Transcriber's Note: Phonetic characters are represented by the following symbols: [e] = upside-down "e" = schwa [er] = italicized inverted "e" = r-colored schwa [a] = lower-case alpha [o] = open "o" (appears as upside-down "c") = open-mid back rounded vowel [ng] = "eng" character = velar nasal [n. ] = "n" with inferior dot = devoiced "n" [=u] = "u" with macron [s] = "esh" (or long "s") character = voiceless palatoalveolar (or postalveolar) fricative [z] = "ezh" (or "yogh") character = voiced palatoalveolar (or postalveolar) fricative [ts] = t + "esh" = voiceless palatoalveolar (or postalveolar) affricate [dz] = d + "ezh" = voiced palatoalveolar (or postalveolar) affricate

_S. P. E. _

_TRACT NO. II_

ON

ENGLISH HOMOPHONES

BY

ROBERT BRIDGES

MDCCCCXIX

 * * * * *

ENGLISH HOMOPHONES

[Sidenote: Definition of homophone. ]

When two or more words different in origin and signification arepronounced alike, whether they are alike or not in their spelling, they are said to be homophonous, or homophones of each other. Suchwords if spoken without context are of ambiguous signification. Homophone is strictly a relative term, but it is convenient to use itabsolutely, and to call any word of this kind a homophone. [1]

[Footnote 1: Homophone is a Greek word meaning 'same-sounding', andbefore using the relative word in this double way I have preferredto make what may seem a needless explanation. It is convenient, forinstance, to say that _son_ and _heir_ are both homophones, meaningthat each belongs to that particular class of words which withoutcontext are of ambiguous signification: and it is convenient also tosay that _son_ and _sun_ and _heir_ and _air_ are homophones withoutexplaining that it is meant that they are mutually homophonous, whichis evident. A physician congratulating a friend on the birth of hisfirst-born might say, 'Now that you have a son and heir, see that hegets enough sun and air'. ]

Homophony is between words as _significant_ sounds, but it is needfulto state that homophonous words must be _different_ words, else weshould include a whole class of words which are not true homophones. Such words as _draft_, _train_, _board_, have each of them separatemeanings as various and distinct as some true homophones; forinstance, a draught of air, the miraculous draught of fishes, thedraught of a ship, the draft of a picture, or a draught of medicine, or the present draft of this essay, though it may ultimately appearmedicinal, are, some of them, quite as distinct objects or notionsas, for instance, _vane_ and _vein_ are: but the ambiguity of _draft_, however spelt, is due to its being the name of anything that is_drawn_; and since there are many ways of drawing things, anddifferent things are drawn in different ways, the _same word_ has cometo carry very discrepant significations. 

Though such words as these[2] are often inconveniently and evendistressingly ambiguous, they are not homophones, and are thereforeexcluded from my list: they exhibit different meanings of one word, not the same sound of different words: they are of necessity present, I suppose, in all languages, and corresponding words in independentlanguages will often develop exactly corresponding varieties ofmeaning. But since the ultimate origin and derivation of a word issometimes uncertain, the scientific distinction cannot be strictlyenforced. 

[Footnote 2: Such words have no technical class-name; they are merelyextreme examples of the ambiguity common to most words, which growsup naturally from divergence of meaning. True homophones are separatewords which have, or have acquired, an illogical fortuitous identity. ]

[Sidenote: False homophones. ]

Now, wherever the same derivation of any two same-sounding words isat all doubtful, such words are practically homophones:--and again incases where the derivation is certainly the same, yet, if the ultimatemeanings have so diverged that we cannot easily resolve them into oneidea, as we always can _draft_, these also may be practically reckonedas homophones. 

_Continent_, adjective and substantive, is an example of absolutedivergence of meaning, inherited from the Latin; but as they aredifferent parts of speech, I allow their plea of identical derivationand exclude them from my list. On the other hand, the substantive_beam_ is an example of such a false homophone as I include. _Beam_may signify a balk of timber, or a ray of light. Milton's address tolight begins

 O first created beam

and Chaucer has

 As thikke as motes in the sonne-beam, and this is the commonest use of the word in poetry, and probably inliterature: Shelley has

 Then the bright child the plumčd seraph came And fixed its blue and beaming eyes on mine. 

But in Tyndal's gospel we read

 Why seest thou a mote in thy brother's eye and perceivest not the beam that is in thine own eye?

The word beam is especially awkward here, [3] because the beam thatis proper to the eye is not the kind of beam which is intended. The absurdity is not excused by our familiarity, which Shakespearesubmitted to, though he omits the incriminating eye:

 You found his mote; the king your mote did see, But I a beam do find in each of three. 

[Footnote 3: It is probable that in Tyndal's time the awkwardness wasnot so glaring: for 'beam' as a ray of light seems to have developedits connexion with the eye since his date, in spite of his proverbialuse of it in the other sense. ]

And yet just before he had written

 So sweet a kiss the golden sun gives not To those fresh morning drops upon the rose, As thy eye-beams when their fresh rays have smote The night of dew that on my cheeks down flows. 

Let alone the complication that _mote_ is also a homophone, andthat outside Gulliver's travels one might as little expect to find ahouse-beam as a castle-moat in a man's eye, the confusion of _beam_is indefensible, and the example will serve three purposes: first toshow how different significations of the same word may make practicalhomophones, secondly the radical mischief of all homophones, andthirdly our insensibility towards an absurdity which is familiar: butthe absurdity is no less where we are accustomed to it than where itis unfamiliar and shocks us. 

[Sidenote: Tolerance due to habit. ]

And we are so accustomed to homophones in English that they do notmuch offend us; we do not imagine their non-existence, and most peopleare probably unaware of their inconvenience. It might seem that tobe perpetually burdened by an inconvenience must be the surest way ofrealizing it, but through habituation our practice is no doubt fullof unconscious devices for avoiding these ambiguities: moreover, inconveniences to which we are born are very lightly taken: manypersons have grown up to manhood blind of one eye without being awareof their disability; and others who have no sense of smell or whocannot hear high sounds do not miss the sense that they lack; and so Ithink it may be with us and our homophones. 

But since if all words were alike in sound there would be no spokenlanguage, the differentiation of the sound of words is of the essenceof speech, and it follows that the more homophones there are inany language, the more faulty is that language as a scientific andconvenient vehicle of speech. This will be illustrated in due course:the actual condition of English with respect to homophones must beunderstood and appreciated before the nature of their growth and thepossible means of their mitigation will seem practical questions. 

[Sidenote: Great number. ]

The first essential, then, is to know the extent and nature ofthe mischief; and this can only be accomplished by setting out thehomophones in a table before the eye. The list below is taken froma 'pronouncing dictionary' which professes not to deal with obsoletewords, and it gives over 800 ambiguous sounds; so that, sincethese must be at least doublets, and many of them are triplets orquadruplets, we must have something between 1, 600 and 2, 000 words ofambiguous meaning in our ordinary vocabulary. [4]

[Footnote 4: In Skeat's _Etymological Dictionary_ there is a list of_homonyms_, that is words which are ambiguous to the eye by similarspellings, as homophones are to the ear by similar sounds: and thatlist, which includes obsolete words, has 1, 600 items. 1, 600 is thenumber of homophones which our list would show if they were all onlydoublets. ]

Now it is variously estimated that 3, 000 to 5, 000 words is about thelimit of an average educated man's talking vocabulary, and since the1, 600 are, the most of them, words which such a speaker will use(the reader can judge for himself) it follows that he has a foolishlyimperfect and clumsy instrument. 

As to what proportion 1, 700 (say) may be to the full vocabulary of thelanguage--it is difficult to estimate this because the dictionariesvary so much. The word _homophone_ is not recognized by Johnson orby Richardson: Johnson under _homo-_ has six derivatives of HerbertSpencer's favourite word _homogeneous_, but beside these only fourother words with this Greek affix. Richardson's dictionary has an evensmaller number of such entries. Jones has 11 entries of _homo-_, andthese of only five words, but the Oxford dictionary, besides 50 wordsnoted and quoted beginning with _homo-_, has 64 others with specialarticles. 

Dr. Richard Morris estimated the number of words in an Englishdictionary as 100, 000: Jones has 38, 000 words, exclusive of propernames, and I am told that the Oxford dictionary will have over300, 000. Its 114 _homo-_ words will show how this huge number ispartly supplied. 

Before the reader plunges into the list, I should wish to fortify hisspirit against premature despair by telling him that in my tedioussearching of the dictionary for these words I was myself cheered tofind how many words there were which are _not_ homophones. 

LIST OF HOMOPHONES

This list, the object of which is to make the reader easily acquaintedwith the actual defect of the language in this particular, does notpretend to be complete or scientific; and in the identification ofdoubtful words the clue was dictated by brevity. _s. _, _v. _, and _adj. _mean _substantive_, _verb_, and _adjective_. The sections were made toaid the conspectus. 

The main indictment is contained in sections i, ii, and iii. Thesethree sections contain 505 entries, involving some 1, 075 words. 

The homophones in the other sections, iv, v, vi, vii, viii and ix, are _generally_ of such a kind that they would not of themselvesconstitute a very peculiar case against the English language; buttheir addition to the main list does very much strengthen the case. One intention in isolating them from the main list was to preventtheir contaminating it with their weaker quality; but theirseparate classification crosses and sometimes overrides that moregeneral distinction. Section iv has some literary interest; vi isinconsistent; the other sections are more or less scientific. Thesesix sections contain some 330 entries involving about 700 words, sothat the total of words involved is about 1, 775. 

The order in this section is that of the phonetic alphabet. 

