He makes three forms of _u_:
the _tenuis_, as in _use_,--the _crassa brevis_, as in _us_,--and the
_longa_, as in _ooze_. The Saxons had, doubtless, two sounds of _oo_,
a long and a short; and the Normans brought them a third in the French
liquid _u_, if they had it not before. We say _if_, because their organs
have boggled so at the sound in certain combinations, ending in such
wine-thick success as _piktcher, portraitcher_.
"On earth's green _cinkcher_ fell a heavy _Jew_!"
That the _u_ had formerly, in many cases, the sound attributed to it by
Mr. White, we have no question; that it had that sound when Shakspeare
wrote "Midsummer Night's Dream," and in such words as _luck_, is not so
clear to us. We suspect that form of it was already retreating into the
provincial dialects, where it still survives.
Another of Mr. White's theories is that _moon_ was pronounced _mown_.
Perhaps it was; but, if so, it is singular that this pronunciation
is not found in any dialect of our language where almost every other
archaism is caught skulking. And why was it spelt _moon_? When did
_soon_ and _spoon_ take their present form and sound? That _oo_ was not
sounded like _o_ long is certain from Webbe's saying, that, to make
_poore_ and _doore_ rhyme with _more_, they must be written _pore_ and
_dore_. Mr. White says also that _shrew_ was pronounced _shrow_, and
cites as parallel cases _sew_ and _shew_. If New England authority be
worth anything, we have the old sound here in the pronunciation _soo_,
once universal, and according both with Saxon and Latin analogy.
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