tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8377709913595182916.post3584973659411113094..comments2024-03-14T10:31:26.918+00:00Comments on DCblog: On OP (the latest)DChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10192779827863835310noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8377709913595182916.post-80744906036080906662008-04-03T09:27:00.000+00:002008-04-03T09:27:00.000+00:00I've heard modern productions do all sorts of thin...I've heard modern productions do all sorts of things to get round the problem - usually by lengthening the 'o' at the end, so that it becomes more 'oo'-like, for both <I>bow-wow</I> and <I>dow</I>. (If they had tried this effect in OP, it would have been much easier to achieve, because the first part of the diphthong was articulated higher in the mouth, more like the vowel sound of <I>the</I> than the vowel sound of <I>sat</I>.)<BR/><BR/>Why did one sound change and not the other? Sound symbolic (onomatopoeic) words don't follow the normal phonological rules of the language, over time. Indeed, there are many such 'words' in the language today which act differently. For instance, it isn't normal English phonology to have a word consisting of a single consonant, but in such cases as <I>shh</I> that is what we get. So it's not surprising that one onomatopoeic expression goes one way and another does not. But why the cock crow changed and the dog noise didn't I can't say. A point to note is that the spelling of these words varies quite a bit, in older texts, e.g. <I>wow</I> is <I>wawgh</I> in the Folio.DChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10192779827863835310noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8377709913595182916.post-17003624928770819792008-03-30T23:35:00.000+00:002008-03-30T23:35:00.000+00:00Speaking of Original Pronunciation, how do current...Speaking of Original Pronunciation, how do current (non-OP) productions of THE TEMPEST handle the following lines (from Act One, Scene Two) ?<BR/><BR/> "The watch-dogs bark.<BR/> Bow-wow.<BR/> Hark, hark! I hear<BR/> The strain of strutting chanticleer<BR/> Cry, Cock-a-diddle-dow."<BR/><BR/>For this to rhyme, the English-language representations of the two animal sounds (dog and rooster) plainly need to rhyme, too. If non-English productions pronounce "Bow-wow" as present-day English pronounces it, this requires "cock-a-diddle-dow" to end with that same /ow/ vowel: not acceptable to a modern audience (nurtured on "cock-a-doodle-doo") and almost comically remote from the sound of a rooster's actual cry. ("Ow" to Shakespeare plainly did not represent the same sound as "ow" to us.) <BR/><BR/>Yet if a (non-OP) production has the actor say "cock-a-doodle-doo" here (or even "cock-a-diddle-do") which the audience *will* accept .... to preserve the rhyme would require changing the dog's bark to "boo-woo" for the sake of the rhyme .... and this, I think, the audience will not accept. <BR/><BR/>So ... what DO the non-OP productions do<BR/>with "bow-wow/cock-a-diddle-dow" .... <BR/>and why, in any case, did one of these but not the other change its sound during the Great English Vowel Shift?KateGladstonehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07062492442607584456noreply@blogger.com