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