... among the bric-a-brac of the centuries. I think the following memorial inscription is quite well-known:
"Reader! If thou hast a Heart formed for Tenderness and Pity, Contemplate this Spot. In which are deposited the Remains of a Young Lady, whose artless Beauty innocence of Mind and gentle Manners once obtained her the Love and Esteem of all who knew her. But when Nerves were too delicately spun to bear the rude Shakes and Jostlings which we meet with in this transitory World, Nature gave way. She sunk and died a Martyr to Excessive Sensibility. MRS. SARAH FLETCHER Wife of Captain FLETCHER departed this Life in the Village of Clifton on the 7 of June 1799 In the 29 Year of her Age. May her Soul meet that Peace in Heaven which this Earth denied her."
So ... when did exclamation marks start appearing on memorials? When did the limitation of capitalisation to nouns (not precisely applied here), German Style, become the rule? When did Nerves become important? When did She sunk become a tolerable English aorist?
What would Jane Austen have thought of this? Sense and Sensibility was published in 1811. I wonder if Captain Fletcher was ... not a naval officer but a Wickam-style redcoated libertine.
In one of my former churches (Downton, Wiltshire - first home of S Birinus before he went to Dorchester) there is a memorial with a similar text from 1755, liberally sprinkled with capitals on nouns, although there are no 'plings' (!). Interesting too there is the use of the medial S (or flong-S), difficult to find in modern typography: ſ. Examples: Perſon, Eſteem, juſt. The interweb suggests it largely disappeared in the early C19.
ReplyDeleteAs for the 'irregular' Aorist, I think that people were just less strict about these. I always wince at 'than when we first begun' in Amazing Grace, but imagine it was acceptable in C19 England.
The story is sadder still, if the Newspapers of the time are to be believed. She was buried on May 10 (per Parish record of Clifton Hampden). An Inquest was held on June 15 (per e.g. Reading Mercury Jun 17 1799) which Jury “without hesitation” returned the verdict of Lunacy. The husband was said to be an officer in the navy on passage to the East Indies.
ReplyDeleteThe newspaper uses noun capitalization (Inquest, Coroner. jury, Lunacy, but oddly not “navy”) but not as much as the memorial.
I found this in a secondary source, attributed to The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language (David Crystal), p67. I haven’t verified it:
ReplyDelete“Hart recommended his readers to use a capital letter at the beginning of every sentence, proper name, and important common noun. By the 17th century, the practice had extended to titles (Sir, Lady), forms of address (Father, Mistris), and personified nouns (Nature). Emphasized words and phrases would also attract a capital. By the beginning of the 18th century, the influence of Continental books had caused this practice to be extended still further (e.g. to the names of the branches of knowledge), and it was not long before some writers began using a capital for any noun that they felt to be important. Books appeared in which all or most nouns were given an initial capital (as is done systematically in modern German) - perhaps for aesthetic reasons, or perhaps because printers were uncertain about which nouns to capitalize, and so capitalized them all.”
The fashion was at its height in the later 17th century, and continued into the 18th. The manuscripts of Butler, Traherne, Swift, and Pope are full of initial capitals. However, the later 18th-century grammarians were not amused by this apparent lack of discipline in the written language. In their view, the proliferation of capitals was unnecessary, and causing the loss of a useful potential distinction. Their rules brought a dramatic reduction in the types of noun permitted to take a capital letter.
I found this in a secondary source, attributed to The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language (David Crystal), p67. I haven’t verified it:
ReplyDelete“Hart recommended his readers to use a capital letter at the beginning of every sentence, proper name, and important common noun. By the 17th century, the practice had extended to titles (Sir, Lady), forms of address (Father, Mistris), and personified nouns (Nature). Emphasized words and phrases would also attract a capital. By the beginning of the 18th century, the influence of Continental books had caused this practice to be extended still further (e.g. to the names of the branches of knowledge), and it was not long before some writers began using a capital for any noun that they felt to be important. Books appeared in which all or most nouns were given an initial capital (as is done systematically in modern German) - perhaps for aesthetic reasons, or perhaps because printers were uncertain about which nouns to capitalize, and so capitalized them all.”
The fashion was at its height in the later 17th century, and continued into the 18th. The manuscripts of Butler, Traherne, Swift, and Pope are full of initial capitals. However, the later 18th-century grammarians were not amused by this apparent lack of discipline in the written language. In their view, the proliferation of capitals was unnecessary, and causing the loss of a useful potential distinction. Their rules brought a dramatic reduction in the types of noun permitted to take a capital letter.
In the Reading Mercury of 15 June 1799 is a report of the inquest at Clifton Hampden the previous Saturday. Mrs. Sarah Fletcher 'put an end to her existence by hanging herself with her pocket handkerchief, which she fastened to a piece of small cord, and affixed it to the curtain rod of the bedstead in the room in which she usually slept'. Sufficient evidence of her state on mind was given to allow the jury to find a verdict of Lunacy. We are told that ;the husband of this unfortunate lady is an officer in the navy, and is now on his passage to the East Indies'. One curiosity is that the parish register of Clifton Hampden records the burial of a Sarah Fletcher on 10 May 1799. Is this a lapsus calami for 10 June? There is no entry in the Dorchester burial register.
ReplyDeleteYes, noun capitalisation and long S were both common throughout the 18th century, but by around 1780 were already becoming rarer in books and pamphlets from more progressive printers. Interestingly, though they had (as William says) more or less disappeared by around 1815 in books, one can still find it in handwriting up to around 1850, though it's irregular and (as one might expect) found more in letters and documents from elderly writers.
ReplyDeleteIt's all on the Internet if you look. She committed suicide by hanging herself off the rail of her 4 poster bed. Her husband was a Captain RN and had intended to enter a bigamous marriage with an heiress. The wronged wife actually entered the church to stop the ceremony.
ReplyDeletePresumably the German ligature ß, also known as the "sharp S", "eszett" or "scharfes S", is the exact same as that mentioned by William (above) ?
ReplyDeleteIt is the only German letter that is not part of the Latin/Roman alphabet. The letter is pronounced (like the "s" in "see"). The ß is not used in any other language.
Plus, in the German language, of course, there are plenty of Nouns with Capital letters.