A Matter of Pronunciation

THOUGHT moulds the language that we speak, and exalts it or degrades it according to the degree of culture that we attain. Therefore it reflects our lives more exactly than any other thing, and no finer example of this truth has been left us than the sublime address delivered by Abraham Lincoln on the occasion of the dedication of the cemetery at Gettysburg on the nineteenth of November, 1863. Its simple language, its plain common sense, its worldly wisdom in homely phrase, reflect sincerity of thought unapproached by any other of the orators of his day. It is a model of compassion and tenderness that mirrors the character of the great heart that gave it utterance — a model of which we are justly proud. Our standard of written English has always been based on the best work produced by the cultured writers of our time, and our accepted standard of correct speech rests on the pronunciation of those members of our community who speak the language with accuracy, clearness, elegance, and propriety. They do not all speak in the same way. God be thanked that they could not if they would.

There is not merely one cold, hard, uniform method of utterance that everyone should observe who wishes to become an expert in expression — practice has provided us with much variety. Some American speech is delivered in monotone, pitched to the musical note of B flat or of F sharp; other speech crackles on the ear, like electrons crashing through air waves to reach a particular radio receiving set; and other still is mere cacophony. But, even at that, we are not so badly off, for the London pronunciation of English has varied as frequently as different sovereigns have ascended the throne. Why? Because the Londoner is influenced by the idiosyncrasies and vagaries of the people with whom he comes into contact. For one thing, he abuses aud misuses the r, so that in standard English the trilled or vibrated r is almost absent, but this is not so when words containing that letter are spoken by the Irish or the Scots, or by the people of Tyneside. The English practice of eliding the r has led to this near suppression, or, rather, to the introduction of a substitute sound.

The best people of England to-day talk with the cockney voice that, leaving the purlieus of Limehouse, has reached the purlieus of Mayfair. This is the aftermath of the war, during which the spirit of democracy prevailed, and the pronunciation of the common people left its impress indelibly on the so-called best people, with a few languid drawls, terminal aws, clipped g’s, and feeble h’s thrown in for good measure, which, later, acquired the name of the Oxford voice. It is well known that races which habitually pronounce their r’s are easily heard, while races that habitually do not pronounce their r’s are inaudible. For clearness of tone production, the enunciation of the Glasgow Orpheus Choir has proved as great a revelation to the majority of English actors and actresses as that of the choir of the Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake City has to the people of the United States. Why? Because its members never fail to pronounce their r’s. The late Henry James, who lived in England for nearly half a century, found out, while on a visit to the land of his birth, that the letter r got ‘terribly little rest among great masses of our population in the boundless West,’ and condemned us for lack of taste for uttering it when present. He had lived in England so long that it jarred on his ear when he heard it spoken by a vir-r-rile race.

Mispronunciation abroad is due largely to the influence exerted by the people of Oxford, who have steadily debased the coinage of English speech with emasculated voices and exaggerated idiosyncrasies. They cannot ask you to dinner; they ask you to ‘ dinnah.’ They do not come to a lecture; they come to a ‘lectchah.’ They believe in ‘cultchah,’ and instead of saying, ‘Oh no,’ they say, ‘Oo noo,’ or ' Aw naw,’ or even ‘Ow now.'

There has steadily spread from the East End of London to the West End a slovenly way of speaking. This way of speaking has even reached the pulpit and got on to the stage, where the players are steadily becoming inarticulate. Go into any church and listen to the clergyman reading the service or preaching. Few can hear what the man is saying; fewer still can understand him. How very different it is over here! Nowadays in England members of audiences and critics complain that actors and actresses — especially since the war — have become so infected with what the English themselves term ‘the abominable Oxford voice’ that they are no longer audible on the stage.

There are many persons who will disagree with the claim that the standard of speech for England is the standard set by the educated people of London; for standards vary according to localities. We have a standard of speech for New York which, in my humble judgment, is superior to the stilted standard of speech of Pall Mall, St. James’s, or Mayfair in the English capital. Apart from this, the population of London is less than ten million. How many persons does one meet in the course of a lifetime who were born and bred in London? Not many. After all, London is as cosmopolitan a city as New York — made up of people from every part of the United Kingdom and adjacent islands, as well as of other countries, and the standard of speech varies there in different districts even as it does in the city of New York. Those who have lived in Washington no doubt realize that the standard of speech in our national capital differs greatly from the standards of speech that prevail in various of our state capitals.

Among ourselves there is a growing but vicious tendency to emphasize the first syllables of words beginning with ad- or de- — ad’dress, administration, de’lude, de’monstration, de’ny, résearch. The words are ad-dress, admin"is-tra’tion, de-lude’, dem"onstration, de-ny’, re-search’. Deaf, now still occasionally heard ‘deef,’ is the result of error, for the Early English spelling was def, and the e had its Early English value — that of e in net. Such words as appreciate, appreciation, associate, association, negotiate, negotiation, have been repeatedly mispronounced before the microphone during the past six months. The cia or tia in these words is correctly pronounced she, not see. Exit is eksit and not egzit; incognito is not incognito. The name of the street that leads from Trafalgar Square, London, to St. James’s Palace, is Pall Mall, not Pell Mell, nor Paul Maul. The building in which grand opera is given in London is situated on Bow Street, of Covent, not Cō’vent, Garden — formerly the word was Convent.

