[Vwoolf] Why did VW prefer "a earwig" in the proofs of To the Lighthouse?

[Edward Mendelson]

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Sarah,

I think you have the answer to this mystery - and Danell also pointed in the right direction by reporting the results of a Google Books search.

First, the OED records a sixteenth-century usage that starts with a yogh, presumably pronounced “yearwig” as Sarah's South Wales friend pronounced it. I strongly suspect this is exactly what Virginia Woolf heard in her mind when she wrote “a earwig."

Next, Google Books (limiting the search to 1900-1940) found an item in the Entomologist’s Monthly Magazine from 1903 with “a earwig” and a book by Montague Rhodes James (Provost of Eton, no less) from 1919 with “a earwig.” 

Google Books also produces many other instances in dialect (including one from Kipling) that unfortunately are false positives, because all were spoken by people who used “a” before any word that began with a vowel, as in the example from Kipling, which has a dialect speaker saying both “a earwig” and “a apple.”

But the examples of the learned entomologist and the even more learned Montague Rhodes James show that Virginia Woolf was not alone in her preference. And her manuscript and her emphatic deletion of the “n” in two instances of “an earwig”s shows that she didn’t want to accept what the printer or typist successfully imposed on her. Presumably she heard something like “yearwig” as a child, and so it was “a earwig” to her as an adult. It’s very gratifying to be able to restore to her, even in this small way, the language she preferred. And thanks again to Sarah, Christine, and Danell for making this possible.

P.S. I’ve updated my page of scans and texts of To the Lighthouse to reflect this, and also to add much else about errors in the American and British editions.



> On Jul 10, 2025, at 4:25 AM, Sarah M. Hall via Vwoolf <vwoolf at lists.osu.edu> wrote:
> 
> This Message Is From an External Sender
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> I was about to say the same thing (only Christine put it so much more elegantly). I could think of 'a earwig' in two contexts: one of a pre-school child who hasn't yet mastered English grammar. The other isn't relevant here, but when I was a student, my friend from South Wales would pronounce the insect 'yearwig', thus making it start with a consonant. Another creature, the mole, was elongated to 'mow-ell', which I loved and made her say over and over again, in my patronising English way.
> 
> Thanks for your observation, Edward, and for bringing back a long-buried memory.
> 
> Sarah
> 
> 
> Sarah M. Hall
> Executive Council
> Virginia Woolf Society of GB
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> 
> On Thursday, 10 July 2025 at 02:36:58 BST, Christine Froula via Vwoolf <vwoolf at lists.osu.edu> wrote:
> 
> 
> A fascinating observation, Ed. I'm drawn to your hearing of the ear in 
> earwig--the possibility that Woolf is transcribing speech remembered 
> from a moment or moments in childhood; that is, To the Lighthouse is 
> full of remembered and echoing voices as of changing leaves; perhaps 
> she's oscillating between the pull of memory and the grammar of revision 
> in these wavering particles.
> 
> Chris
> 
> On 7/9/2025 9:18 PM, Edward Mendelson via Vwoolf wrote:
> > ... and the English Dialect Dictionary identifies "rillywig" as a word 
> > used in East Anglia to mean "earwig." Is it remotely possible that VW 
> > heard something like that in her ear when she wrote "earwig"?
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