I. THE MAIN LIST OF HOMOPHONES. 

 arc, ark. Arm (_limb_), arm (_weapon_). Alms, arms. Aunt, ant, arn't. Arch (_s. _), arch (_adj. _). Eye, ay, I. Idol, idle, idyll. Aisle, isle, I'll. Eyelet, islet. Our, hour. Bark (_dog_), bark (_tree_), bark (_boat_). Balm, barm. Bite, bight. Buy, by, bye. Bough, bow, bow (_of ship_). Bound (_leap_), bound (_limit_), bound (fr. _bind_). Bank (_ground_), bank (_money_). Barren, baron. Barrow (_hill_), barrow (_wheel-b. _). Bat (_club_), bat (_vespertilio_). Batter (_s. _), batter (_v. _). Buck (_various roots and senses_). Bustle (_hurry_), bustle (_dress_). But, butt (_tub_), butt (_v. _). Bale (ill), bale (_pack_), bail (_bis_). Base, bass. Bate, bait. Beck (_and nod_), beck (_a brook_). Bell, belle. Bury, berry. Bear (_s. _), bare (_adj. _), bear, bare (_v. _). Berth, birth. Bee, be. Beat, beet. Beetle (_insect_), beetle (_hammer_). Beach, beech. Bier, beer. Blow (_a stroke_), blow (_of wind_). Bow, beau. Bogy, bogie. Bole, bowl. Bolt (_a weapon_), bolt (_sift_), bolt (_run_). Bore (_perforate_), bore (_tidal_), bore (fr. _bear_), boar. Board, bawd, bored. Ball, bawl. Born, borne. Boy, buoy. Boil (_s. _), boil (_v. _). Box (_tree_), box (_receptacle_), box (_v. _). Bridal, bridle. Bray (_of donkey_), bray (_to pound_), brae. Break, brake (_fern_), brake (_of carriages, bis_). Braze (_to solder_), braze (_to brazen_), braise (_to stew_), braes. Breach, breech. Breeze (_the wind_), breeze (_a fly_), breeze (_cinders_). Broach, brooch. Hue, hew. Die (_v. _), dye, die (_cast_). Down (_dune_), down (_fluff_), down (_adv. _). Doubt, dout. Dam (_mother_), dam (_obstruct_), damn. Duck (_bird_), duck (_dear_), duck (_stuff_), duck (_v. _). Dun (_colour_), dun (_importune_), done. Date (_fruit_), date (_datum_). Dean, dene. Deer, dear. Desert, dessert. Due, dew. Doe, dough. Dock (_plant_), dock (_basin_), dock (_shear_). Drill (_sow_), drill (_bore_), drill (_training_). Drupe, droop. Jar (_vase_), jar (_discord_). Jamb, jam. Jet (_mineral_), jet (_squirt_). Gin (_drink_), gin (_snare_), jinn. There, their. The, thee. Eh! aye (_ever_). Ale, ail. Eight, ait or eyot, ate (fr. _eat_). Egg, egg (_to incite_). Elder (_tree_), elder (_senior_). Air, heir, ere, e'er. Airship, heirship. Aery, airy. Earn, urn, erne (_eagle_). Alight (_adj. _), alight (_v. _). Ascent, assent. Foul, fowl. Fallow (_untilled_), fallow (_colour_). Fane, feign, fain. Faint, feint. Fast (_eccl. _), fast (_adj. Various_). Fate, fęte. Fell (_fierce_), fell (_skin_), fell (_hill_), fell (fr. _fall_). Fellow, felloe. Ferule, ferrule. Fair, fare [_doublet_], phare. Fir, fur. Feet, feat (_s. _), feat (_adj. Obs. _). Filter, philtre. Fit (_befit_), fit (_conflict_), fytte [_obs. _]. Flag (_v. _), flag (_ensign_), flag (_plant_), flag (_-stone_). Flee, flea. Flow, floe. Flock (_herd_), flock (_of wool_). Flue (_chimney_), flue (_velu_), flew (fr. _fly_). Fluke (_fish_), fluke (_of anchor_), fluke (_slang word_). Fold (_wrap_), fold (_of sheep_), foaled. Four, fore, for. Forego, forgo, and other compounds. Fourth, forth. Foil (_s. _), foil (_v. _), foil (_fencer's_). Fray (_ravel_), fray (_combat_). Fret (_eat away_), fret (_adorn_), fret (_on lute_). Freeze, frieze (_archt. _), frieze (_cloth_), frees (fr. _free_). Gamble, gambol, gum (_resin_), gum (_teeth_). Gage, gauge, gate, gait. Gird (_encircle_), gird (_revile_). Guild, gild. Guilt, gilt. Glare, glair (_white of egg_), + glary, glairy. Gore (_pierce_), gore (_triangle_), gore (_blood_). Groin, groyne (_breakwater_). Great, grate (_s. _), grate (_v. _). Heart, hart. High, hie. Hide (_v. _), hide (_skin_), hied. Hack (_hew_), hack (_hackney_). Hamper (_impede_), hamper (_hanaper_). Hail! hail (_snow_), hale (_adj. _), hale (_haul_). Helm (_of ship_), helm (_helmet_). Hair, hare. Heel, heal, he'll. Here, hear. Hymn, him. Hole, whole, + holy, wholly, holey. Home, holm. Hoar, whore, haw. Hoard, horde, hawk (_bird_), hawk (_v. Of hawker_), hawk (_hoquet_). Hall, haul. Halt (_v. _), halt (_adj. _). Horse, hoarse. Hock (_of horse_), hock (_wine_). Hop (_jump_), hop (_plant_). Hue, hew. Humorous, humerus. Even (_s. _), even (_adj. _). Ear, ear (_plough_), ear (_of corn_). Yoke, yolk. Yew, ewe, you. Ure, ewer, your. Card (_s. _), card (_v. _). Cask, casque. Cast, caste. Cart, carte, quart (_cards and fencing_). Count (_s. _), count (_v. _). Counter (_opp. _), counter (_of shop_), counter (_in games_), &c. Couch (_coucher_), couch (_grass_). Caddy (_lad_), caddy (_box_). Can (_s. _), can (_v. _). Cannon, canon _bis. _ currant, current. Curry (_food_), curry (_comb_). Colonel, kernel. Cape (_dress_), cape (_headland_). Caper (_skip_), caper (_plant_). Case (_event_), case (_receptacle_). Cashier (_s. _), cashier (_v. _). Key, quay. Keen (_adj. _), keen (_v. _). Cue, queue. Climb, clime. Cleek, clique. Coal, cole. Cope (_v. _), cope (_s. _). Coat, cote. Core, corps, caw. Cork, caulk. Call, caul. Corn (_grain_), corn (_horny growth_). Course, coarse, corse. Cobble (_to patch_), cobble (_boat_), cobble (_-stones_). Cock (s. And _v. _), cock (_of hay_). Cockle (_v. _), cockle (_s. Var. _). Creak, creek. Cricket (_insect_), cricket (_game_). Cruel, crewel. Cruise, cruse, crews. Coombe (_valley_), coom (_dry measure_). Choir, quire (_of paper_). Quiver (_v. _), quiver (_s. _). Queen, quean [_obs. _]. Last (_adj. _, _verb_), last (_s. _) lye (_s. _), lie (_v. _), lie (_s. And n. _). Lyre, liar. Lichen, liken. Light (_s. _), light (_not heavy_), and hence lighten, lighten. Lack, lac, lakh. Lap (_lick up_), lap (_fold_), lap (_knees_). Lay (_s. , bis_), lay (_v. _). Lake (_pond_), lake (_colour_). Let (_allow_), let (_lease, v. _), let (_hinder, obs. _). Lee, lea. Leaf, lief. League (_s. _), league (_v. And s. _) leak, leek. Lean (_v. _), lean (_adj. _). Leech (_sucker and doctor_), leech (_of sail_). Leave (quit), leave (permit). Limp (adj. ), limp (v. ). Link (chain), link (torch), also golf-links, list (listen), list (heel over), list (of flannel). Liver (organ), liver (who lives). Lo! low (adj. ), low (of cow's voice). Load, lode, lowed, lone, loan. Lock (of door), lock (of hair), loch. Long (adj. ), long (v. ). Lorn, lawn, lute, loot. Mast (_of ship_), mast (_beech-m. _). March (_step_), march (_boundary_), March (_month_). Mine (_s. _), mine (_poss. Pron. _). Mite, might (_s. _), might (_v. _), [_and adj. -y_]. Mitre (_headdress_), mitre (_carpentry, &c. _). Mass (_quantity_), mass (_office_). Match (_equal_), match (_mčche_). Muff (_dress_), muff (_a stupid_). May (_month_), may (_maid, obs. _), may (_v. _). Male, mail (_coat of_), mail (_post_). Mane, main. Mace (_staff_), mace (_spice_). Maze, maize, Mays (_pl. Of month_). Mare, mayor. Meed, mead (_meadow_), mead (_drink_). Mean (_intend_), mean (_intermediate_), mean (_poor_), mien (_countenance_). Meet, meat, mete (_adj. And v. _). Mere (_pool_), mere (_adj. _). Mint (_herb_), mint (_coining_). Miss (_fail_), Miss. Mew (_cage_), mew (_bird_), mew (_of cat_). Mute (_adj. _), mute (_of birds_). Muse (_think_), Muse, mews (_stable_), mews (fr. _mew_). Mote, moat. Mow (_various senses_), mot (_French_). Mole (_animal_), mole (_of skin_), mole (_breakwater_). Mould (_to model_), mould (_earth_), mould (_rust_). Maul (_disfigure_), Mall (_place_), mahl (_-stick_). Morn, mourn, and morning. Moor (_country_), Moor (_race_) night, knight. None, nun. Need, knead, knee'd. Neat (_s. _), neat (_adj. _). No, know. Not, knot. Oar, ore, or, o'er, awe. Augur, auger. All, awl, orle (_heraldry_). Altar, alter. Oral, aural. Ought (_zero_), ought (_pp. Of owe_), ort [_obs. _]. Par, pas (_faus_). Pie (_pica_), pie (_dish_). Pale (_pole_), pale (_pallid_), pail. Pile (_heap_), pile (_stake_), pile (_hair_). Pine (_v. _), pine (_tree_). Pound (_weight_), pound (_enclosure_), pound (_to bruise_). Pounce (_v. _), pounce (=_pumice_). Pallet, palette, palate. Paten, patten, pattern. Pulse (_beat_), pulse (_pease_). Punch (_strike_), punch (_drink_), Punch (_and Judy_). Page (_of bk. _), page (_boy_). Pane, pain. Peck (_measure_), peck (_v. _). Pelt (_to throw_), pelt (_skin_). Pen (_writing_), pen (_inclose_). Pair, pear, pare. Pearl, purl (_flow_), purl (_knitting_). Pique, peak. Peal, peel. Peep (_to look_), peep (_chirp_). Piece, peace. Peach (_fruit_), peach (_impeach_). Peer (_to look_), peer (_s. _), pier. Pill (_ball_), pill (_to pillage_). Pink (_a flower_), pink (_a colour_), pink (_to pierce_). Pip (_a seed_), pip (_a disease_), pip (_on cards_). Pitch (_s. _), pitch (_to fall, &c. _). Plight (_pledge_), plight or plite (_to plait_), and 'sad plight'. Plat (_of ground_), plait. Plum, plumb. Plump (_adj. _), plump (_to fall heavily_). Plane (_tree_), plain [_both various_]. Plot (_of ground_), plot (_stratagem_), + verbs. Pole, poll. Poach, (_eggs_), poach (_steal game_). Pore (_of skin_), pore (_top. Over_), paw. Potter (_v. _), potter (_s. _). Pall (_v. _), pall (_cloak_), pawl (_mechanics_). Pry (_inquisitive_), pry (_to prise open_). Prise, prize. Pray, prey. Prune (_fruit_), prune (_s. _). Rye, wry. Rime, rhyme. Right, write, wright, rite. Rabbit, rabbet (_carpentry_). Rack [_various_], wrack. Racket, racquet. Rally (_assemble_), rally (=_raillery_). Rank (_s. _), rank (_rancid_). Rap, wrap. Rash (_s. _), rash (_adj. _). Ruff, rough. Rum (_queer_), rum (_drink_), rhumb (_naut. _). Rung (_s. _), and past pp. Rung, wrung. Rush (_s. _), rush (_v. _). Rape (_seed_), rape (_ravish_), rape (_divn. Of county, obs. _). Race (_family_), race (_root_), race (_that is run_). Rate (_proportion_), rate (_to chide_). Rut (_furrow_), rut (_of animals_). Rake (_tool_), rake (_a prodigal_), rake (_of a ship_). Rail (_fence_), rail (_bird_). Rain, reign, rein. Raise, raze. Reck, wreck. Rent (_paymt. _), rent (_s. , tear_), rent (fr. _rend_). Rest (_repose_), rest (_remainder_), wrest. Reed, read. Reef (_of rocks_), reef (_of sails_). Reek, wreak. Reel (_highland-_), reel (_cotton-_). Reach, retch. Reave, reeve (_naut. _), reeve (_bailiff, obs. _). Rifle (_ransack_), rifle (_s. V. , groove_). Rear (_raise_), rear (_arričre_). Rig (_of ship_), rig (_prank, riggish_), rig (_-s of barley_). Rick (_of corn_), rick wrick (_strain_). Ring, wring. Repair (_mend_), repair (_resort, v. _). Row (_oaring_), row (_s. Of things in line_), roe (_of fish_), roe (_fem. Deer_). Roll [_various_], rôle. Rock (_stone_), rock (_v. _), roc. Rocket (_plant_), rocket (_firework_). Rue (_plant_), rue (_v. Of ruth_). Rude (_adj. _), rood (_s. _), rued (fr. _rue_). Room, rheum. Root, route. Rout, route (_military_). Sign, sine (_trigonom. _). Site, sight, cite. Size (_magnitude_), size (_glue_). Sough, sow. Sound (_noise_), sound (_to fathom_), sound (_adj. _), sound (_strait of sea_), sound (_fish bladder_). Sack (_bag_), sack (_to plunder_), sack (_wine_). Swallow (_a willow_), sallow (_pale colour_). Sap (_of trees_), sap (_mine_). Sum, some. Sun, son + sunny, sonnie. Sage (_plant_), sage (_adj. _). Sale, sail. Sell, cell. Sense, cense. Censual, sensual. Surge, serge. Surf, serf. Scent, cent, sent (fr. _send_). Session, cession. Sea, see. Seed, cede. Seal (_animal_), ciel or ceil, seal (_sign_). Seam, seem. Sear, sere, cere, seer. Serial, cereal. Signet, cygnet. Cist (_box_), cyst (_tumour, Gr. _). Scar (_of wound_), scar (_a rock_). Skull, scull. Scale (_shell_), scale (_of balance_), scale (_of stairs_). Scald (_burn_), skald (_poet, Norse_). Scrub (_of shrubs_), scrub (_v. _). Sledge (_vehicle_), sledge (_-hammer_). Slight, sleight. Slay, sleigh (_sledge_). Slate (_s. _), slate (_v. , abuse_). Sloe, slow. Slop (_puddle_), slop (_loose garment_). Slot (_track_), slot (_bar_). Sole (_adj. _), soul, sole (_a fish_). Sow, sew. Saw (_tool_), soar, sore, saw (_maxim_), saw (fr. _see_). Soil (_ground_), soil (_defile_), soil (_v. , of horses_). Spar (_beam_), spar (_mineral_), spar (_to box_). Salter (_who salts_), psalter. Source, sauce. Spell (_incantation_), spell (_letters_), spell (_turn of work_). Spill (_upset_), spill (_match_). Spit (_v. _), spit (_roasting_), spit (_of land_). Spray (_drizzle_), spray (_= sprig_). Spruce (_tree_), spruce (_adj. _) style, stile. Stud (_nail_), stud (_of horses_). Stake (_post_), steak, stake (_deposit_). Step, steppe. Stair, stare. Stern (_adj. _), stern (_of ship_). Steal, steel, stele. Steep (_adj. _), steep (_v. _). Steer (_direct_), steer (_young ox_). Still (_tranquil_), still (_distil_). Stalk (_stem_), stalk (_v. _), stork. Story, storey. Strand (_shore_), strand (_fibre_). Strain (_v. And s. _), strain (_a breed_). Strait (_narrow_), straight (_upright_). Stroke (_a blow_), stroke (_fondle_). Stoup, stoop. Shed (_scatter_), shed (_shelter_). Tart (_adj. _), tart (_a pie_). Tyre (_of wheel_), tire (_fatigue_), tire (_attire_), + tier (_who ties_). Time, thyme. Tap (_to strike_), tap (_short pipe_). Tale, tail, tail (_estate in t. _). Tender (_adj. _), tender (_s. , attender_). Tent (_pavilion_), tent (_plug of lint, s. And v. _), tent (_wine_). Tare, tear (_v. _). Teem, team. Tear (_eye_), tier. Tick (_bedding_), tick (_sheep_), tick (_clock_), tic (_spasm_), tick (_credit_). Till (_cash drawer_), till (_until_). Tilt (_v. , to make aslant_), tilt (_tourney_), tilt (_of caravan_). Tip (_top_), tip (_make to slant_), tip (_a gift_). Toe, tow (_hemp_), tow (_draw a boat_). Two, too, to. Toll (_lax_), toll (_of bells_). Taut, taught, tort. Toil (_labour_), toil (_a snare_). Top (_summit_), top (_a toy_). Truck (_vehicle_), truck (_naut. _), truck (_barter_). Trump (_trumpet_), trump (_at cards_). Trunk (_box_), trunk (_of tree_), trunk (_of elephant_). Tray, trait. Trace (_track_), trace (_strap_). Chair, chare. Chap (_crack_), chap (_chapman_), chap (_cheek_). Char (_burn_), char (_fish_), char (_-woman_). Chop (_with hatchet_), chop (_and change_). Chuck (_chick_), chuck (_strike gently_). Chase (_hunt_), chase (_enchase_), chase (_printer's case_), chase (_groove_). Vice (_depravity_), vice (_clench_), vice (_deputy_). Valley, valet. Van (_front of army_), van (_fan_), van (_caravan_). Vale, vail, veil. Vain, vein, vane. Won, one. Wake (_awake_), wake (_watch_), wake (_of ship_). Wain, wane. Waste, waist. Wait, weight. Wave, waive. Well (_good_), well (_spring_). Wee, we. Weak, week. Ween, wean. War, wore. Would, wood. 

