"sucrye of strabyrs", 1683

[Joel S. Berson]

I have the following sentence in a letter from a
wife to her husband about to sail out of Marblehead, Mass., in 1683:

"I sent you a bucket of the bust sucrye of
strabyrs ... I beg your exceptance of my love thear in.”

"Strabyrs" seems obviously
"strawberries"  "Sucrye" is surely related
somehow to "sucre", but that word is not in the OED with the meaning "sugar".

I would be interested in the opinions of the
distinguished members of this list about the following hypothesis:

1)   Being a transcription from handwriting of
1683, there may be inaccuracies due to fading,
interpretation, and omission of abbreviation marks.

2)   There is in the MS an abbreviation mark
associated with both the R of "sucrye" and the B of "strabyrs" that means -ER.

3)   The Y in "sucrye" was written instead of I for the long E sound.

4)   The YR in "strabyrs" was reversed from RY,
whether by a slip of the pen or some other error.

5)   This Y was written instead of IE for the long E sound.

6)   The semi-silent W in "strawberries" was omitted.

Thus the following derivations:

sucrye <-- sucr[er][i]e <-- sucrerie
strabyrs <-- strab[er][ry]s  <-- stra[w]berr[i]s  <-- strawberries

("Sucrerie" perhaps does not appear in English
either.  I do not read French, but:  Although
"sucrerie" (Fr.) has a different meaning today, a
correspondent translates it as "sweet" and cites a 17th-century dictionary:

>Maybe "sucrerie of strawberries" (sweet of strawberry, strawberry sweet)
>
>Dictionnaire de Richelet (1680) :
>"Sucreries : toutes choses sucrées. Patisserie
>composée de sucre et choses douces."

All ayes and nays accepted.
Joel

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