The tendency to economize effort also manifests itself when the general ending -er is used instead of a more specific expression: sleeper for sleeping-car; bedder at college for bedmaker; speecher, footer, brekker (Harrow) for speech-day, football, breakfast, etc. Thus also when some noun or verb of a vague or general meaning is used because one will not take the trouble to think of the exact expression required, very often thing (sometimes extended thingumbob, cf. Dan. tingest, G. dingsda), Fr. chose, machin (even in place of a personal name); further, the verb do or fix (this especially in America). In some cases this tendency may permanently affect the meaning of a common noun which has to serve so often instead of a specific name that at last it acquires a special signification; thus, corn in England = ‘wheat,’ in Ireland = ‘oats,’ in America = ‘maize,’ deer, orig. ‘animal,’ Fr. herbe, now ‘grass,’ etc. As many people, either from ignorance or from carelessness, are far from being precise in thought and expression—they “Mean not, but blunder round about a meaning”—words come to be applied in senses unknown to former generations, and some of these senses may gradually become fixed and established. In some cases the final result of such want of precision may even be beneficial; thus English at first had no means of expressing futurity in verbs. Then it became more and more customary to say ‘he will come,’ which at first meant ‘he has the will to come,’ to express his future coming apart from his volition—thus, also, ‘it will rain,’ etc. Similarly ‘I shall go,’ which originally meant ‘I am obliged to go,’ was used in a less accurate way, where no obligation was thought of, and thus the language acquired something which is at any rate a makeshift for a future tense of the verb. But considerations of space prevent me from diving too deeply into questions of semantic change.
[CHAPTER XV]
CAUSES OF CHANGE—continued
§ 1. Emotional Exaggerations. § 2. Euphony. § 3. Organic Influences. § 4. Lapses and Blendings. § 5. Latitude of Correctness. § 6. Equidistant and Convergent Changes. § 7. Homophones. § 8. Significative Sounds preserved. § 9. Divergent Changes and Analogy. § 10. Extension of Sound Laws. § 11. Spreading of Sound Change. § 12. Reaction. § 13. Sound Laws and Etymological Science. § 14. Conclusion.
XV.—§ 1. Emotional Exaggerations.
In the preceding chapter we have dwelt at great length on those changes which tend to render articulations easier and more convenient. But, important as they are, these are not the only changes that speech sounds undergo: there are other moods than that of ordinary listless everyday conversation, and they may lead to modifications of pronunciation which are different from and may even be in direct opposition to those mentioned or hinted at above. Thus, anger or other violent emotions may cause emphatic utterance, in which, e.g., stops may be much more strongly aspirated than they are in usual quiet parlance; even French, which has normally unaspirated (‘sharp’) [t] and [k], under such circumstances may aspirate them strongly—‘Mais taisez-vous donc!’ Military commands are characterized by peculiar emphasizings, even in some cases distortions of sounds and words. Pomposity and consequential airs are manifested in the treatment of speech sounds as well as in other gestures. Irony, scoffing, banter, amiable chaffing—each different mood or temper leaves its traces on enunciation. Actors and orators will often use stronger articulations than are strictly necessary to avoid those misunderstandings or that unintelligibility which may ensue from slipshod or indistinct pronunciation.[65] In short, anyone who will take careful note of the way in which people do really talk will find in the most everyday conversation as well as on more solemn occasions the greatest variety of such modifications and deviations from what might be termed ‘normal’ pronunciation; these, however, pass unnoticed under ordinary circumstances, when the attention is directed exclusively to the contents and general purport of the spoken words. A vowel or a consonant will be made a trifle shorter or longer than usual, the lips will open a little too much, an [e] will approach [æ] or , the off-glide after a final [t] will sound nearly as , the closure of a [d] will be made so loosely that a little air will escape and the sound therefore will be approximately a [ð] or a weak fricative point [r], etc. Most of these modifications are so small that they cannot be represented by letters, even by those of a very exact phonetic alphabet, but they exist all the same, and are by no means insignificant to those who want to understand the real essence of speech and of linguistic change, for life is built up of such minutiæ. The great majority of such alterations are of course made quite unconsciously, but by the side of these we must recognize that there are some individuals who more or less consciously affect a certain mode of enunciation, either from artistic motives, because they think it beautiful, or simply to ‘show off’—and sometimes such pronunciations may set the fashion and be widely imitated (cf. below, p. [292]).
Tender emotions may lead to certain lengthenings of sounds. The intensifying effect of lengthening was noticed by A. Gill, Milton’s teacher, in 1621, see Jiriczek’s reprint, p. 48: “Atque vt Hebræi, ad ampliorem vocis alicuius significationem, syllabas adaugent [cf. here below, Ch. XX § 9]; sic nos syllabarum tempora: vt, grët [the diæresis denotes vowel-length] magnus, grëet ingens; monstrus prodigiosum, mönstrus valde prodigiosum, möönstrus prodigiosum adeo vt hominem stupidet.” Cf. also the lengthening in the exclamation God!, by novelists sometimes written Gawd or Gord. But it is curious that the same emotional lengthening will sometimes affect a consonant (or first part of a diphthong) in a position in which otherwise we always have a short quantity; thus, Danish clergymen, when speaking with unction, will lengthen the [l] of glæde ‘joy,’ which is ridiculed by comic writers through the unphonetic spelling ge-læde; and in the same way I find in Kipling (Stalky 119): “We’ll make it a be-autiful house,” and in O. Henry (Roads of Destiny 133): “A regular Paradise Lost for elegance of scenery and be-yooty of geography.” I suppose that the spellings ber-luddy and bee-luddy, which I find in recent novels, are meant to indicate the pronunciation [bl·-ʌdi], thus the exact counterpart of the Danish example. An unstressed vowel before the stressed syllable is similarly lengthened in “Dee-lightful couple!” (Shaw, Doctor’s Dilemma 41); American girl students will often say ['di·liʃ] for delicious.
XV.—§ 2. Euphony.
It was not uncommon in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to ascribe phonetic changes to a desire for euphony, a view which is represented in Bopp’s earliest works. But as early as 1821 Bredsdorff says that “people will always find that euphonious which they are accustomed to hear: considerations of euphony consequently will not cause changes in a language, but rather make for keeping it unchanged. Those changes which are generally supposed to be based on euphony are due chiefly to convenience, in some instances to care of distinctness.” This is quite true, but scarcely the whole truth. Euphony depends not only on custom, but even more on ease of articulation and on ease of perception: what requires intricate or difficult movements of the organs of speech will always be felt as cacophonous, and so will anything that is indistinct or blurred. But nations, as well as individuals, have an artistic feeling for these things in different degrees, and that may influence the phonetic character of a language, though perhaps chiefly in its broad features, while it may be difficult to point out any particular details in phonological history which have been thus worked upon. There can be no doubt that the artistic feeling is much more developed in the French than in the English nation, and we find in French fewer obscure vowels and more clearly articulated consonants than in English (cf. also my remarks on French accent, GS § 28).