Digital Analogue

65 year linguistic drift

I'm reading a book called They Broke the Prairie by Earnest Elmo Calkins, a history of Knox and Galesburg first published in 1937 (the town and college's centenary) and republished in '87. It's interesting to see what's changed and amazing to see what's stayed the same. I'm only a little ways in and already I recommend it (if you can find it---it seems to be out of print again).

But the linguistic usages are fascinating! On page 13, Calkins refers to the "clayey shale" of the area; showing that the -y construction is not new, nor is the difficulty people have in spelling it in some situations. He uses the word "darkey"---though more usually "colored" or "Negro"---in a totally unselfconscious fashion. He puts the cedille on the c in "façade" and the accent on the e in "Santa Fé", because that's how they're spelled.

Amazing how much things stay the same, though. Just in the first twenty pages he's already lamented how the farmers' land is further out of town than it used to be, increasing the difficulty with which they can participate in town life, and how the chains have been moving in to crowd out the local independents (of which there nevertheless remain many).

THIS LOT IS ADJACENT TO A SPORTS FIELD. PARK AT YOUR OWN RISK. --sign at a Knox College parking lot