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EVERY-DAY
ERRORS OF SPEECH
BY
L. P. MEREDITH, M.D., D.D.S.,
AUTHOR OF "THE TEETH, AND HOW TO SAVE THEM."
PHILADELPHIA:
J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO.
1876.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year, 1872, by
L. P. MEREDITH,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
INTRODUCTION
_Damas._ * * * The Prince of Como does not
understand his own language.
_Melnotte._ Not as you pronounce it: Who the
deuce could?
It may be regarded as one of the commendable peculiarities of the
English language that, despite provincialisms, vulgarisms, neglected
education, foreign accent, and the various corrupting influences to
which it is subjected, it may be understood wherever it is heard,
whatever differences of distance or associations may have existed
between the speaker and the listener, both claiming familiarity with
it. Considering these influences and the arbitrariness of the
orthoepical rules of the language, there has been expressed surprise
that frequent degenerations into uncouth dialects or patois have not
occurred. A decent regard for the common weal should cause
gratification that such degenerations have not taken place, for were
it not for the ability of our tongue to preserve its individuality
against the tendency toward corruption, we might reasonably fear such
a Babel-like confusion, that, when asked, "Do you speak English?" one
might appropriately, _sans_ the profanity, reply in the language of
the text, "Not as you pronounce it: Who the deuce could?" While the
majority of people place no other value upon language than that of
convenience, and are indifferent to any corruption, so long as they
can simply understand and be understood, there is happily a better
class, the æsthetic cultivation of which is such that those who belong
to it are anxious to preserve the purity of our vernacular and are
ashamed of all errors of speech in their daily conversations. For such
it will not be uninteresting to look over a number of errors,
principally of pronunciation, that are not formally laid down as such
in books, and which people, even many of the best educated, are
constantly committing, just because they have never had their
attention called to them. These errors are becoming more deeply rooted
every day and if not soon eradicated, it will not be many years before
our orthoepic standard will be overthrown as it was in England some
years ago.
Smart, one of the most celebrated of English orthoepists, in the
preface of his dictionary says: "The proprietors of Walker's
dictionary, finding it would slide entirely out of use unless it were
adapted to the present day, engaged me as a teacher of elocution,
known in London since Walker's time, to make the necessary changes." A
standard pronouncing dictionary is a work that involves an
extraordinary amount of labor and research in its compilation, and
exerts an influence almost autocratical. The possibility of its
becoming worthless in a short time is strange, especially when it is
not on account of any work claiming superiority, but merely because
error long persisted in finally becomes more authoritative than the
original exemplar. With little effort, however, we can discern the
causes. Persons are apt to acquire the pronunciation and use of the
greater number of words by imitation, rather than by study. With
confidence in the knowledge of the parent, teacher, minister,
physician and others, their examples are followed without ever
considering that they are often very fallible guides.
A complete dictionary is an immense volume, and to turn over its pages
with even a casual observation of each word, requires an amount of
time that few would feel like devoting to it; and yet this is the only
way in which a person can become _assured_ of the sanctioned
pronunciation and meaning of a great many words. If they would make it
an invariable rule to make memoranda of all the words they read or
hear spoken, about the orthoepy and import of which they are not
absolutely certain, and at their first leisure opportunity would
consult their chosen authority, it would not be long before the
majority of errors would be corrected; but this requires memory,
inclination, time, continuity of purpose, possession of dictionaries
or access to them--circumstances that are seldom found combined. It
will doubtless be useless to rehearse any of the arguments commonly
employed to prove the necessity of having some sovereign standard, to
the guidance of which we must be willing to submit. Those for whom
this work is intended will be willing to admit that. Nor is it
necessary to assert that as far as the English speakers of the United
States are interested, the only works that lay claim to such a
position are the dictionaries of Webster and Worcester. If the right
of the opinions of the majority of scholars throughout the land were
alone considered, the former would certainly be entitled to the
preference; but the work of the latter is too full of merit and has
too many adherents in the ranks of the educated to permit any one to
say that it is not worthy of high esteem.
With my own preference for the former and with my willingness to
acknowledge the worth of the latter, I have consulted both authorities
concerning every word in the following vocabulary--that is, every word
requiring reference to either. It will be seen that there is much less
difference between the decisions of the two dictionaries than is
commonly supposed. By this reference to each, I have not only
corrected errors in an impartial manner, but have also stopped up that
loop-hole through which so many try to escape by saying, when they are
called to account according to one dictionary, that they do not accept
that as their standard. As far as the people of this country are
concerned, there is no escape from the conclusion that a person is
considered a correct or an incorrect speaker of English, according to
whether or not he conforms his discourse to one of the above mentioned
authorities. At first glance it will appear that the size of this
volume is not at all commensurate to the task of correcting the many
errors that are heard in our communication with all classes that
pretend to speak the English language. It is not intended to instruct
those whose education has been so neglected that they are guilty of
the grossest violation of syntax and orthoepy, nor to cultivate the
taste of those whose selection of words and cant and slang phrases
betrays the low grade of the associations by which they have been
surrounded. It is designed rather as a collection of the more common
of those errors, chiefly orthoepical, that I have before spoken of as
being of constant occurrence even among people of education, unless
they have paid considerable attention to philology or
_belles-lettres_. If by presenting them in this convenient form, thus
saving much time and trouble in referring to the dictionary, I have
merited the thanks of my readers, or if I have contributed even a mite
toward the conservation of the present usage, I shall feel amply repaid.
I have taken advantage of the alphabetical arrangement to introduce a
few miscellaneous errors that might have been placed under a separate
heading.
Instead of dividing the words into syllables and loading them with
marks as is usually done in dictionaries, I have thought that it would
make a deeper impression on the memory to present the words as they
are commonly seen in print, depending on respelling to furnish the
correct and incorrect accent and pronunciation.
The corrections have first been made according to Webster; if
Worcester is unmentioned, it is to be understood that both authorities
agree.
_Cincinnati, December 20, 1871._
Errors of Speech.