II. ALL THE FOLLOWING EXAMPLES INVOLVE _WH. > W. _[5]

 ware (_earthen-_), ware (_aware_), wear, where, were. Way, weigh, whey. Weal (_wealth_), weal (_a swelling_), wheel. Weald, wield, wheeled. While, wile. Whine, wine, white, wight. Whether, weather. Whither, wither. Whig, wig. Whit, wit. What, wot. Whet, wet. Whirr, were = wer'. Whin, win. Whist, wist. Which, witch, wych (_elm_). 

III. GROUP OF HOMOPHONES CAUSED BY LOSS OF TRILLED R. [6]

 ion, iron. Father, farther. Lava, larva. Halm, harm. Calve, carve. Talk, torque. Daw, door. Flaw, floor. Yaw, yore. Law, lore. Laud, lord. Maw, more, gnaw, nor. Raw, roar. Shaw, shore. 

IV. THE NAME OF A SPECIES (OF ANIMALS, PLANTS, &C. ) IS OFTEN AHOMOPHONE. WHERE THERE IS ONLY ONE ALTERNATIVE MEANING, THIS CAUSESSO LITTLE INCONVENIENCE THAT THE FOLLOWING NAMES (BEING IN THATCONDITION) HAVE BEEN EXCLUDED FROM LIST I. [7]

 bleak (_fish_), bleak (_adj. _). Dace, dais. Gull (_bird_), gull (_s. And v. _). Carp, carp (_v. _). Cod, cod (_husk_). Codling, coddling (fr. _coddle_). Flounder (_fish_), flounder (_v. _). Quail (_bird_), quail (_v. _). Lark (_bird_), lark (_fun_). Ling (_fish_), ling (_heather_). Mussel, muscle. Nit, knit. Awk, orc. Oriole, aureole. Pike (_fish_), pike (_weapon_). Pout (_fish_), pout (_v. _). Perch (_fish_), perch (_alight_). Plaice, place. Ray (_fish_), ray (_of light_). Rook (_bird_), rook (_v. _). Skua, skewer. Skate (_fish_), skate (_on ice_). Smelt (_fish_), smelt (fr. _smell_). Swift (_bird_), swift (_adj. _). Swallow (_bird_), swallow (_throat_). Tapir, taper. Tern, turn. Teal (_fish_), teil (_tree_). Thrush (_bird_), thrush (_disease_). 

[Footnote 5: The following words in List 1 involve _wr_ > _w_, write, wrach, wrap, wring, wrung, wreck, wrest, wreak, wrick. ]

[Footnote 6: Other similar words occurring in other sections are--awe, awl, ought, bawd, fought, gaud, gauze, haw, caw, cause, caught, lawn, paw, saw, sauce, sought, taut, caulk, stalk, alms, balm;--theircorrespondents being, oar, orle, ort (_obs. _), board, fort, gored, gores, hoar, core, cores, court, lorn, pore, sore, source, sort, tort, cork, stork, arms, barm. ]

[Footnote 7: Other similar proper names of species, &c. , which occurin some one of the other sections of the list: ant, bat, bear, bee, beet, beetle, beech, box, breeze, date, dock, daw, duck, deer, elder, erne, fir, flea, flag, fluke, hare, horse, hawk, hop, caper, carrot, couch, cricket, currant, leech, lichen, mace, maize, mint, mole, pear, peach, pink, pie, pine, plum, plane, pulse, rabbit, rye, rush, rape, rail, reed, roe, roc, rue, sage, seal, sloe, sole, spruce, stork, thyme, char, whale, whin, yew. Also cockle. ]

V. THE SUFFIX _ER_ ADDED TO A ROOT OFTEN MAKES HOMOPHONES. THEFOLLOWING ARE EXAMPLES. (AND SEE IN LIST VI. )

 byre, buyer (_who buys_). Butter (_s. _), butter (_who butts_). Better (_adj. _), better (_who bets_). Border, boarder. Dire, dyer. Founder (_v. _), founder (_who founds_). Geyser, gazer. Greater, grater (_nutmeg_). Canter (_pace_), canter (_who cants_). Medlar, meddler. Moulder (_v. _), moulder (_who moulds_). Pitcher (_vessel_), pitcher (_who pitches_). Pillar, piller. Platter, plaiter. Plumper (_adj. _), plumper (_s. _). Sounder (_adj. _), sounder (_who sounds_). Cellar, seller, &c. 

VI. WORDS EXCLUDED FROM THE MAIN LIST FOR VARIOUS REASONS, THEIRHOMOPHONY BEING RIGHTLY QUESTIONED BY MANY SPEAKERS. 

 actor, acta (_sanctorum_). Brute, bruit. Direst, diarist. Descent, dissent. Deviser, divisor. Dual, duel. Goffer, golfer. Carrot, carat. Caudle, caudal. Choler, collar. Compliment, complement. Lumber, lumbar. Lesson, lessen. Literal, littoral. Marshal, martial. Minor, miner. Manor, manner. Medal, meddle. Metal, mettle. Missal, missel (_thrush_). Orphan, often. Putty, puttee. Pedal, peddle. Police, pelisse. Principal, principle. Profit, prophet. Rigour, rigger. Rancour, ranker. Succour, sucker. Sailor, sailer. Cellar, seller. Censor, censer. Surplus, surplice. Symbol, cymbal. Skip, skep. Tuber, tuba. Whirl, whorl. Wert, wort (_herb, obs. _). Vial, viol. Verdure, verger (_in Jones_). 

VII. HOMOPHONES DUE ONLY TO AN INFLECTED FORM OF A WORD. COMPARATIVESOF ADJECTIVES, &C. 

 adze, adds. Art (_s. _), art (_v. _). Bard, barred. Band, banned. Battels, battles (_bis_). Baste, based. Baize, bays (_bis_). Bent, bent (_pp. Bend_). Bean, been. Blue, blew. Bode, bowed. Bold, bowled, bolled (_obs. _). Bald, bawled. Braid, brayed. Bread, bred. Brood, brewed. Bruise, brews. Depose, dépôts. Divers (_adj. _), divers (_plu. _). Dug (_teat_), dug (fr. _dig_). Duct, ducked. Dust, dost. Daze, days. Daisies, dazes (_both inflected_). Doze, does (_plu. Of doe_). Aloud, allowed. Fort, fought. Found (_v. _), found (fr. _find_) phase, fays (_pl. Of fay_). Felt (_stuff_), felt (fr. _feel_) furze, firs, and furs. Feed (_s. And v. _), fee'd. Flatter (_v. _), flatter (_adj. _). Phlox, flocks. Phrase, frays. Guise, guys (_plu. _). Gaud, gored. Gauze, gores. Guest, guessed. Glose, glows. Ground (_s. _), ground (fr. _grind_). Graze, greys. Greaves, grieves. Groan, grown. Grocer, grosser. Hire, higher. Herd, heard. Hist, hissed. Hose, hoes. Hawse (_naut. _), haws, &c. Eaves, eves. Use (_v. _), ewes, yews. Candid, candied. Clove (_s. _), clove (fr. _cleave_). Clause, claws. Cold, coaled. Courser, coarser. Court, caught. Cause, cores, caws. Coir, coyer (fr. _coy_). Crew (_s. _), crew (fr. _crow_). Quartz, quarts. Lighter (_s. _), lighter (fr. _light, adj. _). Lax, lacks, &c. Lapse, laps, &c. Lade (_v. _), laid. Lane, lain. Lead (_mineral_), led. Left (_adj. _), left (fr. _leave_). Lent, leant, lent (fr. _lend_). Least, leased. Lees (_of wine_), leas, &c. Lynx, links. Mind, mined. Madder (_plant_), madder (fr. _mad_). Mustard, mustered. Maid, made. Mist, missed. Mode, mowed. Moan, mown. New, knew, &c. Nose, knows, noes. Aught (_a whit_), ought (fr. _owe_). Pact, packed. Paste, paced. Pervade, purveyed. Pyx, picks. Please, pleas. Pause, paws, pores. Pride, pried [_bis_]. Prize, pries. Praise, prays, preys. Rouse, rows. Rasher (_bacon_), rasher (fr. _rash_). Raid, rayed. Red, read (_p. Of to read_). Rex, wrecks, recks. Road, rode, rowed. Rote, wrote. Rove (_v. Of rover_), rove (fr. _reeve_). Rose, rows (_var. _), roes (_var. _), rose (_v. _). Ruse, rues (fr. _rue_). Side, sighed. Size, sighs. Scene, seen. Seize, seas, sees. Sold, soled (_both inflected_). Sword, soared. Sort, sought. Span (_length_), span (fr. _spin_). Spoke (_of wheel_), spoke (fr. _speak_). Stole (_s. _), stole (fr. _steal_). Stove (_s. _), stove (fr. _stave_). Tide, tied. Tax, tacks (_various_). Tact, tacked. Tease, teas, tees. Toad, towed, toed. Told, tolled. Tract, tracked. Trust, trussed. Chaste, chased (_various_). Choose, chews. Throne, thrown. Through, threw. Wild, wiled. Wind (_roll_), whined. Wax, whacks. Wade, weighed. Weld, welled. Word, whirred. Wilt (_wither_), wilt (fr. _will_). Ward, warred. Wont, won't. Warn, worn. 

VIII. 'FALSE HOMOPHONES' [SEE P. 4], DOUBTFUL DOUBLETS, &C. 

 beam, beam (_of light_). Bit (_horse_), bit (_piece_), bit (fr. _bite_). Brace, brace. Diet, diet. Deck (_cover_), deck (_adorn_). Deal (_various_). Dram (_drink_), drachm. Drone (_insect_), drone (_sound_). Jest, gest (_romance, and obs. Senses_). Jib (_sail_), jib (_of horses_). Fine (_adj. , v. Senses_), fine (_mulct_). Flower, flour. Fleet (_s. _), fleet (_adj. _), Fleet (_stream_). Grain (_corn_), grain (_fibre_). Indite, indict. Incense (_v. =cense_), incense (_incite_). Kind (_adj. _), kind (_s. _). Canvas, canvass. Cuff (_sleeve_), cuff (_strife_). Cousin, cozen. Cord, chord (_music_). Coin, coign. Cotton (_s. _), cotton (_v. _). Crank (_s. _), crank (_adj. _). Quaver (_v. _), quaver (_music_). Levy, levee. Litter (_brood_), litter (_straw_). Mantle (_cloak_), mantle (_shelf_). Mess (_confusion_), mess (_table_). Mussel, muscle. Nail (_unguis_), nail (_clavus_). Patent (_open_), patent (_monopoly_). Pommel (_s. _), pummel (_v. _). Refrain (_v. _), refrain (_s. , in verse_). Retort (_reply_), retort (_chemical vessel_). Second (_number_), second (_of time_). Squall (_v. _), squall (_a gale_). Slab (_s. _), slab (_adj. _). Smart (_s. And v. , sting_), smart (_adj. _). Stave (_of barrel_), stave (_of music_), [_stave in (v. )_]. Stick (_s. _), stick (_v. _). Stock (_stone_), stock (_in trade_), &c. Strut (_a support_), strut (_to walk_). Share (_division_), share (_plough_). Sheet (_sail and clew_), sheet (_-anchor_). Shear (_clip_), sheer (_clear_), sheer off (_deviate_). Tack (_various_), tack (_naut. _). Ton, tun. Wage (_earnings_), wage (_of war_). 

