Post by Jerry FriedmanPost by Ross ClarkPost by Jerry FriedmanPost by Ross Clark...
Post by Ross ClarkAnd by 1900 "=boy" is universal among sailors both Br and Am. Sailors
having regular need to refer to such things, you would think they would
have carried on a traditional pronunciation, rather than succumbed to
some modern affectation.
I agree with everything else you wrote, but not with this. Sailors are the
people who gave the world "fo'c'sle", "bosun", "t'gahns'l" (topgallant sail),
etc.
Yes, but I consider those the correct pronunciations. "Fore-castle" and
"boat-swain" are spelling pronunciations by landlubbers.
I consider them the correct pronunciations too, and I was taught (by
/Highlights for Children/, if memory serves) that the one correct pronunciation
of "buoy" was that of "boy". But you said sailors would have carried on a
traditional pronunciation, and I'm saying that far from it, they've drastically
changed the pronunciation of several words.
Quite so. My original argument was directed at PTD's apparent suggestion
that "boy" was a peculiar deformation of "boo-ee".
OK, I think we agree.
Post by Ross ClarkPost by Jerry FriedmanPost by Ross ClarkIn the case of "buoy", I think given Latin boia, Spanish boya, French
boye, that "=boy" is exactly the form you would expect if the word was
borrowed from French. The sailors have simply inherited that without
material alteration.
I tried to find out when French <oy> started to be pronounced with a /w/,
but I failed. I'll take your word that it was after "boye" showed up in English.
I wouldn't take my word for it. I'd have to look up when the oi > we >
wa shift took place, both in Standard French and any dialects that might
have played a role in nautical borrowings. That certainly could have
been an explanation for "bwoy" and/or <buoy>.
Thanks.
Post by Ross ClarkPost by Jerry FriedmanPost by Ross ClarkThings are complicated by the fact that (it seems) the Dutch word was
also borrowed at about the same time. The Dutch could, I think, account
for the "boo-ee" pronunciation, and for the now-standard spelling. As
for "bwoy", it could be a spelling pronunciation of <buoy>, perhaps
motivated by a distaste for homophony.
...
Post by Ross ClarkPost by Jerry FriedmanAnother possible story is that "booee" disappeared for a couple centuries
and was revived as a spelling pronunciation and to avoid homophony. That's
one step more complicated, but it explains why we haven't seen any evidence
for a "booee" pronunciation from 1600 to the 20th century. Of course such
evidence might exist. (The only search I tried was for "buoy 'pronounced it'".)
Another argument against that story is that if a spelling pronunciation were
invented out of nothing, we might expect it to start with /bju/ like "Buick",
"bucolic", etc.
Yes. I looked at the online Wright's Dialect Dictionary but didn't find
anything of interest. Any of these pronunciations could easily have been
hiding out in regional English for a long time.
Well, to clarify and confuse matters,
"Mr. Ellis has shown pretty conclusively that the original English pronunciation
of _oi_ was [Engl.] _ooee_. Our ancestors pronounced boy as an American
pronounces 'buoy,' _booee_. (In regard to this word _buoy_ I had always
supposed our pronunciation a pure Americanism, but Mr. Ellis says it is also
that of all nautical men in England. In ordinary English society the word is
pronounced exactly like _boy_."
[Sic on the lack of quotation marks or italics on the first "boy" and the lack of
a closing parenthesis.]
Charles Astor Bristed, "Some Notes on Ellis's Early English Pronunciation",
_Transactions of the American Philological Association_, 1871
https://books.google.com/books?id=2BU8AQAAMAAJ&pg=RA3-PA135
Certainly not what I had in mind.
Ellis did indeed say, "Nautical men constantly call _buoy_ (buui)," and
went on to say more about the word.
https://books.google.com/books?id=6hxiAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA133
Oy. This is not so much fun any more. A serious mess.
Contra Mr Bristed, I'm pretty sure not all "oi"'s were formerly "ooee"'s.
My contribution to the closing ceremony will be from Jespersen (Modern
English Grammar, Part I).
3.7 /oi/, /o·i/, /ui/, /u·i/, /iui/
Here he lists 38 oy-words for which he finds pronunciation evidence in
one or more of his four 16th-17th century sources (Hart, Mulcaster,
Bullokar, Gill). For about half of them he finds no evidence for
anything but /oi/ (e.g. toy, joy, noise, voice, oil, spoil, avoid,
royal...). For the rest, varying opinions including one or more of the
other pronunciations listed above.
On the one (or two) we have been most concerned with:
boy: /boi, buoi, bue:/
"Oi, in boy, we sound (as the French dooe) woë: for whereas they
write bois, soit, droit; they say bwoes, swoet, drwoet." (Butler,
English Grammar, 1633)
buoy: /buei, bu·i/
Further comment (12.64): "W is sometimes subjoined to the labial
consonants p,b, especially before open o, as in pot, boy, boil, etc.,
which sound as if they were written pwot, bwoy, bwoil, etc. -- but this
is done neither always, nor by all." (Wallis, Grammatica Lingvuae
Anglicanae, 1653, my translation from the Latin)
So there's evidence of a /bwoi/ pronunciation for both boy and buoy.
Good night.
