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From: sarima@netcom.com (Stanley Friesen)
Subject: Re: Linguistic help on surname changes 1700-1900
Message-ID: <sarimaCwtqH9.9B4@netcom.com>
Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest)
References: <361c66$fk8@dekalb.dc.peachnet.edu>
Date: Wed, 28 Sep 1994 05:12:44 GMT
Lines: 43

In article <361c66$fk8@dekalb.dc.peachnet.edu>,
david f addleton,g* acbu,*,4 <daddleto@dekalb.dc.peachnet.edu> wrote:
>
>In c1780s Elisha Adlington died.  One newspaper spelled his name ADLINGTON,
>and another spelled it ADDLETON when publishing the announcement of his
>burial services.  I can cite historical sources to this and other 
>instances where ADLINGTON and ADDLETON or ATTLETON were apparently
>orthographically equivalent.  Can anyone give me an historical rationale
>for this equivalence?

Well, based on my reading on late medieval English place names,
the variation is due to various renderings of the pronunciation.
That is the pronunciations probably hovered somewhere between
'add-leh-ton' and 'at-leh-ton'.  This would have been a fairly
normal erosion of the fuller 'Addlington' in the speech of the
common man.

[At least, that is my best guess - of course medieval place names
are not the same as post-Rennaisance personal names, but the basic
principles may well be the same - at least the practice of using
"worn down" forms of names was probably still common].

>Any help greatly appreciated.  I have some citations to the tendency
>to drop the `g' in `-ing', but not for these specific areas.  I have
>no citations for the tendency to equate `d' with `t' or `p'.  Nor have
>I any citations for the orthographic equivalence in New England of
>`le' and `ling', or for the pronounciation of `le' as `Lee', other
>than the citations about my surname itself.  Any help greatley appreciated.

In older English place names '-ling-' often was reduced first to
'-le-', and then to '-l-'.

Also, in many dialects of English 't's and 'd's in certain environments
tend to merge into one sound: in some cases this is either similar to a
normal 't', or it is a dental flap; in other cases they are reduced
to a glottal stop, which could concievably be spelled as 'p'.
(And adjacent to an 'l' is one environment where this happens - as
in "bottle").
-- 
NAMES: sarima@netcom.com swf@ElSegundoCA.ncr.com

May the peace of God be with you.

