ATONE: lost in _tone_.
and thus _attempt_, _attaint_, _attest_, _avail_, all suffered from
_tempt_, _taint_, _test_, _veil_, whereas _attend_ seems to have
destroyed _tend_.
_Table of homophones that may seem to be presently falling out of
use._[15]
ail.
alms.
ascent.
augur (_v._).
barren.
bate.
bier.
bray (_pound_).
bridal.
broach.
casque.
cede.
cession.
cite.
clime.
corse.
cruse.
dene.
dun (_colour_).
desert.
fain.
fallow.
feign.
fell (_skin_).
flue (_velu_).
fray (_sub._).
fry (_small-_).
gait.
gambol.
gin (_snare_).
gird (_abuse_).
gore (_blood_).
hart.
horde.
hue (_colour_).
isle.
lea.
lessen.
let (_hinder_).
lief.
main.
march (_boundary_).
meed.
mien.
mote.
mourn.
mute (_of birds_).
neat (_animal_).
ore.
pale (_enclosure_).
pall (_v._).
pen (_enclose_).
pelt (_skin_).
pile (_hair_).
pink (_v._).
pulse (_pease_).
quean.
rail (_chide_).
raze.
reave.
reck.
repair (_resort_).
rheum.
rood.
rue.
sack (_v._).
sage (_adj._).
sallow (_willow_).
sere.
soar.
spray (_sprig_).
still (_adj._ n.b. _keep still_).
stoup.
surge.
swift.
teem.
toil (_snare_).
vane.
van (_fan_).
vail (_v._).
wage (_war_).
wain.
ween.
whit.
wight.
wile.
wrack.
wreak.
wot.
aught.
[Footnote 15: Some of the words in this table are also in the last
list. This list is an attempt to tabulate words falling out of use or
seldom heard now in the conversation of average educated persons who
talk Southern English or what is called P.S.P. (see p. 38); to some
of them the word may be unknown, and if it is known, they avoid using
it because it sounds to them strange or affected. It is difficult to
_prove_ that any particular word is in this condition, and the list
is offered tentatively. It is made from Jones' dictionary, which is
therefore allowed to rule whether the word is obsolescent rather than
obsolete: some of these seem to be truly obsolete. Some will appear
to be convincing examples of obsolescence, others not; but it must be
remembered that the fact of a word being still commonly heard in some
district or trade (though that may seem to show that it is in 'common
use') is no evidence that it is not dying out; it is rather
evidence that it was lately more living, which is the same as being
obsolescent.]
4. _THAT THE LOSS DUE TO HOMOPHONY THREATENS TO IMPOVERISH THE
LANGUAGE._
New words are being added to the dictionary much faster than old words
are passing out of use, but it is not a question of numbers nor of
dictionaries. A chemist told me that if the world were packed all over
with bottles as close as they could stand, he could put a different
substance into each one and label it. And science is active in all her
laboratories and will print her labels. If one should admit that as
many as ninety-nine per cent. of these artificial names are neither
literary nor social words, yet some of them are, since everything that
comes into common use must have a name that is frequently spoken.
Thus _baik_, _sackereen_, and _mahjereen_ are truly new English
word-sounds; and it may be, if we succumb to anarchical communism,
that margarine and saccharine will be lauded by its dissolute mumpers
as enthusiastically as men have hitherto praised and are still
praising butter and honey. 'Bike' certainly would have already won a
decent place in poetry had it been christened more gracefully and not
nicknamed off to live in backyards with cab and bus. The whole subject
of new terms is too vast to be parenthetically handled, and I hope
that some one will deal with it competently in an early publication
of the S.P.E. The question must here remain to be determined by the
evidence of the words in the table of obsoletes, which I think is
convincing; my overruling contention being that, however successful
we may be in the coinage of new words (and we have no reason to boast
of success) and however desirable it is to get rid of some of the bad
useless homophones, yet we cannot afford to part with any old term
that can conveniently be saved.
We have the best Bible in the world, and in Shakespeare the greatest
poet; we have been suckled on those twin breasts, and our children
must have degenerated if they need asses' milk. Nor is it only because
the old is better than the new that we think thus. If we speak more
proudly of Trafalgar than of Zeebrugge, it is not because Trafalgar
is so far finer a sounding word than Zeebrugge, as indeed it is, nor
because we believe that the men of Nelson's time were better than
our men of to-day, we know they were not, but because the spirit that
lives on ideals will honour its parents; and it is thinking in this
way that makes noble action instinctive and easy. Nelson was present
at Zeebrugge leading our sailors, as Shakespeare is with us leading
our writers, and no one who neglects the rich inheritance to which
Englishmen are born is likely ever to do any credit to himself or his
country.
