The change from the back-open consonant [x]—the sound in G. buch and Scotch loch—to f, which has taken place in enough, cough, etc., is of the same kind. Here clearly we have no gradual passage, but a jump, which could hardly take place in the case of those who had already learnt how to pronounce the back sound, but is easily conceivable as a case of defective imitation on the part of a new generation. I suppose that the same remark holds good with regard to the change from kw to p, which is found in some languages, for instance, Gr. hippos, corresponding to Lat. equus, Gr. hepomai = Lat. sequor, hêpar = Lat. jecur; Rumanian apa from Lat. aqua, Welsh map, ‘son’ = Gaelic mac, pedwar = Ir. cathir, ‘four,’ etc. In France I have heard children say [pizin] and [pidin] for cuisine.
IX.—§ 6. Assimilations, etc.
There is an important class of sound changes which have this in common with the class just treated, that the changes take place suddenly, without an intermediate stage being possible, as in the changes considered in IX § [4]. I refer to those cases of assimilation, loss of consonants in heavy groups and transposition (metathesis), with which students of language are familiar in all languages. Instances abound in the speech of all children; see above, V § [4].
If now we dared to assert that such pronunciations are never heard from people who have passed their babyhood, we should here have found a field in which children have exercised a great influence on the development of language: but of course we cannot say anything of the sort. Any attentive observer can testify to the frequency of such mispronunciations in the speech of grown-up people. In many cases they are noticed neither by the speaker nor by the hearer, in many they may be noticed, but are considered too unimportant to be corrected, and finally, in some cases the speaker stops to repeat what he wanted to say in a corrected form. Now it would not obviously do, from their frequency in adult speech, to draw the inference: “These changes are not to be ascribed to children,” because from their frequent appearance on the lips of the children one could equally well infer: “They are not to be ascribed to grown-up people.” When we find in Latin impotens and immeritus with m side by side with indignus and insolitus with n, or when English handkerchief is pronounced with [ŋk] instead of the original [ndk], the change is not to be charged against children or grown-up people exclusively, but against both parties together: and so when t is lost in waistcoat [weskət], or postman or castle, or k in asked. There is certainly this difference, that when the change is made by older people, we get in the speech of the same individual first the heavier and then the easier form, while the child may take up the easier pronunciation first, because it hears the [n] before a lip consonant as [m], and before a back consonant as [ŋ], or because it fails altogether to hear the middle consonant in waistcoat, postman, castle and asked. But all this is clearly of purely theoretical interest, and the result remains that the influence of the two classes, adults and children, cannot possibly be separated in this domain.[35]
IX.—§ 7. Stump-words.
Next we come to those changes which result in what one may call ‘stump-words.’ There is no doubt that words may undergo violent shortenings both by children and adults, but here I believe we can more or less definitely distinguish between their respective contributions to the development of language. If it is the end of the word that is kept, while the beginning is dropped, it is probable that the mutilation is due to children, who, as we have seen (VII § 7), echo the conclusion of what is said to them and forget the beginning or fail altogether to apprehend it. So we get a number of mutilated Christian names, which can then be used by grown-up people as pet-names. Examples are Bert for Herbert or Albert, Bella for Arabella, Sander for Alexander, Lottie for Charlotte, Trix for Beatrix, and with childlike sound-substitution Bess (and Bet, Betty) for Elizabeth. Similarly in other languages, from Danish I may mention Bine for Jakobine, Line for Karoline, Stine for Kristine, Dres for Andres: there are many others.
If this way of shortening a word is natural to a child who hears the word for the first time and is not able to remember the beginning when he comes to the end of it, it is quite different when others clip words which they know perfectly well: they will naturally keep the beginning and stop before they are half through the word, as soon as they are sure that their hearers understand what is alluded to. Dr. Johnson was not the only one who “had a way of contracting the names of his friends, as Beauclerc, Beau; Boswell, Bozzy; Langton, Lanky; Murphy, Mur; Sheridan, Sherry; and Goldsmith, Goldy, which Goldsmith resented” (Boswell, Life, ed. P. Fitzgerald, 1900, i. 486). Thackeray constantly says Pen for Arthur Pendennis, Cos for Costigan, Fo for Foker, Pop for Popjoy, old Col for Colchicum. In the beginning of the last century Napoleon Bonaparte was generally called Nap or Boney; later we have such shortened names of public characters as Dizzy for Disraeli, Pam for Palmerston, Labby for Labouchere, etc. These evidently are due to adults, and so are a great many other clippings, some of which have completely ousted the original long words, such as mob for mobile, brig for brigantine, fad for fadaise, cab for cabriolet, navvy for navigator, while others are still felt as abbreviations, such as photo for photograph, pub for public-house, caps for capital letters, spec for speculation, sov for sovereign, zep for Zeppelin, divvy for dividend, hip for hypochondria, the Cri and the Pavvy for the Criterion and the Pavilion, and many other clippings of words which are evidently far above the level of very small children. The same is true of the abbreviations in which school and college slang abounds, words like Gym(nastics), undergrad(uate), trig(onometry), lab(oratory), matric(ulation), prep(aration), the Guv for the governor, etc. The same remark is true of similar clippings in other languages, such as kilo for kilogram, G. ober for oberkellner, French aristo(crate), réac(tionnaire), college terms like desse for descriptive (géométrie d.), philo for philosophie, preu for premier, seu for second; Danish numerals like tres for tresindstyve (60), halvfjerds(indstyve), firs(indstyve). We are certainly justified in extending the principle that abbreviation through throwing away the end of the word is due to those who have previously mastered the full form, to the numerous instances of shortened Christian names like Fred for Frederick, Em for Emily, Alec for Alexander, Di for Diana, Vic for Victoria, etc. In other languages we find similar clippings of names more or less carried through systematically, e.g. Greek Zeuxis for Zeuxippos, Old High German Wolfo for Wolfbrand, Wolfgang, etc., Icelandic Sigga for Sigríðr, Siggi for Sigurðr, etc.
I see a corroboration of my theory in the fact that there are hardly any family names shortened by throwing away the beginning: children as a rule have no use for family names.[36] The rule, however, is not laid down as absolute, but only as holding in the main. Some of the exceptions are easily accounted for. ’Cello for violoncello undoubtedly is an adults’ word, originating in France or Italy: but here evidently it would not do to take the beginning, for then there would be confusion with violin (violon). Phone for telephone: the beginning might just as well stand for telegraph. Van for caravan: here the beginning would be identical with car. Bus, which made its appearance immediately after the first omnibus was started in the streets of London (1829), probably was thought expressive of the sound of these vehicles and suggested bustle. But bacco (baccer, baccy) for tobacco and taters for potatoes belong to a different sphere altogether: they are not clippings of the usual sort, but purely phonetic developments, in which the first vowel has been dropped in rapid pronunciation (as in I s’pose), and the initial voiceless stop has then become inaudible; Dickens similarly writes ’tickerlerly as a vulgar pronunciation of particularly.[37]