168 BULLETIN OF THE ESSEX INSTITUTE. 



suggesting a translated name) ; Tristram was Trustram; 

 Tomlinson was Tumpleson, (earliest form, Tomlins) : 

 and people said to each other, " Are you going to the 

 vanduef The cause way at Essex is still the cossey to some 

 of the " old stand-bys." 



The matter of pronunciation is important. I find in 

 Gloucester records, in the older Gloucester speech, and 

 elsewhere, a tendency to sharpen d into t, b into^>, v into 

 /, ng into nk, and so on : — traces, as I think, of ancestors 

 who spoke a more Teutonic tongue than English, namely 

 Dutch or Flemish, (there is little difference) ; and in gen- 

 eral the sounds we have been trying to banish, as uncul- 

 tivated, seem likely to prove relics of an alien speech. 



Instances : Hutson for Hudson (Concord 1677), secont 

 for second ; Bapson for Bsibson, popple-stonesior pebbles ; 

 (we have a beach, High Popples, once a steep terrace of 

 pebbles); Finson for Vinson, Medifer for Madiver; 

 Sprinkfield for Springneid on Boston records, 1684 ; and 

 I have heard natives of that town teased for saying Sprink- 

 field, as I have heard New Yorkers teased for Hutson, man- 

 ifestly a Dutch relic there. 



L and n were interchangeable, {m with them, to some 

 extent; Tomlinson, Tumpleson, Tumblesome). Inger- 

 soll was long Inkerson on Gloucester records, and seventy 

 years ago the two f orms were co-existent. " Aunt Becky 

 Ingersoll," a barber with a famous parrot, used to say, 

 " Between Capt. Jack Ingersoll' and the Inkersons about, 

 there's a difference." (They were all of the same stock.) 

 Any man now would sit on the capson of the wharf , in- 

 stead of the capsill. 



Final e often served for y ; Luce and Stace, for Lucy 

 and Stacy, — (another Teutonic trait, to understand final e 

 as a separate syllable.) Becca, Doratha, etc., for Becky 

 and Dorothy, was common here, and still prevails in parts 



