You know, I knew this, but I’d just forgotten, I heard about it back in college – probably in some English or linguistics class – but it had long since been packed away somewhere in my brain until I began to explore it yesterday. Here are the deets:
My recent posts have included Joseph Rodman Drake’s poem “The American Flag" (HERE), written in 1816, and I wondered about the use of an apostrophe in the third stanza, “Has dimm’d the glistening bayonet.” “Dimmed” and “dimm’d” both are one syllable, so was the mark purely ornamental – just to make the word look more “poetic”?
Then, in an earlier poem from the late 1700s by Philip Freneau, “On the Memorable Victory" (HERE), I noticed extreme overuse of the apostrophe – way beyond the expected poetic contractions like “o’er,” “e’er,” and “‘Twas.” Freneau used apostrophes in cry’d, resolv’d, brac’d, advanc’d, unfurl’d, arm’d, accomplish’d, lash’d, flash’d, heav’n, join’d, and many other words.
That’s what I explored yesterday, the use of apostrophes with past tense in poetry – and here’s one thing that popped up:
“In poetry, apostrophes (like in "lov'd" or "bless'd") often signal that the "-ed" ending of a past tense verb is elided (dropped) to fit the poem's rhythm (meter) or rhyme scheme, reducing a syllable. This poetic contraction, common in older verse (Shakespeare, etc.), tells the reader to pronounce it as one syllable instead of two.”
Ohhhh yes – this is where my packed away memory surfaced: the "-ed" past tense ending used to be pronounced as a separate syllable ("-ehd") in Middle and Early Modern English, but over the centuries, it evolved to be pronounced as just /t/ or /d/ (or /ɪd/ for some words like "decided").
Okay, that makes sense. I remember discussing that back in college. Hmm…but…there are past tense forms that end in “t,” like slept, kept, felt, and dreamt. Did those words used to be spelled with an “-ed” and pronounced with an added syllable, and the “t” came later? I suppose that’s a subject for a future search; however, that did bring to the surface another thought – actually, a line from Joyce Kilmer’s poem “Trees” (I added the caps): “A tree whose hungry mouth is PREST / Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast.”
My recent posts have included Joseph Rodman Drake’s poem “The American Flag" (HERE), written in 1816, and I wondered about the use of an apostrophe in the third stanza, “Has dimm’d the glistening bayonet.” “Dimmed” and “dimm’d” both are one syllable, so was the mark purely ornamental – just to make the word look more “poetic”?
Then, in an earlier poem from the late 1700s by Philip Freneau, “On the Memorable Victory" (HERE), I noticed extreme overuse of the apostrophe – way beyond the expected poetic contractions like “o’er,” “e’er,” and “‘Twas.” Freneau used apostrophes in cry’d, resolv’d, brac’d, advanc’d, unfurl’d, arm’d, accomplish’d, lash’d, flash’d, heav’n, join’d, and many other words.
That’s what I explored yesterday, the use of apostrophes with past tense in poetry – and here’s one thing that popped up:
“In poetry, apostrophes (like in "lov'd" or "bless'd") often signal that the "-ed" ending of a past tense verb is elided (dropped) to fit the poem's rhythm (meter) or rhyme scheme, reducing a syllable. This poetic contraction, common in older verse (Shakespeare, etc.), tells the reader to pronounce it as one syllable instead of two.”
Ohhhh yes – this is where my packed away memory surfaced: the "-ed" past tense ending used to be pronounced as a separate syllable ("-ehd") in Middle and Early Modern English, but over the centuries, it evolved to be pronounced as just /t/ or /d/ (or /ɪd/ for some words like "decided").
Okay, that makes sense. I remember discussing that back in college. Hmm…but…there are past tense forms that end in “t,” like slept, kept, felt, and dreamt. Did those words used to be spelled with an “-ed” and pronounced with an added syllable, and the “t” came later? I suppose that’s a subject for a future search; however, that did bring to the surface another thought – actually, a line from Joyce Kilmer’s poem “Trees” (I added the caps): “A tree whose hungry mouth is PREST / Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast.”
 | Why did Kilmer spell “pressed” as “prest”? After all, he wrote “Trees” in 1913 -- LOL – not 1713. Archaic style and tradition? Aesthetics? Metric precision (although both ”pressed” and “prest” are one syllable). Emphasis on the rhyme – with added emphasis through sight? Has the past tense of “press” always been “pressed,” or was it “prest”? That got a little muddy when I look’d into that. A few sites seemed to indicate that “pressed” and “prest” were forms of two separate verbs – but any support for that argument was difficult to find. Additionally, the OED stated, “There are 42 meanings listed in the OED’s entry for the verb “press,” 11 of which are labelled obsolete” – and past tense forms of “press” showed as “pressyd,” “presit,” “prest,” and “press’d.”  |
 |  Who could have guess’d this would be so confusing? Or is it guest? For now, I'll press on, and close with -- you guess'd it -- a pressing question: Did Emily Dickinson ever use the word "prest" in any of her poems? You'll find out tomorrow! |
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