The Salamanca Corpus: Anecdotes of the English Language (1814)

ANECDOTES

OF THE

ENGLISH LANGUAGE:

CHIEFLY REGARDING THE LOCAL DIALECT

OF

London and its Environs;

Whence it will appear that the Natives of the Metropolis,

and its Vicinities, have not Corrupted the

Language of their Ancestors.

IN A LETTER FROM

SAMUEL PEGGE, Esq, F.S.A.

TO AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE, AND CO-FELLOW OF THE

SOCIETY OF ANTQUARIES, LONDON.

THE SECOND EDITION, ENLARGED AND CORRECTED.

To which is added,

A SUPPLEMENT

to the

PROVINCIAL GLOSSARY OF FRANCIS GROSE, esq.

" Our sparkefull Youth laugh at their Great-Grand-Fathers' English,

who had more care to do well, than to speake Minion-like."

Camdens Remains, p.22.

LONDON:

Printed by and for j.nichols, son, and bentley,

red lion passage, fleet street

1814.

[iii]

ADVERTISEMENT in 1803

The little Essay here presented to the Public was found among the Papers of its deceased Author; who seems to have made it the amusement of a leisure hour; and probably laid aside or resumed his pen as his health and spirits ebbed and flowed. Such as it is, the Editor presumes it will be taken in good part, and create good-humour in its Readers; who cannot but be aware of the difficulty of reducing Language or Taste to a common standard.

POSTCRIPT in 1814

The former Edition of this Volume Was submitted to the Public under an express injunction in the last Will of its worthy and learned Author; and its reception was such as would have fully gratified him could

[iv]

he have witnessed it. At its first appearance, the Editor did not feel himself at liberty to make any material alterations in Mr. pegge's original arrangement; but, amidst a large mass of Papers connected with this and other subjects entrusted to his revisal, were many nearly finished articles congenial to the present enquiry, which have furnished the Additions and Corrections in the present Edition; which is improved by a very copious Index.

The Provincial Glossary also is an appendage which, it is hoped will prove acceptable to the Philologist; and is printed separately, for the accommodation of former Purchasers, either of Mr. Pegge's " Anecdotes of the English Language," or of Mr. Grose's "Provincial Glossary."

J.N.

[v]

TESTIMONIALS

"Philology offers few subjects more curious than the history of the English Language; which has been derived from various sources, has received numerous admixtures in its progress, has Been the sport of whim and caprice, and is at present far from being completely grammaticized. The late ingenious Mr. Pegge amused himself, and will doubtless amuse his Readers, while, under a feigned zeal for the credit of the common London or Cockney dialect, he discussed the aukward state of our Language at a period not very remote from the present day, and adduced written authorities, of no mean rank, to justify expressions which are now regarded as evidences of vulgarity and want of education. With much grave humour, he pleads the cause of 'old, unfortunate, and discarded words and expressions, which are now turned out to the world at large by persons of education (without the smallest protection), and acknowledged only by the humbler orders of mankind; who seem charitably to respect them

[vi]

as decayed Gentlefolks that have known better days;' and he insists that those modes of speech, which Dr. Johnson treated with so much contempt as mere 'colloquial barbarisms' claim respect on account of their pedigree, though not for the company which they are now forced to keep. Formerly these were of good repute; and though they be now melted down and modernized by our present literary refiners, the Cockney evidences his partiality to the old Family Language, and is not ashamed of being some centuries behind the present fashion. Cockneys, then, are entitled to some favour from an Antiquary, and their dialect will supply him with food adapted to his taste.

"This fondled creature is so much Mr. Pegge's darling, that he will not permit the fashionable world to abuse him as they have done. The sneering Courtier is reminded that the dialect in use among the Citizens,within the sound of Bow-bell, is that of Antiquity; and that 'the Cockneys, who content themselves with the received Language and pronunciation which has descended to them unimpaired and unaugmented through a long line of ancestry, have not corrupted their native tongue, but are in general luckily right, though upon unfashionable principles'

[vii]

These peculiarities of expressions, the shibboleths of the common citizens, are here termed Londonisms.