IX. THE FOLLOWING WORDS WERE NOT ADMITTED INTO THE MAIN CLASS CHIEFLYON ACCOUNT OF THEIR UNIMPORTANCE. 

 ah! are. Arse, ass. Ask, aske (_newt_) ayah, ire. Bah! bar, baa. Barb, barb (_horse_). Bask, basque. Barn, barne = bairn. Budge, budge (_stuff_). Buff, buff. Buffer, buffer. Berg, burgh (_suffixes_). Bin, bin = been. Broke (_v. _ of _broke_), broke (fr. _break_). Broom, brume (_fog_). Darn, darn. Fizz, phiz. Few, feu. Forty, forte. Hay, heigh! hem (_sew_), hem (_v. _, _haw_). Hollow, hollo (_v. _). Inn, in. Yawl (_boat_), yawl (_howl_). Coup, coo. Lamb, lam (_bang_). Loaf, loaf (_v. Laufen_). Marry! marry (_v. _). Nag (_pony_), nag (_to gnaw_), knag. Nap (_of cloth_), nap (_sleep_). Nay, neigh. Oh! owe. Ode, owed. Oxide, ox-eyed. Pax, packs. Pants, pants (fr. _pant_). Prose, pros (_and cons_). Sink (_var. _), cinque. Swayed, suede (_kid_). Ternary, turnery. Tea, tee (_starting point_). Taw (_to dress skins_), taw (_game, marbles_), tore (fr. _tear_). Cheap, cheep. Tool, tulle, we! woe. Ho! hoe. 

The facts of the case being now sufficiently supplied by the abovelist, I will put my attitude towards those facts in a logical sequenceunder separate statements, which thus isolated will, if examined oneby one, avoid the confusion that their interdependence might otherwiseoccasion. The sequence is thus:

 1. Homophones are a nuisance. 

 2. They are exceptionally frequent in English. 

 3. They are self-destructive, and tend to become obsolete. 

 4. This loss impoverishes the language. 

 5. This impoverishment is now proceeding owing to the prevalence of the Southern English standard of speech. 

 6. The mischief is being worsened and propagated by the phoneticians. 

 7. The Southern English dialect has no claim to exclusive preference. 

1. _THAT HOMOPHONES ARE A NUISANCE. _

An objector who should plead that homophones are not a nuisance mightallege the longevity of the Chinese language, composed, I believe, chiefly of homophones distinguished from each other by an accentuationwhich must be delicate difficult and precarious. I remember that MaxMüller [1864] instanced a fictitious sentence

 ba bŕ bâ bá, 'which (he wrote) is said to mean if properly accented _The threeladies gave a box on the ear to the favourite of the princess. _' Thissuggests that the bleating of sheep may have a richer significancethan we are accustomed to suppose; and it may perhaps illustrate theorigin as well as the decay of human speech. The only question that itraises for us is the possibility of distinguishing our own homophonesby accentuation or by slight differentiation of vowels; and this mayprove to be in some cases the practical solution, but it is not nowthe point in discussion, for no one will deny that such delicatedistinctions are both inconvenient and dangerous, and should onlybe adopted if forced upon us. I shall assume that common sense anduniversal experience exonerate me from wasting words on the proofthat homophones are mischievous, and I will give my one example in anote[8]; but it is a fit place for some general remarks. 

[Footnote 8: The homophones sun = son. There is a Greek epigram onHomer, wherein, among other fine things, he is styled, [Greek: Ellanon biotae deuteron aelion]

which Mackail translates 'a second sun on the life of Greece'. But_second son_ in English means the second male child of its parents. Itis plain that the Greek is untranslatable into English because of thehomophone. _The thing cannot be said. _

Donne would take this bull by the horns, pretending or thinking thatgenuine feeling can be worthily carried in a pun. So that in hisimpassioned 'hymn to God the Father', deploring his own sinfulness, his climax is

 But swear by thyself that at my death Thy Sonne Shall shine as he shines now, the only poetic force of which seems to lie in a covert plea ofpitiable imbecility. 

Dr. Henry Bradley in 1913 informed the International HistoricalCongress that the word _son_ had ceased to be vernacular in thedialects of many parts of England. 'I would not venture to assert (headds) that the identity of sound with _sun_ is the only cause that hasled to the widespread disuse of _son_ in dialect speech, but I thinkit has certainly contributed to the result. ']

The objections to homophones are of two kinds, either scientific andutilitarian, or ćsthetic. The utilitarian objections are manifest, andsince confusion of words is not confined to homophones, the practicalinconvenience that is sometimes occasioned by slight similarities mayproperly be alleged to illustrate and enforce the argument. I willgive only one example. 

[Sidenote: Utilitarian objections not confined to homophones. ]

The telephone, which seems to lower the value of differentiatingconsonants, has revealed unsuspected likenesses. For instance theciphers, if written somewhat phonetically as usually pronounced, arethus:

 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 nawt wun too three fawr faiv six sev'n eit nain

by which it will be seen that the ten names contain eight but onlyeight different vowels, 0 and 4 having the same vowel _aw_, while 5and 9 have _ai_. Both these pairs caused confusion; the first of themwas cured by substituting the name of the letter O for the name ofthe zero cipher, which happens to be identical with it in form, [9] andthis introduced a ninth vowel sound _ou_ (= owe), but the other pairremained such a constant source of error, that persons who had theirhouse put on the general telephonic system would request the PostOffice to give them a number that did not contain a 9 or a 5; and itis pretty certain that had not the system of automatic dialling, whichwas invented for quite another purpose, got rid of the trouble, one ofthese two ciphers would have changed its name at the Post Office. 

[Footnote 9: There is a coincidence of accidents--that the Arabicsign for zero is the same with our letter O, and that the name of ourletter O (= owe) is the same as the present tense of _ought_, whichis the vulgar name (for nought) of the Arabic zero, and that its voweldoes not occur in the name of any cipher. ]

[Sidenote: Ćsthetic objections. ]

In the effect of uniformity it may be said that utilitarian andćsthetic considerations are generally at one; and this blank statementmust here suffice, for the principle could not be briefly dealtwith: but it follows from it that the proper ćsthetic objections tohomophones are never clearly separable from the scientific. I submitthe following considerations. Any one who seriously attempts to writewell-sounding English will be aware how delicately sensitive our earis to the repetition of sounds. He will often have found it necessaryto change some unimportant word because its accented vowel recalledand jarred with another which was perhaps as far as two or three linesremoved from it: nor does there seem to be any rule for this, sinceapparently similar repetitions do not always offend, and may even beagreeable. The relation of the sound to the meaning is indefinable, but in homophones it is blatant; for instance the common expression_It is well_ could not be used in a paragraph where the word well (=well-spring) had occurred. Now, this being so, it is very inconvenientto find the omnipresent words _no_ and _know_ excluding each other:and the same is true of _sea_ and _see_; if you are writing of the_sea_ then the verb _to see_ is forbidden, or at least needs somehandling. 

 I see the deep's untrampled floor With green and purple seaweeds strewn:

here _seaweeds_ is risky, but _I see the sea's untrampled floor_ wouldhave been impossible: even the familiar

 The sea saw that and fled

is almost comical, especially because 'sea saw' has a mostcompromising joint-tenant in the children's rocking game

 See saw Margery daw. 

The awkwardness of these English homophones is much increased by theabsence of inflection, and I suppose it was the richness of theirinflections which made the Greeks so indifferent (apparently) tosyllabic recurrences that displease us: moreover, the likeness insound between their similar syllables was much obscured by a verbalaccent which respected the inflection and disregarded the stem, whereas our accent is generally faithful to the root. [10] Thissensitiveness to the sound of syllables is of the essence of our bestEnglish, and where the effect is most magical in our great poets it isimpossible to analyse. 

[Footnote 10: Wherever this is not so--as in _rhétoric_, _rhetórical_, _rhetorícian_, _cómpany_, _compánion_, &c. --we have a greater freedomin the use of the words. Such words, as Dr. Bradley points out, giving _Cánada_, _Canádian_ as example, are often phonetic varietiesdue to an imported foreign syntax, and their pronunciation impliesfamiliarity with literature and the written forms: but very oftenthey are purely the result of our native syllabising, not only indisplacement of accent (as in the first example above) but also bymodification of the accented vowel according to its position in theword, the general tendency being to make long vowels in monosyllablesand in penultimate accents, but short vowels in antepenultimateaccents. Thus come such differences of sound between _opus_ and_opera_, _omen_ and _ominous_, _virus_ and _virulent_, _miser_ and_miserable_, _nation_ and _national_, _patron_ and _patronage_, _legal_ and _legislate_, _grave_ and _gravity_, _globe_ and_globular_, _grade_ and _gradual_, _genus_ and _general_, _female_and _feminine_, _fable_ and _fabulous_, &c. In such disguising of theroot-sound the main effect, as Dr. Bradley says, is the power to freethe derivative from an intense meaning of the root; so that, to takehis very forcible example, the adjective Christian, the derivative ofChrist, has by virtue of its shortened vowel been enabled to carrya much looser signification than it could have acquired had it beenphonetically indissociable from the intense signification of thename Christ. This freedom of the derivative from the root variesindefinitely in different words, and it very much complicates mypresent lesser statement of the literary advantage of phonetic varietyin inflexions and derivatives. 

The examples above are all Latin words, and since Latin words cameinto English through different channels, these particular vowels canhave different histories. ]

Once become sensible of such beauty, and of the force of sounds, a writer will find himself in trouble with _no_ and _know_. Theseomnipresent words are each of them essentially weakened by theexistence of the other, while their proximity in a sentence is nowdamaging. It is a misfortune that our Southern dialect should haveparted entirely with all the original differentiation between them;for after the distinctive _k_ of the verb was dropped, the negativestill preserved (as it in some dialects still preserves) its broadopen vowel, more like _law_ than _toe_ or _beau_, and unless that berestored I should judge that the verb _to know_ is doomed. The thirdperson singular of its present tense is _nose_, and its past tenseis _new_, and the whole inconvenience is too radical and perpetualto be received all over the world. We have an occasional escape byusing _nay_ for _no_, since its homophone _neigh_ is an unlikely_neigh_bour; but that can serve only in one limited use of the word, and is no solution. 

[Sidenote: Punnage. ]

In talking with friends the common plea that I have heard forhomophones is their usefulness to the punster. 'Why! would you haveno puns?' I will not answer that question; but there is no fear ofour being insufficiently catered for; whatever accidental benefitbe derivable from homophones, we shall always command it fully andin excess; look again at the portentous list of them! And since theessential jocularity of a pun (at least when it makes me laugh) liesin a humorous incongruity, its farcical gaiety may be heightened bya queer pronunciation. I cannot pretend to judge a sophisticatedtaste; but, to give an example, if, as I should urge, the _o_ of theword _petrol_ should be preserved, as it is now universally spoken, not having yet degraded into _petr'l_, a future squire will not bedisqualified from airing his wit to his visitors by saying, as hepoints to his old stables, 'that is where I store my petrel', and whenthe joke had been illustrated in _Punch_, its folly would sufficientlydistract the patients in a dentist's waiting-room for years to come, in spite of gentlemen and chauffeurs continuing to say _petrol_, asthey do now; nor would the two _petr'ls_ be more dissimilar than thetwo _mys_. 

[Sidenote: Play on words. ]

Puns must of course be distinguished from such a play on words as Johnof Gaunt makes with his own name in Shakespeare's _King Richard II_. 

 _K. _ What comfort man? How is't with aged Gaunt?

 _G. _ O, how that name befits my composition! Old Gaunt indeed, and gaunt in being old, &c. 

where, as he explains, Misery makes sport to mock itself. 

This is a humorous indulgence of fancy, led on by the associationsof a word; a pun is led off by the _sound_ of a word in pursuit ofnonsense; though the variety of its ingenuity may refuse so simple adefinition. 

