Uploaded July 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 hours ago
Except from :
Poor Richard, 1739
An Almanack For the Year of Christ 1739,... By Richard Saunders, Philom. Philadelphia: Printed and sold by B. Franklin,
at the New Printing-Office near the Market.
- Of the Eclipses this Year.
There are so many invisible Eclipses this Year, that I fear, not unjustly, our Pockets will suffer Inanition, be full empty, and our Feeling at a Loss. During the first visible Eclipse Saturn is retrograde: For which Reason the Crabs will go sidelong, and the Rope-makers backward. The Belly will wag before, and the A--- shall sit down first. Mercury will have his share in these Affairs, and so confound the Speech of People, that when a Pensilvanian would say Panther, he shall say Painter. When a New-Yorker thinks to say (This) he shall say (Diss) and the People in New-England and Cape-May will not be able to say (Cow) for their lives, but will be forc’d to say (Keow) by a certain involuntary Twist in the Root of their Tongues. No Connecticut-Man nor Marylander will be able to open his Mouth this Year, but (Sir) shall be the first or last Syllable he pronounces, and sometimes both. Brutes shall speak in many Places, and there will be above seven and twenty irregular Verbs made this Year, if Grammar don’t interpose. Who can help these Misfortunes! -
#americanaccent
#languagehistory
#colonialamerica
#thirteencolonies
#benfranklin
#satire
Except from :
Poor Richard, 1739
An Almanack For the Year of Christ 1739,... By Richard Saunders, Philom. Philadelphia: Printed and sold by B. Franklin,
at the New Printing-Office near the Market.
- Of the Eclipses this Year.
There are so many invisible Eclipses this Year, that I fear, not unjustly, our Pockets will suffer Inanition, be full empty, and our Feeling at a Loss. During the first visible Eclipse Saturn is retrograde: For which Reason the Crabs will go sidelong, and the Rope-makers backward. The Belly will wag before, and the A--- shall sit down first. Mercury will have his share in these Affairs, and so confound the Speech of People, that when a Pensilvanian would say Panther, he shall say Painter. When a New-Yorker thinks to say (This) he shall say (Diss) and the People in New-England and Cape-May will not be able to say (Cow) for their lives, but will be forc’d to say (Keow) by a certain involuntary Twist in the Root of their Tongues. No Connecticut-Man nor Marylander will be able to open his Mouth this Year, but (Sir) shall be the first or last Syllable he pronounces, and sometimes both. Brutes shall speak in many Places, and there will be above seven and twenty irregular Verbs made this Year, if Grammar don’t interpose. Who can help these Misfortunes! -
#americanaccent
#languagehistory
#colonialamerica
#thirteencolonies
#benfranklin
#satire