5. _THAT THE SOUTH ENGLISH DIALECT IS A DIRECT AND CHIEF CAUSE OF
HOMOPHONES._
[Sidenote: Evidence of Jones' dictionary.]
Evidence of the present condition of our ruling educated speech in the
South of England I shall take from Mr. Daniel Jones' dictionary,[16]
the authority of which cannot, I think, be disputed. It is true that
it represents a pronunciation so bad that its slovenliness is likely
to be thought overdone, but there is no more exaggeration than any
economical system of phonetic spelling is bound to show. It is indeed
a strong and proper objection to all such simplifications that they
are unable to exhibit the finer distinctions; but this must not imply
that Mr. Jones' ear is lacking in delicate perception, or that he is
an incompetent observer. If he says, as he does say, that the second
syllable in the words _obloquy_ and _parasite_ are spoken by educated
Londoners with the same vowel-sound (which he denotes by [e], that is
the sound of _er_ in the word _danger_), then it is true that they are
so pronounced, or at least so similarly that a trained ear refuses to
distinguish them [óbl_er_quy, pár_er_site].
[Footnote 16: _A Phonetic Dictionary of the English Language_, by
Hermann Michaelis, Headmaster of the Mittelschule in Berlin, and
Daniel Jones, M.A., Lecturer on Phonetics at University College,
London, 1913. There is a second edition of this book in which the
words are in the accustomed alphabetical order of their literary
spelling.]
To this an objector might fairly reply that Mr. Jones could
distinguish the two sounds very well if it suited him to do so;
but that, as it is impossible for him to note them in his defective
phonetic script, he prefers to confuse them. I shall not lose sight
of this point,[17] but here I will only say that, if there really is a
difference between these two vowels in common talk, then if Mr. Jones
can afford to disregard it it must be practically negligible, and
other phoneticians will equally disregard it, as the Oxford Press has
in its smaller dictionary.
[Footnote 17: I am not likely to forget it or to minimize it, for it
is my own indictment against Mr. Jones' system, and since his practice
strongly supports my contention I shall examine it and expose it
(see p. 43); but the objection here raised is not really subversive
of my argument here, as may be judged from the fact that the Oxford
University Press has adopted or countenanced Mr. Jones' standard in
their small popular edition of the large dictionary.]
[Sidenote: Its trustworthiness.]
I suppose that thirty years ago it would have been almost impossible
to find any German who could speak English so well as to pass for
a native: they spoke as Du Maurier delighted to represent them in
_Punch_. During the late war, however, it has been no uncommon thing
for a German soldier to disguise himself in English uniform and
enter our trenches, relying on his mastery of our tongue to escape
suspicion; and it was generally observed how many German prisoners
spoke English _like a native_. Now this was wholly due to their having
been taught Southern English on Mr. Jones' model and method.
Again, those who would repudiate the facts that I am about to
reveal, and who will not believe that in their own careless talk
they themselves actually pronounce the words very much as Mr. Jones
prints them,[18] should remember that the sounds of speech are now
mechanically recorded and reproduced, and the records can be compared;
so that it would betray incompetence for any one in Mr. Jones'
position to misrepresent the facts, as it would be folly in him to go
to the trouble and expense of making such a bogus book as his would be
were it untrue; nor could he have attained his expert reputation had
he committed such a folly.
[Footnote 18: This is a very common condition. The habitual
pronunciation is associated in the mind with the familiar eye-picture
of the literary printed spelling so closely that it is difficult for
the speaker to believe that he is not uttering the written sounds; but
he is not competent to judge his own speech. For instance, almost all
Englishmen believe that the vowel which we write _u_ in _but_, _ugly_,
_unknown_, &c., is really a _u_, like the _u_ in _full_, and not a
disguised _a_; and because the written _s_ is sometimes voiced they
cannot distinguish between _s_ and _z_, nor without great difficulty
separate among the plural terminations those that are spoken with an
_s_ from those that are spoken with a _z_. I was shocked when I first
discovered my own delusions in such matters, and I still speak the bad
Southern English that I learnt as a child and at school. I can hardly
forgive my teachers and would not myself be condemned in a like
reprobation.]
