“Quhen I am begun to write I really knou not what to say”
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Sarah van Eyndhoven
Abstract
It is currently unclear to what extent Older Scots features continued in correspondence during the early eighteenth century (Millar 2020: 100). To explore this, the digitised letters of politically-involved Scottish writers active during this time were compiled into a purpose-built corpus, and searched for the Scots feature <quh‑>. The focus was on three authors in particular who were selected for close-up analysis. Their correspondence was quantitatively analysed to determine the frequency of <quh‑> across author and word-type, which was then compared to the general dataset. Inter- and intra-writer variation was evaluated in relation to possible macrosocial influences. Results suggest that, contrary to earlier findings (Macqueen 1957; van Eyndhoven & Clark 2019), <quh‑> had not completely disappeared, but its persistence was largely conditioned by its use in abbreviations for highly frequent function words. The professional background of the author, however, is also shown to influence usage.
Abstract
It is currently unclear to what extent Older Scots features continued in correspondence during the early eighteenth century (Millar 2020: 100). To explore this, the digitised letters of politically-involved Scottish writers active during this time were compiled into a purpose-built corpus, and searched for the Scots feature <quh‑>. The focus was on three authors in particular who were selected for close-up analysis. Their correspondence was quantitatively analysed to determine the frequency of <quh‑> across author and word-type, which was then compared to the general dataset. Inter- and intra-writer variation was evaluated in relation to possible macrosocial influences. Results suggest that, contrary to earlier findings (Macqueen 1957; van Eyndhoven & Clark 2019), <quh‑> had not completely disappeared, but its persistence was largely conditioned by its use in abbreviations for highly frequent function words. The professional background of the author, however, is also shown to influence usage.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Foreword vii
- Introduction 1
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Part I. Pragmatics and prescriptivism
- Researching understatement in the history of English 10
- The rise and fall of sentence-internal capitalization in English 33
- Gender, genre, and prescriptivism 60
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Part II. Political, legal and medical text types
- A manipulative technique in a congressional debate 86
- Is legal discourse really “outside the ravages of time”? 101
- Duties, offices, and conduct 129
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Part III. The language of late modern letters
- Changing styles of letter-writing? 154
- “No criticism or remarks & pray burn it as fast as you read it” 180
- Filled-in petition forms and hand-drafted petitions to the Foundling Hospital 198
- “Quhen I am begun to write I really knou not what to say” 225
- Index 251
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Foreword vii
- Introduction 1
-
Part I. Pragmatics and prescriptivism
- Researching understatement in the history of English 10
- The rise and fall of sentence-internal capitalization in English 33
- Gender, genre, and prescriptivism 60
-
Part II. Political, legal and medical text types
- A manipulative technique in a congressional debate 86
- Is legal discourse really “outside the ravages of time”? 101
- Duties, offices, and conduct 129
-
Part III. The language of late modern letters
- Changing styles of letter-writing? 154
- “No criticism or remarks & pray burn it as fast as you read it” 180
- Filled-in petition forms and hand-drafted petitions to the Foundling Hospital 198
- “Quhen I am begun to write I really knou not what to say” 225
- Index 251
