I do love when I get a whaler’s journal that has a lot of misspellings. It makes it slower to get through, but in my forever-fascination with New England accents prior to the latter half of the 19th century…when he spells things phonetically you get a better sense of his voice. I always try to preserve them.
In all the things I’ve cobbled together regarding early 19th c New England accents, ranging from the Biglow Papers to children’s speller books (targeting ‘mispronunciations in rural accents’), and whaler journals I can only describe it as like…
A Twangy Brogue. I love it. I’m so fond.
Examples off the top of my head to get a sense.
Catch – Kitch
Certain – Sarten
Oil and boil – Ile, bile
Such – Setch
Lantern – Lant-horn
Coin – Quine
Chair – Cheer
After – Arter
Birthday – bethday
Water – Warter
Exhausted – Exorsted
Get – Git
Sit – Set
Girl – Gal, gel
Chimney – Chimbly
Dirt – Dut
Learn – Larn
Cards – Cairds
Solider – Soger
Nervous – Narvous
Afraid – AfearedTurns of phrase like asking ‘be you happy’ instead of ‘are you happy’, swapping ‘on’ and ‘of’ such as ‘she died of a summer day, and fever was what she died on’ instead of ‘she died on a summer day and fever is what she died of’. ‘Wake snakes’ meaning stirring up trouble. etc. etc. etc. Love all of it.