[Sidenote: An indirect advantage of homophones. ]

It is true that a real good may sometimes come indirectly from a wordbeing a homophone, because its inconvenience in common parlance mayhelp to drive it into a corner where it can be retained for a specialsignification: and since the special significance of any word is itsfirst merit, and the coinage of new words for special differentiationis difficult and rare, we may rightly welcome any fortuitous means fortheir provision. Examples of words specialized thus from homophonesare _brief_ (a lawyer's brief), _hose_ (water-pipe), _bolt_ (of door), _mail_ (postal), _poll_ (election), &c. [11]

[Footnote 11: It would follow that, supposing there were any expertacademic control, it might be possible to save some of our perishinghomophones by artificial specialization. Such words are needed, andif a homophone were thus specialized in some department of life orthought, then a slight differential pronunciation would be readilyadopted. Both that and its defined meaning might be true to itshistory. ]

2. _THAT ENGLISH IS EXCEPTIONALLY BURDENED WITH HOMOPHONES. _

This is a reckless assertion; it may be that among the languagesunknown to me there are some that are as much hampered with homophonesas we are. I readily grant that with all our embarrassment of riches, we cannot compete with the Chinese nor pretend to have outbuilt theirBabel; but I doubt whether the statement can be questioned if confinedto European languages. I must rely on the evidence of my list, andI would here apologize for its incompleteness. After I had patientlyextracted it from the dictionary a good many common words that weremissing occurred to me now and again, and though I have added these, there must be still many omissions. Nor must it be forgotten that, hadobsolete words been included, the total would have been far higher. That must plainly be the case if, as I contend, homophony causesobsolescence, and reference to the list from Shakespeare in my nextsection will provide examples of such words. 

Otto Jespersen[12] seems to think that the inconvenience of homophonesis so great that a language will naturally evolve some phonetic habitto guard itself against them, although it would otherwise neglect suchdistinction. I wish that this admirable instinct were more evident inEnglish. He writes thus of the lists of words which he gives 'to showwhat pairs of homonyms [homophones] would be created if distinctionswere abolished that are now maintained: they [the lists] thusdemonstrate the force of resistance opposed to some of thesound-changes which one might imagine as happening in the future. Alanguage can tolerate only a certain number of ambiguities arisingfrom words of the same sound having different significations, andtherefore the extent to which a language has utilized some phoneticdistinction to keep words apart, has some influence in determining thedirection of its sound-changes. In French, and still more in English, it is easy to enumerate long lists of pairs of words differing fromeach other only by the presence or absence of voice in the lastsound; therefore final _b_ and _p_, _d_ and _t_, _g_ and _k_, are keptrigidly apart; in German, on the other hand, there are very fewsuch pairs, and thus nothing counterbalances the natural tendency tounvoice final consonants. '

[Footnote 12: _A Modern English Grammar on Historical Principles_, by Otto Jespersen, Heidelberg, 1909. Streitberg's _GermanischeBibliothek_, vol. I, p. 441. ]

3. _That homophones are self-destructive and tend to become obsolete. _

For the contrary contention, namely, that homophones do _not_destroy themselves, there is prima facie evidence in the long list ofsurvivors, and in the fact that a vast number of words which have notthis disadvantage are equally gone out of use. 

[Sidenote: Causes of obsolescence. ]

Words fall out of use for other reasons than homophony, therefore onecannot in any one case assume that ambiguity of meaning was the activecause: indeed the mere familiarity of the sound might prolong a word'slife; and homophones are themselves frequently made just in this way, for uneducated speakers will more readily adapt a familiar sound to anew meaning (as when my gardener called his Pomeranian dog a Panorama)than take the trouble to observe and preserve the differentiation of anew sound. There is no rule except that any loss of distinction may bea first step towards total loss. [13]

[Footnote 13: To give an example of this. In old Greek _we_ and _you_were [Greek: aemeis] and [Greek: umeis]: and those words becameabsolutely homophonous, so that one of them had to go. The firstperson naturally held on to its private property, and it invented_sets_ for outsiders. Now the first step towards this absurdest ofall homophonies, the identity of _meum_ and _tuum_, was no doubt themodification of the true full _u_ to _ii_. The ultimate convenienceof the result may in itself be applauded; but it is inconceivablethat modern Greek should ever compensate itself for its inevitableestrangement from its ancient glories. ]

It is probable that the working machinery of an average man's brainsets a practical limit to his convenient workable vocabulary; that isto say, a man who can easily command the spontaneous use of a certainnumber of words cannot much increase it without effort. If that isso, then, as he learns new words, there will be a tendency, if not anecessity, for him to lose hold of a corresponding number of his oldwords; and the words that will first drop out will be those with whichhe had hitherto been uncomfortable; and among those words will be thewords of ambiguous meaning. 

[Sidenote: No direct proof]

It is plain that only general considerations can be of value, unlessthere should be very special evidence in any special case; and thusthe caution of Dr. Henry Bradley's remarks in note on page 19. 

I remember how I first came to recognize this law; it was from hearinga friend advocating the freer use of certain old words which, thoughthey were called obsolete and are now rarely heard, yet survive inlocal dialects. I was surprised to find how many of them were unfitfor resuscitation because of their homophonic ambiguity, and whenI spoke of my discovery to a philological friend, I found that heregarded it as a familiar and unquestioned rule. 

But to prove this rule is difficult; and as it is an impossible taskto collect all the obsolete words and classify them, I am proposing totake two independent indications; first to separate out the homophonesfrom the other obsolete words in a Shakespearian glossary, andsecondly, to put together a few words that seem to be actually goingout of use in the present day, that is, strictly obsolescent wordscaught in the act of flitting. 

[Sidenote: Obsolescence defined. ]

Obsolescence in this connexion must be understood only of commoneducated speech, that is, the average speaker's vocabulary. Obsolescent words are old words which, when heard in talk, will soundliterary or unusual: in literature they can seem at home, and willoften give freshness without affectation; indeed, any word that has anhonourable place in Shakespeare or the Bible can never quite die, andmay perhaps some day recover its old vitality. 

[Sidenote: Evidence of obsolescence. ]

The best evidence of the obsolescence of any word is that it shouldstill be frequently heard in some proverb or phrase, but never outof it. The homophonic condition is like that of _aural_ and _oral_, of which it is impossible to make practical use. [14] We speak of an_aural surgeon_ and of _oral teaching_, but out of such combinationsthe words have no sense. It happens that oral teaching must be auralon the pupil's side, but that only adds to the confusion. 

[Footnote 14: The words _aural_ and _oral_ are distinguished inthe pronunciation of the North Midlands and in Scotland, and thedifference between the first syllables is shown in the Oxforddictionary. In Southern English no trace of differentiation remains. ]

In deciding whether any obsolete homophone has been lost by itshomophony, I should make much of the consideration whether the wordhad supplied a real need, by naming a conception that no other wordso fitly represented; hence its survival in a proverb is of specialvalue, because the words of proverbs are both apt and popular; so thatfor the disuse of such a word there would seem to be no other cause solikely and sufficient as damage to its signification. 

The glossary is relied on to contain, besides its other items, allthe obsolete words: the homophones separated out from these will showvarious grades of obsolescence, and very different values as examplesbearing on the question at issue. 

_Table of homophones taken from among the obsolete words in Cunliffe's'A New Shakespearean Dictionary, ' Blackie_, 1910. ]

 ANCIENT: replaced by ensign. 

 BATE = remit. 

 BECK = a bow of the head: preserved in 'becks and nods', mutual loss with beck = rivulet. 

 BOOT = to profit: Sh. Puns on it, showing that its absurdity was recognized. 

 BOTTLE (of hay): preserved in proverb. 

 BOURNE = streamlet: preserved in sense of limit by the line of Sh. Which perhaps destroyed it. 

 BREEZE = gadfly. 

 BRIEF (_subs. _): now only as a lawyer's brief. 

 BROOK (_verb_). 

 BUCK = to steep (linen) in lye. 

 COTE: as in sheepcote. 

 DOLE = portion, and dole = sorrow: probably active mutual destruction; we still retain 'to dole out'. 

 DOUT. 

 DUN (_adj. _): now only in combination as dun-coloured. 

 EAR = to plough. 

 FAIN and FEIGN: prob. Mutual loss due to undefined sense of FAIN. N. B. FANE also obsolete. 

 FEAT (_adj. _) and FEATLY: well lost. 

 FERE. 

 FIT = section of a poem. 

 FLAW: now confined to a flaw in metal, &c. 

 FLEET (_verb_) and FLEETING, as in the sun-dial motto, 'Time like this shade doth fleet and fade. '

 FOIL: common verb, obsolete. 

 GEST: lost in _jest_. 

 GIRD = to scoff: an old well-established word. 

 GOUT = a drop of liquor. 

 GUST = taste (well lost). 

 HALE = haul (well lost). 

 HIGHT = named. 

 HOAR: only kept in combination, hoar-frost, hoar hairs. 

 HOSE: lost, though hosier remains, but specialized in _garden-hose, &c. _

 HUE: not now used of colour. 

 IMBRUED (with blood): prob. Lost in _brewed_. 

 JADE: almost confined to _jaded_(?). 

 KEEL = cool. 

 LIST: as in 'as you list'. 

 MAIL: now only in combination, coat of mail, &c. 

 MARRY!

 MATED = confused in mind (well lost). 

 MEED: lost in _mead_ = meadow (also obs. ) _and mead=metheglin_. 

 METE and METELY = fitting, also METE in 'mete it out', both lost in _meet_ and _meat_. 

 MERE (_subs. _). 

 MOUSE (_verb_): to bite and tear. 

 MOW = a grimace. 

 MUSE = to wonder: lost in _amuse_ and _Muse_. 

 NEAT = ox. 

 OUNCE = pard. 

 PALL = to fail. 

 PEAK: survives only in 'peak and pine' and in _peaky_. 

 PELTING = paltry, also PELT = a skin, lost. 

 PILL = to plunder. 

 PINK = ornamental slashing of dress. 

 POKE = pocket. 

 POLL = to cut the hair. 

 QUARRY (as used in sport). 

 QUEAN = a woman. 

 RACK (of clouds). 

 RAZE (to the ground). The meaning being the very opposite of _raise_, the word _raze_ is intolerable. 

 REDE = counsel, n. B. Change of meaning. 

 RHEUM: survives in rheumatic, &c. 

 SCALD = scurvy (_adj. _). 

 SLEAVE = a skein of silk, 'The ravelled sleave of care', usually misinterpreted, the equivocal alternative making excellent sense. 

 SOUSE _(verb):_ of a bird of prey swooping. 

 SPEED: as in 'St. Francis be thy speed' = help, aid. 

 STALE = bait or decoy (well lost). 

 TARRE: to 'tarre a dog on' = incite. 

 TICKLE = unstable. 

 TIRE = to dress (the hair, &c. ). 

 VAIL = to let fall. 

 WREAK. 

Besides the above may be noted

 WONT (_sub. _): lost in _won't_ = will not. 

 FAIR: Though we still speak of 'a fair complexion' the word has lost much of its old use: and the verb TO FARE has suffered; we still say 'Farewell', but scarcely 'he fares ill'; also TO FARE FORTH is obsolete. 

 BOLT = to sift, has gone out, also BOLT in the sense of a missile weapon; but the weapon may have gone first; we still preserve it in 'a bolt from the blue', a thunder-bolt, and 'a fool's bolt is soon shot', and we shoot the bolt of a door. 

 BARM: this being the name of an object which would be familiar only to brewers and bakers, probably suffered from the discontinuance of family brewing and baking. It would no longer be familiar, and may possibly have felt the blurring effect of the ill-defined BALM, which word also seems rarely used. In the South of England few persons now know what barm is. 

 ARCH: _adj. _, probably obsolescent. 

There are also examples of words with the affix a-, or initialssimulating that affix, thus:

 ABY: lost in _abide_, with which it was confused. 

 ABODE = bode (? whether ever in common use). 

 ACCITE: lost in _excite_. 

 ASSAY: quite a common word, lost in _say_ (?)

 ATONE: lost in _tone_. 

and thus _attempt_, _attaint_, _attest_, _avail_, all suffered from_tempt_, _taint_, _test_, _veil_, whereas _attend_ seems to havedestroyed _tend_. 

