Note 72 — Chapter VII

The vowel is not so great a difficulty as it might appear, and we actually have the same change in comrade itself, formerly pronounced cumrade. In the London pronunciation the u of such words as but, cup, hurry, etc., represents roughly a continental short a. This fact, familiar to phoneticians but disbelieved by others, is one of the first peculiarities noted by foreigners beginning to learn English. It is quite possible that chum is an accidental spelling for *cham, just as we write bungalow for bangla (Bengal), pundit for pandit, and Punjaub for Panjab, five rivers, whence also probably the liquid called punch, from its five ingredients. Cf. also American to slug, i.e. to slog, which appears to represent Du. slag, blow—"That was for slugging the guard" (Kipling, An Error in the Fourth Dimension)—and the adjective bluff, from obsolete Du. blaf, broad-faced.