[Put Yourself in His Place by Charles Reade]@TWC D-Link bookPut Yourself in His Place CHAPTER VII 19/23
This letter is sometimes anonymous, generally pseudonymous. "'If this reminder of the past and intimation of the future is disregarded, the refractory master gets a missive, which begins with an affectation of coarse familiarity, and then rises, with a ludicrous bound, into brutal and contemptuous insolence.
In this letter, grammar is flung to the winds, along with good manners; but spelling survives, by a miracle.
Next comes a short letter, full of sanguinary threats, and written in, what we beg leave to christen, the Dash dialect, because, though used by at least three million people in England, and three thousand in Hillsborough, it can only be printed with blanks, the reason being simply this, that every sentence is measled with oaths and indecencies.
These letters are also written phonetically, and, as the pronunciation, which directs the spelling, is all wrong, the double result is prodigious.
Nevertheless, many of these pronunciations are ancient, and were once universal.
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