Surbiton.
Minor Queries.
_Oasis._--What is the proper pronunciation of this word? Ninety-nine
people out of a hundred will say, as _I_ said, "O[=a]sis, of course!"
Let them, however, proceed to consult authorities, and they will begin
to be puzzled. Its derivation from the Coptic "wáhe" (or "ouahe," the
French way of expressing the Egyptian word wáhe.--_Encycl. Metrop._)
seems universally admitted. As to the pronunciation, the way in which
the word is accented by the different authorities in which I have been
able to find it is as follows:--
Ὄασις (πόλις).--_Herodot._ iii. 26. Larcher's _Notes_, and
Liddell and Scott's _Greek Lexicon_, give no help as to the
pronunciation.
Rees's _Cyclopædia_, and the _Encyclopædia Britannica_, do not accent
the word at all. Brasse's _Greek Gradus_, Ainsworth's and Riddle's
_Dictionaries_, Yonge's _Gradus_, Walker's _Rhyming Dictionary_,
Webster, Richardson, and Johnson, do not even contain the word.
The few authorities which _do_ accent the word, do it "with a
difference." Ex. gr.:
O'asis.--_Penny Cyclopædia._
O'asis.--_Imperial Dictionary._
O'asis.--Spiers' _English-French Dictionary_.
O[)a]sis.--Anthon's _Lemprière_.
Oásis.--Brande's _Dictionary of Science, &c._
O[=a]sis.--Butler's _Classical Atlas_. Index.
Who is right? I have searched all the Indices to the Delphin edition of
the Latin poets, without finding the word at all. A Cambridge friend
quoted at once "sacramque Ammonis oasim;" but, on being pressed,
admitted, that if it were not the fag-end of some prize-poem line
lurking in his memory, he did not know whence it came. I cannot get
anybody to produce me an instance of the use of the word in English
poetry. One says, "I am sure it's in Moore," and another, "You're sure
to find it in Milton;" but our English poets lack verbal indices. Some
such line as "Some green oasis in the desert's waste," haunts my own
memory, but I cannot give it a "local habitation." Of course, two or
three instances from _English_ poets would not _absolutely_ determine
the question one way or the other, as we pronounce many words derived
from Greek and Latin sources in defiance of their original quantity.
Still they would not be without their value. Can any wise man of the
East help?