E. C. Harding. — On Voicel Sounds. 425 



in the song of birds and in the piercing and reedy notes of the 

 cricket and cicada. 



The long a in fate I cannot at present more precisely 

 define than to note that it is characteristic of many words 

 associated with the qualities of fii-mness and stability. 



I pass on now to the short vowels. 



Triviahty is indicated by the short i. We have abundance 

 of instances : pretty, fribble, dibble, quibble, nibble, fiddle, 

 higgle, giggle, snigger, flicker, flipper, flippant, tipple, slipshod, 

 milksop, silly, swill, sip, snip, nit, nip, jig, prig, tiff, whiff, 

 and nearly the whole class of affixed diminutives. Impudent 

 is vulgarly transformed to " impident," thus unconsciously 

 doubling the characteristic vowel. 



The short a wholly lacks the dignity of the long and full 

 sound of the vowel. A whole string of vituperative epithets 

 owe a portion of theii* sting to the offensive quality of this 

 vowel : slattern, drab, hag, Imrridan, for example, and the 

 extremely objectionable blackguard, in its present wide range 

 of substantive, adjective, and verb. In quahties we have 

 an unpleasant hst : clammy, flabby, scabby, haggard, scrannel ; 

 in verbs, to nag and to haggle. 



Lastly, I come to the short w, which can boast of a whole 

 vocabulary of contempt and opprobrium — contempt, however, 

 being the ruling characteristic. First we have a small 

 menagerie of unpleasant animals of low degree, whose names 

 are applied freely to humanity : grub, shig, bug, and skunk, 

 for example. The same vowel characterizes mud, muck, 

 puddle, slush, and sludge, a painful swelhng called mumps, 

 and an unpleasant internal disorder \'ulgarly called mulligrubs 

 (again note the doubling of the characteristic vowel). In the 

 same category' may be found a whole collection of terms indi- 

 cative of various degrees of stupidity — to blunder, to muddle, 

 to imdl ; a muff, duffer, and the expressive Scottish term (to 

 which I know of no English equivalent) — a sumph. To funh 

 is a slang term expressive of cowardice. Objectionable quali- 

 ties of character are indicated by a long Ust of similar words, 

 and the vocabulary of slang would be poor indeed without 

 this characteristic vowel. A disagreeable woman is an old 

 frump ; a man is an old buffer, hunks, or curmudgeon. He is 

 frequently in the dumps, is gruff, grudging, grumbling, grumpy, 

 sulky, sullen, and readily huffed : he may also be smug and 

 buiyqjtious. We should feel uncomfortable if in a lonely spot 

 we found ourselves followed by a hulking fellow, armed with 

 cudgel or bludgeon. The contemptuous quahty of the vowel 

 seems to be emphasized by the consonant g and the compound 

 dg ; for, in addition to words already quoted, we have budge, 

 fudge, drudge, dudgeon, gudgeon. Apphed to a female we have 

 slut and hussy (the latter corrupted from the honourable word 



