[Ads-l] NYC English a prefixing.

Sat Aug 19 21:12:45 UTC 2023

The phrase "go an angling" appeared within an edition of "The Compleat Angler".

Year: 1759 (Date specified by the editor's preface: August 30, 1759)
Book Title: The Compleat Angler: Or Contemplative Man's Recreation, In Two Parts
Authors: Isaac Walton and Charles Cotton
Seventh Edition
Printed and Sold by Henry Kent, London
Chapter 21: Directions for making a Line, and for the colouring of
both Rod and Line
Quote Page 216
Database: Google Books Full View

https://books.google.com/books?id=hJpcAAAAcAAJ&q=%22an+angling%22#v=snippet&

[Begin excerpt]
And upon all that are Lovers of Virtue, and dare trust in his
Providence, and be quiet, and go an angling.
[End excerpt]

Below is a pertinent citation for a non-food-gathering activity. The
phrase "went a swimming" occurred in a 1725 book.

Year: 1725
Title: An Essay on Sickness and Health
Author: Edward Strother M.D.
Printed by H.P. for Charles Rivington, London
Chapter 3: Of Motion and Rest
Quote Page 330
Database: Google Books Full View

https://books.google.com/books?id=tHZhgXQsZLoC&q=%22a+swimming%22#v=snippet&

[Begin excerpt]
. . . when I had staid there for half a Year, I betook myself to
Leyden for my Studies, and went a swimming with my School-fellows in
the Sea, and was cur'd insensibly by the Sea-salt rushing into the
Pores of my Body . . .
[End excerpt]

Garson

On Sat, Aug 19, 2023 at 4:12 PM Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
>
> Not sure how we can infer that there’s a “semantic limitation to food gathering activities”, even if we limit the parameters to late 18th century usage in the Northeast. In our YGDP entry on a-prefixing, , we cite the following example from the laws of Yale College, imposed in 1795, crediting Corky Feagin (1979: 116) with the find:
>
> "If any Scholar shall go a-fishing or sailing, or more than two miles from the College, upon any occasion, without leave from the President, a Professor, or a Tutor, ... he may be fined not exceeding thirty-four cents.”
>
> Granted, fishing counts as (attempted) food gathering but sailing doesn’t. (I’m pretty sure the law in no longer in effect, or at least it hasn’t been indexed for inflation.)
>
> LH
>
> > On Aug 19, 2023, at 1:43 PM, Michael Newman <Michael.Newman at QC.CUNY.EDU> wrote:
> >
> > Another interesting case from our history explorations, this time from a Brooklyn diary written by John Baxter (b. 1765). Baxter may or may not be a descendant of New Amsterdam's official English translator (later turned pirate) George Baxter. John Baxter pretty regularly uses a-prefixing but only with verbs related to food gathering:
> >
> >
> >  *   Went a fishing  (1792)
> >  *   Went a gunning (1800)
> >
> > But here's a weird one, I want to ask about:
> >
> > I went an eeling (1796)
> >
> > Are there other cases of N insertion before a-prefixes? Has the semantic limitation to food gathering activities been noticed before. BTW, there are other cases of a-prefixing from other diaries and in Horatio Alger's depiction of street kids' speech. The diary is in the archives of the Brooklyn Historical Society.
> >
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org