In America the most shamefully treated of our five vowels is U, and the combination of letters EW, which should resemble U in accuracy, as it now so often does in sin. There should be a distinct difference between the sound of U and the double O, actually observable to the naked ear in such words as Duke, Duty, Tutor, Constitution, Enthusiasm, Tuesday, News.
The way to make this distinction is to remember that the English language is the only one where the true sound of U is YU; whereas the Russians, Italians and Germans pronounce U like OO, and the French differently from any one of these. Just as the Russians pronounce E as if it were YE, so Americans, when they practice in secret words like evolution, should visualize a Y in front of the U; it will help them.
The most popular letter in our alphabet, E, is abominably treated in such words as cellar, yellow, Philadelphia, where it is so offensively given the sound of U in “skull”; this is even more common and still more unpleasant in two useful words, Very and American.
Cultivated English and Americans laugh at the Cockney for leaving the H silent where it should be heard; but they themselves are equally and more unpardonably guilty in omitting the H in the combination Wh. There should be a difference in the pronunciation of Whine and Wine; yet most cultivated people in both countries talk about games of Wist, and say Wen, Wich and Wy. Let them heal themselves before laughing at the Cockney.
The dogletter, R, has a curious fate in American mouths; it is either unduly accented in such words as Here and Dinner (Middle West) or it is (East) hitched on to the end of words like idea, and saw, where it is as awkward as a sailor on horseback. Listen to the average Yankee when he says “I have no idea of it” and you will see that he speaks the truth.
XXX
OUR SOUTH AS CURE FOR FLU
The chief reason for my present sojourn at Augusta is the flu, which attacked me in Connecticut some weeks ago. The American use of the words “flu” and “grip” is both modern and interesting. Epidemics of influenza, which seem to cross the ocean from Europe to America without suffering any sea-change, have been more or less common since the pilgrims landed at Plymouth. Richard Hildreth, in his admirable History of the United States, describes these attacks in the Massachusetts Colony in the seventeenth century; and it appears from his realistic accounts that they differed in no respect from recent nation-wide flu epidemics.
If I remember rightly, the word “grip” was not used currently in America until the epidemic of 1889–1890, which was both severe and general; it was the subject of constant discussion in the newspapers, and it was generally believed to be a French importation, where it was known as la grippe. This in American became the “grip,” except in certain isolated districts, where it was called “the la grippe.” But the word, either in its French or English form, was not commonly used in America until the season of 1889–1890, when France made a Christmas present of it to the United States.
The word “flu” had been British slang for some time before it penetrated America; it was one of the numerous unprofitable things that our country acquired during the war. In a conversation I had with the novelist, William De Morgan, in London, in 1911, he casually used the word “flu,” and for a moment I did not guess its meaning. Then I saw it was an abbreviation. When the disease crossed the ocean in 1918, it brought with it its British pet name, which, universally current in America today, was, I believe, not known here till the last year of the war.
The exact difference between flu and grip I leave to the physician to determine; both differ from a cold in being invariably accompanied by fever, and in both the patient feels the worst after he gets well.