Ordres for complet Diners or simples portions is punctually attented to and send in town—
there seems to be a spoken reversal of t and d, but I take 'send' to be an error of grammar, the pronunciation of the speaker being probably attentet, and sent. "Excuse my bad riding" (writing) is a perversion in speech. A German writes 'dacke' take, 'de' the, 'be' be, 'deere' deer, 'contra' country, and says:—
I am æbple [able] to accommodeted with any quantity of dis kins of Ruts [kinds of roots]. Plies tirectad to ... Sout Frond Stread ... nort america.
Here there is an attempt at the German flat p (p. 11) in the b of 'able'; the surd th of 'north' and 'south' becomes t, and the sonant th of 'this' becomes d—'with' remaining under the old spelling. The p of 'please' remains, but d of 'direct' becomes t; and while final t of 'front' and 'street' becomes d, the first t in 'street,' and that in 'directed,' are kept pure by surd s and cay. The rule of surd to surd and sonant to sonant is neglected in most of the factitious specimens of broken English.
The next is an instructive and a genuine example, being the record of a Justice of the Peace in Dauphin County (that of Harrisburg, the State Capital). It will be observed that the complainant bought a house, and being refused possession, makes a forcible entry and is resisted. The spelling is irregular, as in 'come' and 'com,' 'the' and 'de,' 'did' and 'dit,' 'then' and 'den,' 'nothin' and 'nosing,' 'house' and 'hause,' 'put' and 'but,' 'open' and 'upen.'
The said ... sait I dit By de hause and I went in de hause at de back winder and den I dit upen de house and Dit take out his forniture and nobotty Dit disstorbe me till I hat his forniture out; I did but it out in de streat Before the house; and then he dit Com Wis a barl and dit nock at the dore that the Dore dit fly open and the molding dit Brack louse[89] and then I dit Wornt him not to come in the hause and not to put anneysing in the hause and he dit put in a barl Into the hause and I did put it out and he dit put it in again and then he did put In two Sisses[90] and srout the barl against Me; and then I dit nothin out anneymore and further nosing more; Sworn & Subscript the Dey and yeare above ritten before me.... J. P.—Newspaper.
The beginning and close follow a legal formula. The PG. idiom which drops the imperfect tense runs through this, in expressions such as 'I did open,' 'I did put,' 'I did warned,' etc.; but as might be expected, the English idiom is also present, in 'I went' and 'he throwed.' Making allowance for reminiscences of English spelling, and the accidents of type, this is an excellent specimen of the phases of English from German organs. It shows that sonants and surds do not always change place, as in did, nobody, disturb, out, that, not, come, which are not necessarily turned into tit, nopotty, tisdurp, oud, dad, nod, gum.[91]
In the foregoing example, the final t of went (where some might have expected 'wend'), dit for 'did,' hat for 'had,' streat, wornt for 'warned,' put, srout for 'throwed,' and subscript,—is for Latin -AT -US, English -ed, and as this is t in German, it is retained by the language instinct, even when represented by 'd,' as in gol-d. Were there not something different from mere accident here, Grimm's Law would be a delusion. The t of out, disturb, and the first one in street, is due to the surd s beside it, or in the German aus and strasze.
In the, de; then, den; wis; anneysing, nosing; srout, the sonant th becomes d by glottōsis,[92] and the surd one s by otōsis, or t by glottosis also, and 'nothing' is more likely to become nossing or notting, than nodding—and English z is not known to many German dialects. On the other hand, z as the representative of sonant th, is legitimate in the broken English of a Frenchman.
The p of 'open' and the g of 'against' are influenced by the German forms öffnen and gegen.