Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 66.djvu/557

Rh of English pronunciation will readily convince the reader of this fact. This result is the direct outgrowth of the increased facilities for intercourse between communities, and of the gradual diffusion of education which the last two centuries have witnessed. With the spread of education there go along those habits of speech which are generally recognized to be in accord with best usage and which therefore have most to commend them to popular favor. But till men cease to exercise the right of choice in the mode of utterance, till men prefer, for the sake of uniformity, to say exclusively hostile and not hostile, servile and not servile, 'rise' and not 'rice,' to mention an example of variant usage, so long will there probably be a diversity of pronunciation and the consequent need for the pronouncing dictionary. This consummation so devoutly to be wished we may expect at the Greek Kalends. We may rest assured, therefore, that the pronouncing dictionary is here to stay.

Every man has his preference as to his pronouncing dictionary, which he regards with more or less confidence and, may be, reverence, as his final authority. To this he resorts in all orthoepical questions, for final solution. This, of course, is a legitimate function of the pronouncing dictionary. The fact is, the vocabulary of the average educated man is so extremely limited and the vocabulary of the language so extremely copious that there are thousands of words of a technical character which even the most accomplished scholars have never once heard uttered. The average educated man who knows that English spelling is a very untrustworthy guide to pronunciation is perforce driven to consult his Webster, or his Worcester, or his Standard, or mayhap his Century. Only then can he pronounce an unfamiliar English word with any assurance of propriety.

Notwithstanding the fact that every educated man has his favorite dictionary, it is probably true that no man's pronunciation is in entire accord with the dictionary he habitually follows. The late Mr. Ellis gave a suggestive test which I believe has never been successfully challenged. "I do not remember," said he, "ever meeting with a person of general education, or even literary habits, who could read off, without hesitation, the whole of such a list of words as: bourgeois, demy, actinism, velleity, batman, beaufin, brevier, rowlock, fusil, flugleman, vase, tassel, buoy, oboe, archimandrite, etc., and give them in each case the same pronunciation as is assigned in any given pronouncing dictionary now in use." Let the reader try these test words and see whether he pronounces this short list according to any received authority in use at the present day.

It may not prove an altogether unprofitable inquiry how our pronouncing dictionaries are made. Such an inquiry, if pursued, may teach us somewhat of the methods of the orthoepists to ascertain good