_Table of homophones that may seem to be presently falling out ofuse. _[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 lastlist. This list is an attempt to tabulate words falling out of use orseldom heard now in the conversation of average educated persons whotalk Southern English or what is called P. S. P. (see p. 38); to someof them the word may be unknown, and if it is known, they avoid usingit because it sounds to them strange or affected. It is difficult to_prove_ that any particular word is in this condition, and the listis offered tentatively. It is made from Jones' dictionary, which istherefore allowed to rule whether the word is obsolescent rather thanobsolete: some of these seem to be truly obsolete. Some will appearto be convincing examples of obsolescence, others not; but it must beremembered that the fact of a word being still commonly heard in somedistrict or trade (though that may seem to show that it is in 'commonuse') is no evidence that it is not dying out; it is ratherevidence that it was lately more living, which is the same as beingobsolescent. ]

4. _THAT THE LOSS DUE TO HOMOPHONY THREATENS TO IMPOVERISH THELANGUAGE. _

New words are being added to the dictionary much faster than old wordsare passing out of use, but it is not a question of numbers nor ofdictionaries. A chemist told me that if the world were packed all overwith bottles as close as they could stand, he could put a differentsubstance into each one and label it. And science is active in all herlaboratories and will print her labels. If one should admit that asmany as ninety-nine per cent. Of these artificial names are neitherliterary nor social words, yet some of them are, since everything thatcomes into common use must have a name that is frequently spoken. Thus _baik_, _sackereen_, and _mahjereen_ are truly new Englishword-sounds; and it may be, if we succumb to anarchical communism, that margarine and saccharine will be lauded by its dissolute mumpersas enthusiastically as men have hitherto praised and are stillpraising butter and honey. 'Bike' certainly would have already won adecent place in poetry had it been christened more gracefully and notnicknamed off to live in backyards with cab and bus. The whole subjectof new terms is too vast to be parenthetically handled, and I hopethat some one will deal with it competently in an early publicationof the S. P. E. The question must here remain to be determined by theevidence of the words in the table of obsoletes, which I think isconvincing; my overruling contention being that, however successfulwe may be in the coinage of new words (and we have no reason to boastof success) and however desirable it is to get rid of some of the baduseless homophones, yet we cannot afford to part with any old termthat can conveniently be saved. 

We have the best Bible in the world, and in Shakespeare the greatestpoet; we have been suckled on those twin breasts, and our childrenmust have degenerated if they need asses' milk. Nor is it only becausethe old is better than the new that we think thus. If we speak moreproudly of Trafalgar than of Zeebrugge, it is not because Trafalgaris so far finer a sounding word than Zeebrugge, as indeed it is, norbecause we believe that the men of Nelson's time were better thanour men of to-day, we know they were not, but because the spirit thatlives on ideals will honour its parents; and it is thinking in thisway that makes noble action instinctive and easy. Nelson was presentat Zeebrugge leading our sailors, as Shakespeare is with us leadingour writers, and no one who neglects the rich inheritance to whichEnglishmen are born is likely ever to do any credit to himself or hiscountry. 

5. _THAT THE SOUTH ENGLISH DIALECT IS A DIRECT AND CHIEF CAUSE OFHOMOPHONES. _

[Sidenote: Evidence of Jones' dictionary. ]

Evidence of the present condition of our ruling educated speech in theSouth of England I shall take from Mr. Daniel Jones' dictionary, [16]the authority of which cannot, I think, be disputed. It is true thatit represents a pronunciation so bad that its slovenliness is likelyto be thought overdone, but there is no more exaggeration than anyeconomical system of phonetic spelling is bound to show. It is indeeda strong and proper objection to all such simplifications that theyare unable to exhibit the finer distinctions; but this must not implythat Mr. Jones' ear is lacking in delicate perception, or that he isan incompetent observer. If he says, as he does say, that the secondsyllable in the words _obloquy_ and _parasite_ are spoken by educatedLondoners with the same vowel-sound (which he denotes by [e], that isthe sound of _er_ in the word _danger_), then it is true that they areso pronounced, or at least so similarly that a trained ear refuses todistinguish them [óbl_er_quy, pár_er_site]. 

[Footnote 16: _A Phonetic Dictionary of the English Language_, byHermann Michaelis, Headmaster of the Mittelschule in Berlin, andDaniel Jones, M. A. , Lecturer on Phonetics at University College, London, 1913. There is a second edition of this book in which thewords are in the accustomed alphabetical order of their literaryspelling. ]

To this an objector might fairly reply that Mr. Jones coulddistinguish 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 defectivephonetic script, he prefers to confuse them. I shall not lose sightof this point, [17] but here I will only say that, if there really is adifference between these two vowels in common talk, then if Mr. Jonescan afford to disregard it it must be practically negligible, andother phoneticians will equally disregard it, as the Oxford Press hasin its smaller dictionary. 

[Footnote 17: I am not likely to forget it or to minimize it, for itis my own indictment against Mr. Jones' system, and since his practicestrongly supports my contention I shall examine it and expose it(see p. 43); but the objection here raised is not really subversiveof my argument here, as may be judged from the fact that the OxfordUniversity Press has adopted or countenanced Mr. Jones' standard intheir small popular edition of the large dictionary. ]

[Sidenote: Its trustworthiness. ]

I suppose that thirty years ago it would have been almost impossibleto find any German who could speak English so well as to pass fora native: they spoke as Du Maurier delighted to represent them in_Punch_. During the late war, however, it has been no uncommon thingfor a German soldier to disguise himself in English uniform andenter our trenches, relying on his mastery of our tongue to escapesuspicion; and it was generally observed how many German prisonersspoke English _like a native_. Now this was wholly due to their havingbeen taught Southern English on Mr. Jones' model and method. 

Again, those who would repudiate the facts that I am about toreveal, and who will not believe that in their own careless talkthey themselves actually pronounce the words very much as Mr. Jonesprints them, [18] should remember that the sounds of speech are nowmechanically 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 goto the trouble and expense of making such a bogus book as his would bewere it untrue; nor could he have attained his expert reputation hadhe committed such a folly. 

[Footnote 18: This is a very common condition. The habitualpronunciation is associated in the mind with the familiar eye-pictureof the literary printed spelling so closely that it is difficult forthe speaker to believe that he is not uttering the written sounds; buthe is not competent to judge his own speech. For instance, almost allEnglishmen believe that the vowel which we write _u_ in _but_, _ugly_, _unknown_, &c. , is really a _u_, like the _u_ in _full_, and not adisguised _a_; and because the written _s_ is sometimes voiced theycannot distinguish between _s_ and _z_, nor without great difficultyseparate among the plural terminations those that are spoken with an_s_ from those that are spoken with a _z_. I was shocked when I firstdiscovered my own delusions in such matters, and I still speak the badSouthern English that I learnt as a child and at school. I can hardlyforgive my teachers and would not myself be condemned in a likereprobation. ]

Again, and in support of the trustworthiness of the records, I amtold by those concerned in the business that for some years past noEnglishman could obtain employment in Germany as teacher of Englishunless he spoke the English vowels according to the standard ofMr. Jones' dictionary; and it was a recognized device, when such anappointment was being considered, to request the applicant to speakinto a machine and send the record by post to the Continent; whereuponhe was approved or not on that head by the agreement of the recordwith 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 themost trustworthy evidence at my disposal: but before exhibiting itI would premise that our present fashionable dialect is not to beconsidered as the wanton local creator of all the faults that Mr. Jones can parade before the eye. Its qualities have come together invarious ways, nor are the leading characteristics of recent origin. I am convinced that our so-called standard English sprang activelyto the fore in Shakespeare's time, that in the Commonwealth yearsour speech was in as perilous a condition as it is to-day, and at theRestoration made a self-conscious recovery, under an impulse very likethat which is moving me at the present moment; for I do not look uponmyself as expressing a personal conviction so much as interpretinga 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 prejudiceor bias in any direction. But this is beyond the present purpose, which is merely to exhibit the tendency which this so-calleddegradation has to create homophones. 

[Sidenote: Mauling of words. ]

As no one will deny that homophones are to be made by mauling words, Iwill begin by a selection of words from Mr. Jones' dictionary showingwhat our Southern English is doing with the language. I shall give inthe first column the word with its literary spelling, in the secondMr. Jones' phonetic representation of it, and in the third column anattempt to represent that sound to the eye of those who cannot readthe phonetic script, using such makeshift spellings as may be foundin any novel where the pronunciation of the different speakers isdifferentiated. 

 _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. Nć[ts]r[er]l natshrerl _or_ natshrl. Orator. [o]r[e]t[e] orrerter. Rapturous. Rćp[ts][er]r[e]s raptsherers _or_ raptshrers. Parasite. Pćr[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 ofthese words. ]

In culling these flowers of speech I was not blind to their greatpicturesque merits, but they must not be taken for jokes, at leastthey must not be thought of as conjuring smiles on the faces ofMessrs. Jones, Michaelis and Rippmann: they are deadly products ofhonest study and method, and serious evidence whereby any one shouldbe convinced that such a standard of English pronunciation is likelyto create homophones: and yet in searching the dictionary I have notfound it guilty of many new ones. [20] For examples of homophonesdue to our 'standard' speech one might take first the 20 _wh_- words(given on page 14) which have lost their aspirate, and with them the9 _wr_- words: next the 36 words in table iv and note, which have losttheir trilled _R_: and then the 41 words from table vi on page 15; andthat would start us with some 100 words, the confusion of which isdue to our Southern English pronunciation, since the differentiationof all these words is still preserved in other dialects. Thedifferentiation of these 100 words would of course liberate theirtwins, so the total number of gains should be doubled. 

[Footnote 20: A fair list might no doubt be made; the most amusingitem 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 firstedition. ]

[Sidenote: Example of one class. ]

But number is not so important as the quality and frequency of thewords involved, so I will instance one class in detail, namely thewords 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. Ishould think it extremely unlikely that _yore_ has been in any wayincommoded by _yaw_; and _flaw_, which is now more or less corneredto one of its various meanings, was probably affected more by its ownambiguities 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 thisaccident has strengthened its severity in literature, where it assertsits aloofness sometimes with a full spelling [_aweful_] as in speechtwo pronunciations are recognized, _awful_ and _awf'l_. 

Now how do these words appear in Jones' dictionary? If there is to beany difference between the _aw_ and _ore_ sounds either the _R_ mustbe trilled as it still is in the north, or some vestige of it mustbe indicated, and such indication would be a lengthening of the _o_(=_aw_) sound by the vestigial voicing of the lost trill, such as isindicated in the word _o'er_, and might be roughly shown to the eye bysuch a spelling as _shawer_ for _shore_ [thus _shaw_ would be [s][o]:and _shore_ would be [s][o]:[e]] and such distinction is still madeby our more careful Southern English speakers, and is recognized as anexistent variant by Jones. 

Since the circumflex accent properly indicates a rise and fall ofvoice-pitch on a vowel-sound such as almost makes a disyllable of amonosyllable (e. G. In Milton's verse the word _power_ may fill eitherone or two places in the line) I will adopt it here to denote thisfuller 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 thenormal 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 thelast remnant of their differentiation, which it is admitted that theyhave not yet quite lost. [21]

[Footnote 21: The two editions of Jones' dictionary do not exactlycorrespond, e. G. In the first edition the words _boar_ and _bore_are under _baw_, and no other pronunciation is mentioned. But in thesecond edition _b[ore]_ and _b[oar]_ are allowed as variants. In thefirst edition _four_, _fore_ and _for_ are all under _faw_ [f[e]:], and I find _pour_, _pore_, and _poor_ all under _paw_, though in everycase 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 sortof stuff must be almost more tedious and annoying to read than itis to write, I desist from further details, but cannot resist theopportunity of pointing out that in their English pronunciation ofLatin our classical teachers and professors have wantonly introducedthis mischievous homophony of _au_ and _or_ into Latin, although theproper 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 yourtail' just as much as it means 'Lift up your hearts'. ]

6. _THAT THE MISCHIEF IS BEING PROPAGATED BY PHONETICIANS. _

[Sidenote: The use of phonetics in education. ]

The phoneticians are doing useful work in supplying an educationalneed. By the phonetic system any spoken language can now be learnedquickly and easily, just as by the _sol-fa_ system the teaching ofmusic was made easy and simple. If a clergyman who had no practicalknowledge of music were offered the post of minor canon in acathedral, he would find it very difficult to qualify himselfpassably, whereas any village schoolboy could learn all the musicnecessary for such an office, and learn that solidly too and soundlyand durably, in a few lessons, truly in a few hours, by the _sol-fa_method. The principle is the same in music and in speech, namely tohave a distinct symbol for every separate sound; in music it is aname, the idea of which quickly becomes indissociable from the noteof the scale which it indicates; in phonetics it is a written letter, which differs from the units of our literary alphabet only in this, that it has but one meaning and interpretation, and really is what allletters were originally intended to be. When you see it you know whatit means. 

[Sidenote: Its general adoption certain. ]

The principle is but common sense, and practice confirms its validity. I am persuaded that as soon as competition has exposed the advantageswhich it ensures, not only in the saving of time, but in the rescuingof English children from the blighting fog through which their tenderminds are now forced to struggle on the first threshold of life, [22]then all spoken languages will be taught on that method. What nowchiefly hinders its immediate introduction is not so much the realdifficulty of providing a good simple system, as the false fearthat all our literature may take on the phonetic dress; and thisimagination is frightful enough to be a bugbear to reasonable people, although, so far as one can see, there is no more danger of thisresult than there is of all music appearing in sol-fa notation. 

