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Updated: June 26, 2025
It will be the special aim of the teachers to educate their pupils out of all provincialisms, so that they may be recognized as well-bred English scholars wherever the language is spoken in its purity." Extract from the Prospectus of Madam Delacoste's Boarding-school. Myrtle Hazard was a puzzle to all the girls. Striking, they all agreed, but then the criticisms began.
It were bad enough if Du Maurier mixed good English with better French; but he employs in his bilingual book the very worst of both obsolete American provincialisms and the patois of the quartier latin side by side.
A provincial flavor distinguished them all, with differences of inflection, Southern excitability, the drawling accent of the Centre, Breton sing-song, all blended in the same idiotic, strutting self-sufficiency; frock-coats after the style of Landerneau, mountain shoes, and home-spun linen; the monumental assurance of village clubs, local expressions, provincialisms abruptly imported into political and administrative language, the limp, colorless phraseology which invented "the burning questions returning to the surface," and "individualities without a commission."
The stories of her old life in the Southern city were almost like the fairy-tales she retold from printed books; and her little provincialisms of speech amused him as much as his country dialect did her. She had soon dropped into the habit of taking his meal-trays to him and strictly enforced his eating a "right smart" of all the nourishments provided.
This and similar expressions are Northern provincialisms. "Fair Rosalind, in woful wise, Six hearts has bound in thrall; As yet she undetermined lies Which she her spouse shall call." Perhaps the most plaintive and poetical of all the popular Jacobite ballads. "She has two eyes so soft and brown, Take care! She gives a side-glance and looks down, Beware! Beware!
Besides, the English whalers sometimes affect a kind of metropolitan superiority over the American whalers; regarding the long, lean Nantucketer, with his nondescript provincialisms, as a sort of sea-peasant.
"Her couldna do without somebody to see to her and Miss Selina do worrit her so." muttered Elizabeth, in the excitement of this Almaschar vision, relapsing into her old provincialisms. "So, even if Miss Hilary axes me to come, I'll stop, I reckon. Ay, I'll stop wi' Miss Leaf."
These people were always sure of the most courteous treatment, and were prepared for the most candid expression. General Toombs was not solely a raconteur. He did not draw upon his memory for his wit. The cream of his conversation was his bold and original comment. His wit flashed all along the line. His speech at times was droll and full of quaint provincialisms.
Bartlett's Introduction, had he not, after eleven years' time to weigh them in, let them remain as they stood in his former edition, of 1848. In other respects the volume before us greatly betters its forerunner. That contained many words which were rather vulgarisms than provincialisms, and more properly English than American. Almost all these Mr. Bartlett has left out in revising his book.
Brassey, junior, in conclusion, "in every movement, always intelligent in observation, with an excellent command of language, and only here and there betrayed, by some slight provincialisms, in how small a degree he had in early life enjoyed the educational advantages of those with whom his high commercial position in later years placed him in constant communication.
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