Date:  Fri, 18 Jul 1997 10:39:16 -0400
From:  "(Dale F. Coye)" <Dfcoye[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: Bade, long and short

It is extremely controversial in the theatre. In every Shks production I=
've
been involved with there is a lengthy discussion on how this word should =
be
pronounced. I address this controversy in my forthcoming book "Pronounci=
ng
Shakespeare's Words: A Guide from A to Zounds" (another controversial wor=
d)-
look for it from Greenwood in 1998. Here's an excerpt, but I would only =
add
to what Jesse said, that some orthoepists in the late 18th century
recommended the long A, and Wyld believed that it was lengthened in Early=
 Mod
Eng. from the short OE form, as was spake and (he says) sate, though I'm =
not
convinced that either sat or bade were lengthened then-- it could be due =
to
the flexible orthography of the period. When you look at words that are
definitely short, they also show up with e on the end from time to time.

The excerpt is from a section on spelling pronunciations: The Survey ref=
ers
to a fairly random sample of Shk professors in the US, CN, and the UK I
conducted for this book.

Bade was once a much more commonly used word than it is today and was
pronounced =A6bad=A6. In most dictionaries in the early part of the twen=
tieth
century this was the only pronunciation given, but at that time, as peopl=
e
became increasingly literate and the pronunciation faded from the collect=
ive
memory, =A6bayd=A6, based on spelling and in existence for at least a cen=
tury,
rapidly gained ground. The Survey shows that in the United States =A6bay=
d=A6 is
rarely used by those professors born before 1940, but is preferred by hal=
f of
those born after that date. In keeping with this change among educated
speakers, about twenty years ago dictionaries began to include =A6bayd=A6
alongside =A6bad=A6, it being now deemed an acceptable standard pronuncia=
tion,
though some traditionalists would disagree.=20

(In fact traditionalists froth at the mouth when they hear it rhyming wit=
h
MADE). I also did an email survey of Princeton grad students and found th=
at
about 90% rhyme it with MADE from the US and Canada).

Dale Coye
Princeton NJ