Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 66.djvu/554

550 ; but this, being too refined for the general ear, is now but seldom heard.' This French pronunciation, however strange the comment may appear to us in view of his wide acquaintance with English usage, the late Mr. A. J. Ellis averred was the most familiar to him. So the struggle between the several pronunciations of vase continues still, and no one can say which will ultimately prevail.

Another interesting illustration of vacillation of usage two centuries ago is furnished in the pronunciation of either and neither. Like the word vase, these words show incidentally how long a time two pronunciations of the same word may linger in good usage before either supplants the other. There is to-day probably as much variation in the pronunciation of either and neither as there was a century and a half ago. Early in the eighteenth century the i sound was conceded by some of the orthoepists as permissible in these words. Two authorities, Buchanan and Johnston, declared for the new pronunciation, that is, 'ither' and 'nither.' But since they were both Scotchmen, their authority was discounted. On the other hand, Sheridan and Walker recommended the e sound and used their influence to bespeak for it general endorsement. They recognized the i sound, to be sure, but only on sufferance. From that day to the present the battle has waged more or less fiercely between the advocates of these respective pronunciations of either and neither. Which will ultimately prevail, it is impossible to determine. It may be said, however, that analogy and history are on the side of the e sound. Yet the i sound appears to be encroaching at present on the former pronunciation. There is still another pronunciation of these words which we now rarely hear. I refer to the old dialectical pronunciation as 'ather' and 'nather.' This pronunciation was current in Doctor Johnson's time, though it probably did not enjoy the sanction of good usage. On being asked one day whether he regarded 'ither,' or 'ether' as the proper pronunciation of either, the old Doctor is said to have blurted out in his characteristic crabbed manner, 'Nather, Sir!' This pronunciation survives now only as an Irishism.

Another class of former pronunciations surviving now as an Irishism, or at best as a provincialism merely, is exemplified by such words as nature, creature and picture. In Dryden's and Pope's time these words were pronounced 'nater,' 'crater' and 'picter.' These pronunciations are preserved still in the Yankee dialect, as shown in Lowell's inimitable Biglow Papers, and of course they are frequently heard on Irish lips. But they long ago dropped out of the speech of polite society. There is one notable exception found in the word figure. The variant pronunciation of this word as 'figer' survives in standard English as a heritage from the seventeenth century.

Quite as instructive an illustration of survivals in pronunciation is