"For some of the modes of pronunciation employed by the Cockneys, the Author attempts no defence; thinking that it is better to throw them on the mercy of the Court: but he artfully endeavours, before he leaves them to their fate in this respect to put a smile on the countenances of their Judges.

" If this learned Antiquary does not think it worth his while to rescue the Londoner's peccadillos of pronunciation, yet of his ordinary words and expressions he sets up a bold defence. The use of redundant negatives, in 'I don't know nothing about it,' or 'Worser and more worser;' and 'Mought' for might'Ax' for ask'Fetch a walk''Learn' for teach'Shall us''Summons'd' for summon'd'A-dry 'His-self' for himself, and 'theirselves' for themselves'This here,' that there''Because why''Ourn,Yourn, Hern, Hisn''A few while' 'Com'd for came'Gone with,' 'went with,''gone dead' have more said in their favour than Cockneys themselves, would suppose; and the sneer of the beau monde is rebutted by the sanction of respectable men, who gave the ton to our great great grandfathers. In some instances, indeed,

[viii]

the Cockney appears, without perhaps being conscious of it, to have kept nearer to the true etymology, and to have more closely followed the genius or our language, than even the Courtier. Let the matter, however, turn out as it may; by thus adverting to their etymology, which is in fact, as Mr. Pegge terms it, the history of words, and by considering their parentage, intermarriages, and collateral family-connexions, we shall obtain some correct notions of the nature of our language, and be better enabled to perfect its grammar.

"Mr. Pegge has so managed his defence of Londonisms, as not to controvert Quintilian's principle respecting language, Consuetudo sermonis es consensus eruditorum.

"In the Additamenta, are some judicious strictures on the Dictionary of Dr. Johnson; who, it is truly observed, not aware of the authenticity of dialectical expressions, has been guilty of many omissions, and blundered in his etymologies. Pegge is induced to believe that more may be said in support of the Poticary of the Cockney, than the Apothecary of the learned and fashionable world, which has usurped its place*.

*See p. 72, of the present Edition.

[ix]

"Whether the Fashionable World will take the hints here given by our deceased Antiquary, to correct their expressions, and to guard against the perversion of grammar, we cannot pretend to say: but of this we are confident, that, if they read his Essay, they will be amused by the playfulness of his verbal criticisms, and by the various anecdotes with which he has enlivened his pages." Monthly Review, 1805, XLVII. 242.

"This Essay, as we are told by the Editor, was probably 'the amusement of the Author's leisure hours, who laid aside or resumed his pen, as his health and spirits ebbed and flowed.' It was found among his papers after his decease; and is given to the Publick by his friend Mr. Nichols, who doubtless felt a just confidence that the generality of Readers must be pleased with the union of so much curious information, with such easy jocularity of humour. The Author professes to undertake the defence of Cockney dialect, as it is called; and shows, in fact, that the chief part of the peculiarities which characterize that dialect are not so properly corruptions, as the remains of a more antient mode of speaking, now in general disused. He sets out with a sort of genealogy of our Language, which is so well deduced,

[x]

that it deserves a place in this account of the book*.

"The Author then mentions Dr. Meric Casaubon, the Rev. G. W. Lemon, Junius, and others who are fond of deriving our language from the Greek: he notices also, from Dr. Hickes, Sir John Fortescue Aland, &c. the affinity between the Greek and the Gothic languages, and concludes his enquiry in these terms.

"It might be added, that Philosophy, for the last three centuries, has imported many Greek terms directly from the Writers of that Language; but that these are easily distinguished, as being in general terms of science: and with this adjunct we shall have altogether a very sensible view of the sources of our language, conveyed in a few paragraphs. No notice is taken, we may observe, of the Oriental words supposed by some Writers to have been engrafted into our Language; because (excepting about thirty or forty words which are names of things produced in the East) no rational conjecture can be formed, how we should obtains such additions. Similarities of this kind must therefore be regarded as casual coincidences.

*See it in pp. 4-7, of the present Edition.

See pp. 10, 11.

[xi]

"This aggreable Author then lays it down as a previous principle, that 'the most unobserved words in common use are not without fundamental meanings, however contemptible they may appear in this age of refinement.' To illustrate this, he exemplifies in the two very humble words ge and wo, used by