[Footnote 22: This is no exaggeration. Let a humane teacher think whatan infant's mind is, the delicate bud of intelligence opening on theworld, eager to adjust its awakening wonder to the realities of life, absolutely simple, truthful, and receptive, reaching out its tenderfaculties like the sensitive antennae of a new-born insect, thatfeel forth upon the unknown with the faultless instinct of eternalmind--one has only to imagine that condition to realize that themost ingenious malignity could hardly contrive anything to offer itso perplexing, cramping, and discouraging as the unintelligible andunreasonable absurdities of English literary spelling. That it somehowgenerally wrestles through is only a demonstration of the wrong thatis done to it; and I would say, better leave it alone to find itsown way, better teach it nothing at all, than worry it with theincomprehensible, indefensible confusion of such nonsense. ]

[Sidenote: Demand of the market. ]

Now here is a promising field for adventure. Not only is the creationof a new fount of type an elaborate and expensive process, but theelaboration of a good system and its public recognition when producedinvolve much time; so that any industrial company that is early inthe market with a complete apparatus and a sufficient reputation willcarry all before it, and be in a position to command and secure greatmonetary profit. 

There is no doubt that the field is now strongly held by theAnglo-Prussian society which Mr. Jones represents. [23]

[Footnote 23: The peril that we are in of having Mr. Jones' degradedpronunciation thus sprung upon us in England and taught in all ourschools is really threatening. Indeed, as things are, there is littleprospect of escaping from it, supposing the democracy should onceawake to the commercial and spiritual advantages of teaching languagephonetically: and that would seem to be only a question of time: thedemand may come at any moment, and a complete machinery which hasbeen skilfully prepared to meet the demand will offer practicalconveniences to outbalance every other consideration. 

Even supposing the authorities in the Education Departmentsufficiently alive to the situation which it is the purpose of thissection of my essay to bring to the fore, yet even then, were they allunanimous, they could not give effect to their convictions, because--

They are forbidden to recommend or give preference to any particularbook. They may not order or prohibit the use of any book, however goodor bad they may know it to be, and they probably desire to avoid thesuspicion of favouring the authors of books that have the advantage ofnational circulation. 

However that may be, it is a lamentable situation that ourhigh-salaried Board of Education, composed of the best trainedintelligence of the country, should not be allowed to exercise itsdiscretion efficiently. The people, no doubt, cannot be agreed as tothe principles on which they desire to be educated, whether political, official, or religious, and they deprecate official control in suchmatters. Every one objecting to some principle, they consent inrequiring that the central authority should have no principle at all;but this lack of principle should not be extended to paralyse actionin questions that demand expert knowledge and judgement, such asthis question of phonetic teaching--and it shows that the public bygrudging authority to their own officers may only fall under a worsetyranny, which they will suffer just because it has no authority. ]

In the preceding section Mr. Jones' dictionary was taken as authorityfor the actual condition of Southern English pronunciation. It mustnow be considered in its other aspect, namely as the authoritativephonetic interpretation of our speech; my contention being that it isa wrong and mischievous interpretation. 

It is difficult to keep these two questions quite apart. The first, which was dealt with in Section 5, was that Southern Englishis actively productive of homophones. This present Section 6 iscontending that the mischief is being encouraged and propagated by thephoneticians, and Mr. Jones' books are taken as an example of theirmethod. 

[Sidenote: Fault of Mr. Jones' method. ]

The reason why the work of these phoneticians is so mischievous isthat they have chosen too low a standard of pronunciation. 

The defence that they would make would be something like this. 

They might argue with some confidence, and not without a good show ofreason, that the actual 'vernacular' talk of the people is the livinglanguage of any country: they would allege that a spoken language isalways changing, and always will change; that the actual condition ofit is the only scientific, and indeed the only possible basis for anysystem of tuition; and that it is better to be rather in advance ofchange than behind it, since the changes proceed inevitably by lawswhich education has no power to resist, nay, so inevitably thatscience can in some measure foresee the future. 

This would, I suppose, fairly represent Mr. Jones' contention. Indeed, he plainly asserts that his work is merely a record of existing facts, and he even says that he chose Southern English because it is mostfamiliar and observable, and therefore capable of providing him withsufficient phenomena: and he might say that what I call 'low' in hisstandard is only the record of a stage of progression which I happento dislike or have not nearly observed. And yet the argument is fullof fallacies: and the very position that he assumes appears to me tobe unsound. It is well enough to record a dialect, nor will any onegrudge him credit for his observation and diligence, but to reduce adialect to theoretic laws and then impose those laws upon the speakersof it is surely a monstrous step. And in this particular instance thematter is complicated by the fact that Southern English is not truly anatural dialect; Mr. Jones himself denotes it as P. S. P. =Public SchoolPronunciation, and that we know to be very largely a social conventiondependent on fashion and education, and inasmuch as it is a productof fashion and education it is not bound by the theoretical lawswhich Mr. Jones would attribute to it; while for the same reason it isunfortunately susceptible of being affected by them, if they should betaught with authority. These phoneticians would abuse a false positionwhich they have unwarrantably created. This Southern English, thisP. S. P. , is a 'fashionable' speech, fashionable that is in two senses;and Mr. Jones would fashion it. 

[Sidenote: judged by practical effects. ]

But I wish to put my case practically, and, rather than argue, I wouldask what are the results of learning English on Mr. Jones' system?What would be the condition of a man who had learnt in this way?

[Sidenote: His three styles. ]

I shall assume that the pupil has learnt his pronunciation from thedictionary, the nature of which is now known to my readers: but theyshould also know that Mr. Jones recognizes and teaches three differentstyles, which he calls the A, B, and C styles, 'A, the pronunciationsuitable for recitation or reading in public; B, the pronunciationused in careful conversation, or reading aloud in private; and C, thepronunciation used in rapid conversation. '

In a polemic against Mr. Jones his adversary has therefore to combat adragon with three heads, and the heroic method would be to strike allthree of them off at one blow. To effect this it seems to me that onehas only to remark that a system which is forced to teach a dialect[a dialect, observe, not a language] in three forms where one issufficient, is _ipso facto_ condemned. This objection I will establishpresently; at present I am content to confine my attention to onehead, for I maintain that in practice those who will take the troubleto learn three forms of one speech must be a negligible number;the practical pupils will generally be content to master one, andthat will, no doubt, be the highly recommended style B, and itscorresponding dictionary; they will rule out A and C as worksof supererogation; and indeed those would be needless if B weresatisfactory. 

[Sidenote: In deliberate repititions. ]

So, then, we are asking what is the condition of a man who has learnedthe dictionary standard?

(1) In common talk if we speak so indistinctly as not to beunderstood, we repeat our sentence with a more careful articulation. As Sweet used to say, the only security against the decay of languagethrough careless articulation into absolute unintelligibility is thepersonal inconvenience of having to repeat your words when you areindistinctly heard. 'What' leaps out from the dictionary with a shoutto the rescue of all his fellows. And when you have experiencedthis warcry 'what? what?' oftener than you like, you will raise thestandard of your pronunciation (just as you would raise your voice toa deaf listener) merely to save yourself trouble, even though you wereinsensible to the shame of the affront. 

[Sidenote: In asseveration. ]

And this more careful articulation obtains also in all _asseveration_. A speaker who wishes to provoke attention to any particular statementor sentiment will speak the words by which he would convey it moreslowly and with more careful articulation than the rest of hisutterance. 

Under both these common conditions the man who has learned only thevernacular of Mr. Jones' phonetics has no resource but to emphasizewith all their full horrors words like _seprit_, _sin'kerpate_, _din'ersty_, _ernoin't_, _mis'ernthrope_, _sym'perthy_, _mel'ernkerly_, _mel'erdy_, _serspe'ct_, _erno'y_, &c. [24], whichwhen spoken indistinctly in careless talk may pass muster, but whenaccurately articulated are not only vulgar and absurd, but oftenunrecognizable. 

[Footnote 24: Writing _er_, always unaccented, for [e]. ]

[Sidenote: In public speaking. ]

(2) Again, public speakers use a pronunciation very different fromthat in the dictionary, and Mr. Jones admits this and would teachit _sepritly_ as 'style A'. But it is wrong to suppose that itscharacteristics are a mere fashion or a pedantic regard for thingsobsolete, or a nice rhetorical grace, though Mr. Jones will have itto be mostly artificial, 'due to well-established, though perhapssomewhat arbitrary rules laid down by teachers of elocution'. Thebasis of it is the need of being heard and understood, together withthe experience that style B will not answer that purpose. The mainservice, no doubt, of a teacher of elocution is to instruct in themanagement of the voice (clergyman's sore throat is a recognizeddisease of men who use their voice wrongly); but a right pronunciationis almost equally necessary and important. 

Now if public speakers really have to learn something different fromtheir habitual pronunciation, Mr. Jones is right in making a separatestyle of it, and he is also justified in the degraded forms of hisstyle B, for those are what these speakers have to unlearn; nor is anyfault to be found with his diligent and admirable analysis. 

These two practical considerations expose the situation sufficiently:we may now face the triple-tongued dragon and exhibit how a singlewhiff of common sense will tumble all his three heads in the dust. 

[Sidenote: The natural right method. ]

The insideoutness, topsy-turviness, and preposterousness of Mr. Jones'method is incredible. In the natural order of things, children wouldbe taught a careful 'high standard' articulation as a part of theirelemental training, when in their pliant age they are mastering theco-ordinations which are so difficult to acquire later. Then when theyhave been educated to speak correctly, their variation from that fullpronunciation is a natural carelessness, and has the grace of allnatural behaviour, and it naturally obeys whatever laws have beencorrectly propounded by phoneticians; since it is itself the phenomenafrom which those laws are deduced. This carelessness or ease of speechwill vary naturally _in all degrees_ according to occasion, and beingdependent on mood and temper will never go wrong. It is warm and alivewith expression of character, and may pass quite unselfconsciouslyfrom the grace of negligence to the grace of correctness, for it hascorrectness at command, having learned it, and its carelessness hasnot been doctored and bandaged; and this ease of unselfconsciousnessis one of the essentials of human intercourse: a man talking fluentlydoes not consider what words he will use, he does not often rememberexactly what words he has used, nor will he know at all how hepronounces them; his speech flows from him as his blood flows when hisflesh is wounded. 

[Sidenote: What Mr. Jones would substitute. ]

What would Mr. Jones' system substitute for this natural grace? Inplace of a wide scale of unconscious variation he provides hispupils with 'three styles', three different fixed grades ofpronunciation, [25] which they must apply consciously as suits theoccasion. At dinner you might be called on to talk to a bishop acrossthe table in your best style B, or to an archbishop even in your A1, when you were talking to your neighbours in your best C. --Nature wouldno doubt assert herself and secure a fair blend; but none the less, the three styles are plainly alternatives and to some extent mutuallyexclusive, whereas natural varieties are harmoniously interwoven andessentially one. 

[Footnote 25: Of course Mr. Jones knows that these are not andcannot be fixed. He must often bewail in secret the exigencies of his'styles'. ]

Argumentative analogies are commonly chosen because they are speciousrather than just; but there is one here which I cannot forbear. If asystem like Mr. Jones' were adopted in teaching children to write, weshould begin by collecting and comparing all the careless and hastyhandwritings of the middle class and deduce from them the prevalentforms of the letters in that state of degradation. From this we shouldconstruct in our 'style B' the alphabet which we should contend tobe the genuine natural product of inevitable law, and hallowed by'general use', and this we should give to our children to copy andlearn, relegating the more carefully formed writing to a 'style A, taught by writing masters', explaining that its 'peculiarities' were'modifications produced involuntarily as the result of writing moreslowly or endeavouring to write more distinctly', &c. [26]

[Footnote 26: _Phonetic Transcriptions of English_, by D. Jones, 1907, Introd. , p. V, 'The peculiarities of Style A as compared with StyleB are especially marked. These differences are partly natural, i. E. Modifications produced involuntarily as the result of speakingmore slowly or of endeavouring to speak more distinctly, and partlyartificial, i. E. Modifications due to the well-established thoughperhaps somewhat arbitrary rules laid down by teachers of elocution, '&c. , and Mr. Jones is quite right in complaining that his pupils makefools of themselves when they try to speak slower. ]

I believe that there has never been in Europe a fluent script sobeautiful and legible as that of our very best English writers ofto-day. But their ćsthetic mastery has come from loving study of theforms that conscious artistry had perfected, and through a constantpractice in their harmonious adaptation. 

Finally, it may be worth while to raise the question how it can bethat a man of Mr. Jones' extreme competence in his science shouldcommit himself to a position that appears so false and mischievous. 