We should say ac-cli’ma-ted, not ac"li-ma’ted; a-me’na-ble, not a-men’a-ble; ap’-pa-ra’lus, not ap"pa-rat’us; bi-og’-raphy, not be-og’raphy; dep"ozi’tion, not de"po-zi’tion; in-com’parable, not in"com-pare’a-ble; in’vento"ry, not in-vent’o-ry; I’oway, not Io’wah; irrep’a-rable, not ir"re-pare’able; irrev’o-ca-ble, not ir"re-vo’ca-ble; le’sure, not les’ure; va’grant, not vag’rant; hwich, hwot, hwen, hware, not wich, wot, wen, ware.

Words beginning witli sc have peculiarities of their own, as scene, scenario, schism, schedule, and sceptic prove. Then there are pian’ist and pat’ent — English pe’a-nist and pa’tent; hos’til and hos’tyle; nef-ew and nev-ew. The Englishman persists in ‘shedule,’ although he says ‘skool,’ while we say ‘skedule’ and ‘skool.’ The fruit of the banana tree he calls ba-nah’na, whereas we speak of it as ba-nan’a.

Then there are three other words the pronunciation of which has frequently been discussed between the nations — quinin, tomato, and vase. To the English the first is kwi-neen’, the second is to-mah’to; but to the American they are kwin’in and toma’to, and he bases his pronunciation of the last on analogy with potato. The latter word may at one time in its career have been pronounced pahtah’t, but never po-tah’to. As for quinin and vase — well, there are five pronunciations of the first and four pronunciations of the second: kwin’in, kwi-neen’, kwin’in, kwl’nln, ki-neen’; vaz, vas, vahz, and vez.

If you must say ‘extrord’inary,’ and so suppress the medial a, please remember that whenever you do so you are not expressing the idea that the word itself was coined to convey, — ‘out of the ordinary,’ — the sense that the word ‘extra’ gives to it when correctly pronounced, as when you say ‘extraor’dinary.’ To our friends across the sea, immediately is immee’jetly. Misplaced stress is frequently responsible for mispronunciations, and this is particularly noticeable in such words as agg’randize, a’pricot, cement’, com’bative, discern’, inquir’y, gov’ern-ment — the last a word which many speakers pronounce incorrectly. It is not ‘guvverment.’ Another word is programme — some programmes are grum enough to be in perfect keeping with the absurd pronunciation one hears so frequently. Thirty years ago Italian was frequently mispronounced Eye-tal’yan in our Eastern states; then there are lev’er, laboratory, — five not four syllables (lab’o-ra-to"ry, not lab’rato-ry), — and pa’tron.

In such words as often, chasten, fasten, and hasten, the t has been as silent as the b in tomb, comb, crumb, and dumb, when spoken by persons of culture. For some reason that I have not been able to fathom, unless it be due to a dread of posing as punctiliously correct, the letter “ has been the butt of derision for some years. This letter has several inseparable sounds, and we should be careful to distinguish them whenever the occasion presents itself. The “ in use and in tune is correctly pronounced as if written yu, but while the first word, use, is never mispronounced, tune has been corrupted to ‘toon,’ and all music knocked out of it.

And now may I refer to the digraph ew? Why should persons who utter dew, few, hew, with care, and are ready to acknowledge that ‘ The cat will mew and dog will have his day,’ hesitate when they face the word new, and fumble it so that it becomes ‘noo’ when in New York, but ‘ niu’ when in New Haven? Prel’ude should not be rendered pray’lude. The word con’cert should be stressed on the first and not on the last syllable; the medial h in philharmonic should always be aspirated, although we do not sound that letter in forehead; and the first r in February should never be suppressed.

To anyone who looks squarely at the subject of pronunciation, and has noted the variety of speech that filters through the air, it is amazing that so little preparation is made by some of the public speakers before they face the microphone. In England the very sources from which correct information on the pronunciation of words may be obtained — the dictionaries — are neglected. American radio announcers have solved the problems of pronunciation that they have had to face practically by selecting one authority as their guide, and abiding by it. English announcers, who sought expert opinion on pronunciation, learned to their cost that experts disagreed, and so turned to their broadcasting company for help. The help they got was still more experts, who arc not altogether certain of their ground, because in Great Britain the standard of pronunciation is that of the individual himself. Did not George Bernard Shaw tell us that there were 47,000,000 ways of pronouncing English in the United Kingdom? Indeed he did, and he meant it. There are more now, because the population has increased; but, may the cat never ‘moo’ even when the dog hath his day!