Again, and in support of the trustworthiness of the records, I am
told by those concerned in the business that for some years past no
Englishman could obtain employment in Germany as teacher of English
unless he spoke the English vowels according to the standard of
Mr. Jones' dictionary; and it was a recognized device, when such an
appointment was being considered, to request the applicant to speak
into a machine and send the record by post to the Continent; whereupon
he was approved or not on that head by the agreement of the record
with the standard which I am about to illustrate from the dictionary.
All these considerations make a strong case for the truth of Mr.
Jones' representation of our 'standard English', and his book is the
most trustworthy evidence at my disposal: but before exhibiting it
I would premise that our present fashionable dialect is not to be
considered as the wanton local creator of all the faults that Mr.
Jones can parade before the eye. Its qualities have come together in
various ways, nor are the leading characteristics of recent origin.
I am convinced that our so-called standard English sprang actively
to the fore in Shakespeare's time, that in the Commonwealth years
our speech was in as perilous a condition as it is to-day, and at the
Restoration made a self-conscious recovery, under an impulse very like
that which is moving me at the present moment; for I do not look upon
myself as expressing a personal conviction so much as interpreting
a general feeling, shared I know by almost all who speak our tongue,
Americans, Australians, Canadians, Irish, New Zealanders, and Scotch,
whom I range alphabetically lest I should be thought to show prejudice
or bias in any direction. But this is beyond the present purpose,
which is merely to exhibit the tendency which this so-called
degradation has to create homophones.
[Sidenote: Mauling of words.]
As no one will deny that homophones are to be made by mauling words, I
will begin by a selection of words from Mr. Jones' dictionary showing
what our Southern English is doing with the language. I shall give in
the first column the word with its literary spelling, in the second
Mr. Jones' phonetic representation of it, and in the third column an
attempt to represent that sound to the eye of those who cannot read
the phonetic script, using such makeshift spellings as may be found
in any novel where the pronunciation of the different speakers is
differentiated.
_Examples from Mr. Jones' Pronouncing Dictionary._[19]
parsonage. p[a]:s[n.]i[dz] [-sn-] pahs'nidge _or_
pahsnidge.
picture. pik[ts][e] pictsher.
scriptural. skrip[ts][er]r[er]l scriptshererl _or_
scriptshrl.
temperature. tempri[ts][e] tempritsher.
interest. intrist intrist.
senator. senit[e] _and_ senniter _and_
sen[e]tor sennertor.
blossoming. bl[o]s[e]mi[ng] blosserming.
natural. næ[ts]r[er]l natshrerl _or_
natshrl.
orator. [o]r[e]t[e] orrerter.
rapturous. ræp[ts][er]r[e]s raptsherers _or_
raptshrers.
parasite. pær[e]sait parrersite.
obloquy. [o]bl[e]kwi oblerquy.
syllogise. sil[e][dz]aiz sillergize.
equivocal. ikwiv[e]k[er]l ikwívverk'l.
immaterial. im[e]ti[e]ri[e]l immertierierl.
miniature. mini[ts][e] minnitsher.
extraordinary. ikstr[o]:dnri ikstrordnry.
salute. s[e]lu:t [-lju:-] serloot _and_
serlute.
solution. s[e]lu:[s][e]n [-lju:-] serloosh'n _and_
serl[=u]sh'n.
subordinate (_adj._). s[e]b[o]:d[n.]it serbord'nit.
sublime. s[e]blaim serblime.
[Footnote 19: The dictionary allows mitigated variants of some of
these words.]
In culling these flowers of speech I was not blind to their great
picturesque merits, but they must not be taken for jokes, at least
they must not be thought of as conjuring smiles on the faces of
Messrs. Jones, Michaelis and Rippmann: they are deadly products of
honest study and method, and serious evidence whereby any one should
be convinced that such a standard of English pronunciation is likely
to create homophones: and yet in searching the dictionary I have not
found it guilty of many new ones.[20] For examples of homophones
due to our 'standard' speech one might take first the 20 _wh_- words
(given on page 14) which have lost their aspirate, and with them the
9 _wr_- words: next the 36 words in table iv and note, which have lost
their trilled _R_: and then the 41 words from table vi on page 15; and
that would start us with some 100 words, the confusion of which is
due to our Southern English pronunciation, since the differentiation
of all these words is still preserved in other dialects. The
differentiation of these 100 words would of course liberate their
twins, so the total number of gains should be doubled.
