Thomas Hughes: "Blawin-stwun Hill"

Thomas Hughes

The Law Gazette, 1893

(Image from Wikipedia)

Yesterday, I asked about the original misapprehension of "stwun" (i.e., "stone") in Tom Brown's School Days, wondering if Thomas Hughes intended his hypothetical reader to inquire "stuym" or "sturm," for the Gutenberg Project's online copy of that book has "stuym," whereas my Wordsworth Children's hardcopy edition has "sturm."

A bit of digging around online led me to the likely answer for that query about the original word used by Hughes to convey the reader's misapprehension of "stwun." As a reminder, here's the relevant portion that I posted yesterday:

"What is the name of your hill, landlord?"

"Blawing STWUN Hill, sir, to be sure."

[READER. "Stuym?"

AUTHOR: "Stone, stupid -- the Blowing Stone."]

That was from the Gutenberg Project. My Wordsworth edition has this:

"What is the name of your hill, landlord?"

"Blawing STWUN Hill, sir, to be sure."

[READER. "Sturm?"

AUTHOR: "Stone, stupid -- the Blowing Stone."]

I think the original to have been "sturm," for I found this online:

"'What is the name of your hill, landlord?'

'Blawin-stwun Hill, sir, to be sure.'

[READER. 'Sturm?'

AUTHOR: 'Stone, stupid -- the Blowing Stone.']

This comes from a chapter on Elizabethan pronunciation in Richard Grant White's 1862 edition of The Works of William Shakespeare (Boston, Little Brown and Company), which would be rather authoritative since it was published merely five years after Hughes published Tom Brown's School Days (and also explains that the word "stwun" rhymes with "one," indicating that it therefore has no umlaut, contrary to my speculations).

I also see from the above that the original probably had "Blawin-stwun Hill" rather than "Blawing STWUN Hill." Perhaps a later edition altered this . . . along with "sturm" to "stuym," for we find "stuym" in a 2008 hard copy as well.