[Sidenote: Reason of present discredit of phonetics. ]

The unpopularity of phonetics is not wholly undeserved: from its earlyelements, the comfortably broad distinctions of convincing importance, it has progressed to a stage of almost infinite differentiationsand subtleties; and when machinery was called in to dispose ofcontroversy, a new and unsuspected mass of baffling detail wasrevealed. 

The subject cannot be treated parenthetically, nor am I capable ofsummarizing it; but it seems clear that the complexity of the sciencehas driven off public sympathy and dashed the confidence of scholars, withdrawing thereby some of the wholesome checks that common sensemight else have imposed on its practical exponents. The experts thusleft to themselves in despair of any satisfactory solution, are likelyenough to adopt the simplifications most agreeable to their presentideas, and measure the utility of such simplifications by theaccidental conveniences of their own science, independently of otherconsiderations. 

[Sidenote: The practical difficulty. ]

The main practical difficulty which they have to meet in providinga reasonably satisfactory phonetic script or type for the Englishlanguage is this, that the symbols of their alphabet must not greatlyexceed in number those of the literary alphabet, whereas the soundsthat they have to indicate do greatly exceed. 

This discrepancy might be overcome by the use of what are called'diacritical' marks, but here the universal prejudice against accentsin English is forbidding, and it is true that even if printers did notrebel against them, they are yet distasteful and deterrent to readersout of all proportion to their complexity. 

[Sidenote: The result of Mr. Jones' solution. ]

[Sidenote: The true condition of modified vowels, &c. ]

Mr. Jones no doubt allowed himself as much liberty as he could ventureon, but to what has this paucity and choice of symbols led him? Ithas led him to assert and teach that an unaccented vowel in Englishretains no trace of its proper quality[27]: that is, that you cannot, or at least do not, modify an unaccented vowel; you either pronounce_a_, _e_, _o_, _u_, distinctly, or you must substitute an aliensound, generally 'er', or in some consonantal positions a short'i'. Thus we have _parersite_, _oblerquy_, _ikse'pt_, _ikspre'ss_, _iqua'ter_, _peri'sherner_, _perli'ce_, _spe'sherlize_, _pin'erkl_, _Mes'esperta'mier_, &c. , and one of his examples, which he advanceswith the confidence of complete satisfaction, is the name _Margate_, which he asserts is pronounced _Margit_, [28] that is, with a short_i_. The vowel is no doubt short, and its shortness is enforced by itsbeing closed by a _t_: but it is not a short _i_, it is an extremelyhastened and therefore disguised form of the original and properdiphthong _ei_ (heard in _bait_ and _gate_); and the true way to writeit phonetically would be _ei_, with some diacritical sign to show thatit was obscured. There is no long vowel or diphthong in English whichcannot in some positions be pronounced short; and when hurried overbetween accents it is easy to see that there is nothing, exceptan obstacle of consonants, which can prevent the shortening of anysyllable; for long and short are relative, and when you are speakingvery slowly 'short' sounds actually occupy as much time as 'long'sounds do when you are speaking quickly. You have therefore only tosuppose a speed of utterance somewhat out of scale; and this is justwhat happens. In the second syllable of _Margate_ the diphthong ishastened and obscured, but a trace of its quality remains, and willmore distinctly appear as you speak the word slower. And so in thecase of unaccented short vowels that are hurried over between theaccents in talking, they are disguised and lose quality, but in goodspeakers a trace of the original sound will remain (as in _parasite_and _obloquy_), where, on the ground of indistinctness, Mr. Jonesintroduces the symbol of an _alien unrelated_ sound, a sound, that is, which is _distinctly wrong instead of being indistinctly right_: andthis fault vitiates all his books. Economy of symbols has led him toperversity of pronunciation. [29]

[Footnote 27: I do not deny that he allows some exceptions: and these, few as they are, concede the principle for which I contend. ]

[Footnote 28: His own words are, 'Thus Margate trippers now generallyspeak of Ma:geit instead of Ma:git: teachers in Londonelementary schools now often say eksept for iksept 'except', ekstr[e][o]:din[er]ri for ikstr[o]dnri 'extraordinary', often for[o]:fn 'often'. We feel that such artificialities cannot but impairthe beauty of the language. ' Dictionary, 1st edition, Preface, p. V. ]

[Footnote 29: In the first edition of the Dictionary [1913] [e] hasonly one interpretation, the illustration being the _a_ of _about_. In the _Phonetic Transcriptions_ [1907] it was the _er_ of _over_, but in the new Dictionary [1917] [e] has three interpretations withthe following explanation: '[e] varies noticeably according to itsposition in the word and in the sentence. In final positions it isoften replaced (_sic_) by "[Greek: L]" [=_u_ of _up_], in otherpositions its quality varies considerably according to the nature ofthe surrounding sounds; the variations extend from almost "[Greek:L]" to the half-close mixed position. Three different values maybe heard in the words _china_, _cathedral_: in the latter word thesecond "[e]" has a lower and more retracted tongue-position than thefirst [e]. '

The value of [e] when Mr. Jones first substituted it for a disguisedunaccented vowel, was that the speaker might know what sound he had toproduce. It was wrong, but it was definite. Mr. Jones would now makeit less wrong by making it less definite. That is, in the place ofsomething distinctly wrong we are offered something which has anoffchance of being nearly right: but as it has entirely ousted andsupplanted the original vowel I do not see how there is any means ofinterpreting it correctly. The _er_ of _over_ is a definite sound, andto print it where it was out of place was a definite error--to give itthree interpretations makes it cover more ground: but its usurpationsare still indefensible. ]

7. _ON THE CLAIM THAT SOUTHERN ENGLISH HAS TO REPRESENT ALL BRITISHSPEECH. _

On this head certainly I can write nothing worth reading. Whetherthere is any one with so wide a knowledge of all the main differentforms of English now spoken, their historic development andchief characteristics, as to be able to summarize the situationconvincingly, I do not know. I can only put a few of the most evidentphenomena in the relation in which they happen to affect my judgement. 

And first of all I put the small local holding which the SouthernEnglish dialect can claim on the map of the British Empire. It isplain that with such a narrow habitat it must show proof that itpossesses very great relative superiorities before it can expect to beallowed even a hearing: and such a claim must lie in its superiorityin some practical or ideal quality: further than that it might allegethat it was the legitimate heir of our great literature, and inpossession of the citadel, and in command of an extensive machineryfor its propaganda. 

Now, in my opinion it could not establish any one of these claimsexcept the last, namely its central position and wide machinery. 

I do not pretend to foresee the future, nor even to desire it in anyparticular form; but it seems to me probable that if the 'P. S. P. 'continues its downward course as indicated by Mr. Jones, then, unless everything else worsens with it, so that it might maintainits relative flotation in a general confusion, it must fall to bedisesteemed and repudiated, and give place to one or more otherdialects which, by having better preserved the distinctionsof pronunciation, will be not only more convenient vehicles ofintercourse, but more truthful and intelligible interpreters of ourgreat literature; and I believe this to be well illustrated by theconditions of our 'S. E. ' homophones: and that something better shouldwin the first place, I hold to be the most desirable of possibleevents. But perhaps our 'S. E. ' is not yet so far committed to theprocess of decay as to be incapable of reform, and the machinery thatwe use for penetration may be used as well for organizing a reform andfor enforcing it. There is as much fashion as inevitable law in our'P. S. P. ' or 'S. E. ' talk, and if the fashion for a better, that is amore distinct and conservative, pronunciation should set in, then atthe cost of a little temporary self-consciousness we might, in onegeneration, or at least in two, have things again very much as theywere in Shakespeare's day. It is true that men are slaves to thenaturalness of what is usual with them, and unable to imagine that theactual living condition of things in their own time is evanescent: nordo even students and scholars see that in the Elizabethan literaturewe have a perdurable gigantic picture which, among all stagesof change, will persistently reassert itself, while any specialcharacteristics of our own day, which seem so unalterable to us, areonly a movement, which may no doubt be determining the next movement, but will leave no other trace of itself, at least no more than thepeculiarities of the age of Queen Anne have left to us. 

I have been told that the German experts believe that the Cockney formof English will eventually prevail. This surprising opinion may reston scientific grounds, but it seems to me that Cockney speech will betoo universally unintelligible; and, should it actively develop, willbe so out of relation with other and older forms of English as to beunable to compete. 

I wish and hope that the subject of this section may provoke someexpert to deal thoroughly with it. The strong feeling in America, inAustralia, and in New Zealand, to say nothing of the proud dialects ofour own islands, is in support of the common-sense view of the matterwhich I have here expressed. 

SUMMARY

When I consented to write this inaugural paper, I knew that my firstduty would be to set an example of the attitude which the Society hadproposed to take and hopes to maintain. 

This Society was called into existence by the widespread interestin linguistic subjects which is growing on the public, and by thelamentable lack of any organized means for focussing opinion. Itresponds to that interest, and would supply that want. [30] There is nodoubt that public opinion is altogether at sea in these matters, andits futility is betrayed and encouraged by the amateurish discussionsand _obiter dicta_ that are constantly appearing and reappearingin the newspapers. Our belief is that if facts and principles wereclearly stated and thoroughly handled by experts, it would then bepossible not only to utilize this impulse and gratify a wholesomeappetite, but even to attract and organize a consensus of soundopinion which might influence and determine the practice of our bestwriters and speakers. 

[Footnote 30: Neither the British Academy nor the Academic Committeeof the Royal Society of Literature has shown any tendency to recognizetheir duties and responsibilities in this department. ]

The Society absolutely repudiates the assumption of any sort ofAcademic authority or orthodoxy; it relies merely on statement offact and free expression of educated opinion to assure the verdict ofcommon sense; and it may illustrate this method to recapitulate thevarious special questions that have arisen from following it in thisparticular discussion concerning English homophones. 

The main points are of course

(1) The actual condition of the English language with respect tohomophones. [This is an example of statement of fact. ]

(2) The serious nature of their inconvenience. 

(3) The evidence that we are unconsciously increasing them. 

(4) The consequent impoverishment of the language. 

From these considerations the question must arise

(5) Whether it is not our duty to take steps to prevent thecontinuance and growth of this evil. [To give an example--the word_mourn_. If we persist in mispronouncing this word as _morn_, and makeno distinction between _mourning_ and _morning_, then that word willperish. We cannot afford to lose it: it is a good example of ourbest words, as may be seen by looking it up in the concordances toShakespeare and the Bible: and what is true of this word is true ofhundreds of others. ]

(6) It is pointed out that our fashionable Southern English dialect, our Public School Pronunciation, is one chief source of this damage. 

(7) Attention is called to the low standard of pronunciation adoptedby our professional phoneticians, and to the falsity of their orthodoxteaching. 

(8) The damage to the language which is threatened by their activityis exposed. 

(9) It is questioned how far it is possible to adopt living dialectalforms to save words that would otherwise perish. 

(10) Respect for the traditions of neglected dialects is advocated. 

(11) As to what differentiations of words should be insisted on [e. G. The _lore_ = _law_ class]. 

(12) The necessity of observing vowel distinctions in unaccentedsyllables, [e. G. Every one now pronounces the _o_ in the new word_petrol_, and yet almost every one thinks it impossible to pronouncethe _o_ in the old word _symbol_; which is absurd. ]

(13) The necessity for better phonetic teaching in our schools. 

(14) The quality of the new words introduced into the language; andthe distinction between mere scientific labels, and those names ofcommon new objects which must be constantly spoken. 

(15) The claims of the Southern English dialect to general acceptanceis questioned. 

(16) The general consideration that the spread of the English languageover the world must accelerate the disuse and loss of the mostinconvenient homophones. 

These matters invite expert discussion, and it is our hope that everysuch question will receive due treatment from some one whose knowledgequalifies him to handle it; and that when any principle or detail isdefinitely recognized as desirable, then the consensus of good writersand speakers will adopt it. This implies wide recognition, support, and co-operation; and though the Society has already gone far tosecure this, it may yet seem that the small aristocracy of letterswill be insufficient to carry through such a wide reform of habit:but it should be remembered that they are the very same persons whoseexample maintains the existing fashions. And, again, when it is urgedagainst us that the democratic Press is too firmly established in itstraditions to be moved by such an influence, it is overlooked that thegreat majority of those who write for the Press, and maintain or evencreate the style by which it holds the public ear, are men of goodeducation, whose minds are thoroughly susceptible to all intellectualnotions, and often highly sensitive to ćsthetic excellence. Theyare all of them in a sense trained experts, and though working undertyrannous conditions are no less alive in pride and self respect thanthose who command more leisure, and they will readily and eagerlyfollow where their circumstances might forbid them to lead. Theconviction too that they are honourably assisting in preserving thebest traditions of our language will add zest to their work; whilethe peculiar field of it will provide a wholesome utilitarian test, which must be of good service to us by checking the affectations andpedantries into which it may be feared that such a society as theS. P. E. Would conceivably lapse. Their co-operation is altogetherdesirable, and we believe attainable if it be not from the firstassured. 

R. B.