[Footnote 20: A fair list might no doubt be made; the most amusing
item would be--_Ophelia_ = _aphelia_: then _illusion_ = _elusion_,
_paten_ = _pattern_, _seaman_ = _seamen_, _phial_ = _file_, _custody_
= _custardy_, and of course _verdure_ = _verger_ and _fissure_ =
_fisher_. It would also allow _partition_ = _petition_, _proscribe_
= _prescribe_, and _upbraid_ = _abrade_! I take these from the first
edition.]
[Sidenote: Example of one class.]
But number is not so important as the quality and frequency of the
words involved, so I will instance one class in detail, namely the
words in which _aw_ and _or_ are confused. Here are a dozen of them:
core = caw.
door = daw*.
floor = flaw*.
hoar* = haw.
lore* = law.
more = maw*.
oar, ore = awe*.
pore = paw.
roar = raw.
soar, sore = saw, saw.
tore = taw.
yore* = yaw.
Of these 12 words, 6 exhibit stages or symptoms of obsolescence. I
should think it extremely unlikely that _yore_ has been in any way
incommoded by _yaw_; and _flaw_, which is now more or less cornered
to one of its various meanings, was probably affected more by its own
ambiguities than by _floor_; but others seem to be probable examples:
_shaw_ and _lore_, and I think _maw_, are truly obsoletes, while
_hoar_ and _daw_ are heard only in combination. _Awe_ is heard only in
_awful_, and has there lost its significance. I should guess that this
accident has strengthened its severity in literature, where it asserts
its aloofness sometimes with a full spelling [_aweful_] as in speech
two pronunciations are recognized, _awful_ and _awf'l_.
Now how do these words appear in Jones' dictionary? If there is to be
any difference between the _aw_ and _ore_ sounds either the _R_ must
be trilled as it still is in the north, or some vestige of it must
be indicated, and such indication would be a lengthening of the _o_
(=_aw_) sound by the vestigial voicing of the lost trill, such as is
indicated in the word _o'er_, and might be roughly shown to the eye by
such a spelling as _shawer_ for _shore_ [thus _shaw_ would be [s][o]:
and _shore_ would be [s][o]:[e]] and such distinction is still made
by our more careful Southern English speakers, and is recognized as an
existent variant by Jones.
Since the circumflex accent properly indicates a rise and fall of
voice-pitch on a vowel-sound such as almost makes a disyllable of a
monosyllable (e.g. in Milton's verse the word _power_ may fill either
one or two places in the line) I will adopt it here to denote this
fuller and differentiating pronunciation of _ore_.
Now to all these words, and to the finals of such words as _ad[ore]_,
_impl[ore]_, _ign[ore]_, Jones gives the diphthongal _aw_ as the
normal South English pronunciation, and he allows the longer _[ore]_
sound only as a variant, putting this variant in the second place.
Hence, all these _[ore]_ words are being encouraged to cast off the
last remnant of their differentiation, which it is admitted that they
have not yet quite lost.[21]
[Footnote 21: The two editions of Jones' dictionary do not exactly
correspond, e.g. in the first edition the words _boar_ and _bore_
are under _baw_, and no other pronunciation is mentioned. But in the
second edition _b[ore]_ and _b[oar]_ are allowed as variants. In the
first edition _four_, _fore_ and _for_ are all under _faw_ [f[e]:],
and I find _pour_, _pore_, and _poor_ all under _paw_, though in every
case there are variants, and on p. 404 he records that _shore_ and
_sure_ may be pronounced alike. Again, in the first edition, _yerr_
[j[e]:] is one normal for _year_ and also dialectal for _ear_ (!),
while in the second edition only _y[ear]_ [ji:] is given for _year_,
and _yerr_ is not mentioned at all. As I am sure that this sort
of stuff must be almost more tedious and annoying to read than it
is to write, I desist from further details, but cannot resist the
opportunity of pointing out that in their English pronunciation of
Latin our classical teachers and professors have wantonly introduced
this mischievous homophony of _au_ and _or_ into Latin, although the
proper pronunciation of the 'diphthong' _au_ in Latin is not like our
_awe_, but like the _ou_ of _out_. Thus with them _corda_ and _cauda_
are similar sounds, and the sacred _Sursum corda_ means 'Cock your
tail' just as much as it means 'Lift up your hearts'.]