phrases "expect it was;" and "the ship will sail in all next week." They never say "he is home," but always, "at home." They use the old phrase, "it is half after six o'clock," which is more correct than half past six. They say, if a person is not in health, he is sick. The modern English laugh at them, because the English say a man is ill; and confine sick to express the idea of a nausea in the stomach. The English are wrong, and the New England people use the word in its true sense, which extends to all bodily disorders, as it is used by the pure English writers. Ill is a contraction of evil; and denotes a moral disorder. Its application to bodily complaints is a modern practice, and its meaning figurative. So that whatever improprieties may have crept into their practice of speaking, they actually preserve more of the genuin idiom of the English tongue, than many of the modern fine speakers who set up for standards.
The letters ch in Roman answered nearly to the Greek ki or chi; for c had the sound of k, at least before a, o, u. Ch or kh was therefore the proper combination for the Greek letter; which had the sound of k followed by an aspirate. This combination was copied into our language; and perhaps the aspirate was once pronounced, like the Irish guttural in Cochran. But when the aspirate was lost, k became the proper representative of the sound. It is wished, that in all the derivatives from the ancient languages, where this character occurs, k might be substituted for ch; that persons unacquainted with etymology, might not mistake and give ch its English sound.
