(a charivari of sundry thoughts, emanating from the mind and pen of Tony Clarke)
The Ringwood Rambler? What can this be? A column about long walks in the New Forest? A new bus service for tourists? A freshly hybridised species of rose? A new coffee shop with a hiking theme?
None of these, I fear. Think instead of Grandpa Simpson telling the supermarket cashier the story of every nickel he is handing over. Yes, this is rambling in the sense of ‘going on a bit’ about something that interests you but may or may not entertain others.
Let us begin with the Aye-aye, a Madagascan lemur with an exceptionally long middle finger. It’s an adaptation which allows it to search for larvae and grubs in the holes and crevices of tree trunks. (It is not, I gather, a result of persistent unpleasant exchanges with other Madagascar dwellers.)
All sources seem to agree that it’s called an ‘igh-‘igh lemur as if one were saying high-high without the ‘h’s.
[When I first moved to Nottinghamshire from Kent at the age of five, I was horrified to hear a lady at the bus stop say, “Ay up. ‘ere comes bus.” This was my first ever experience of dropped ‘h’s, and of ‘u’s sounded as in ‘butcher’! She even put a butcher’s ‘u’ into ‘comes’.]
No problem then for a long-fingered lemur, but in English the words ‘ay’ and ‘aye’ have become a source of considerable confusion. Before spelling became more rigidly proscribed, either spelling was used regardless of whether it meant ‘yes’ or ‘ever/always’.
In everyday life, this poses few problems for anyone, but when singing hymns and suchlike, it can be a snare for the unwary. The rule of thumb I was taught is to ignore the spelling. If it means ‘yes’, say ‘igh. Think of the parliamentary phrase: the ‘Aye’s have it. (That is, more people said ‘yes’ than said ‘no’.) By modern rules, the spelling ‘aye’ is correct in this case.
So, what of ‘ay’? If the meaning is ‘ever’ or ‘always’, then it is pronounced as hay without the aitch. Nottinghamshire horses have been eating it for years, it seems. “Go on, gi’e ‘er some ‘ay’” is music to a hungry horse’s ear. [If your mind just digressed into MTGGs, then you’re a worse rambler than I am.]
Ay appears in phrases like ‘for ever and ay’. Again, modern usage expects the spelling ‘ay’ in this case, but as I noted earlier, this was not always so.
“Let us with a gladsome mind, praise the Lord for he is kind. For his mercies… Booby trap! So often I’ve heard “igh endure” that I almost cringe in anticipation of it. It should, of course, be “ay endure”, and to be fair, most editions correctly print ‘ay endure’, but congregations just do their own thing.
Gerontius sings “Adoration ay be given” in the various recordings I’ve heard, and this is sensible since it clearly means ‘always/ forever’, but Cardinal Newman’s poem clearly has ‘aye’ as the spelling. In this case, sense, not spelling, must prevail.
Which leads me to finish with the ‘Soul of my Saviour’ problem. The first time I sang this at Sacred Heart, I waited with bated breath…
‘Call me and bid me Come to thee on high, Where I may praise Thee With Thy saints for…’ Dilemma! Do I sing ‘ay because it clearly means ‘forever’? Or do I sing ‘igh as the writer clearly intended the rhyme with ‘high’?
Personally, I feel to ignore the rhyme in this case would be obtuse, but it would mean breaking my rule of thumb and essentially singing nonsense.
What would you do?