Chapter IX: The Following Words Were Not Admitted Into the Main Class Chiefly (1)

ON 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 above list, I will put my attitude towards those facts in a logical sequence under separate statements, which thus isolated will, if examined one by one, avoid the confusion that their interdependence might otherwise occasion. 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 might allege the longevity of the Chinese language, composed, I believe, chiefly of homophones distinguished from each other by an accentuation which must be delicate difficult and precarious. I remember that Max Müller [1864] instanced a fictitious sentence

ba bà bâ bá,

'which (he wrote) is said to mean if properly accented _The three ladies gave a box on the ear to the favourite of the princess._' This suggests that the bleating of sheep may have a richer significance than we are accustomed to suppose; and it may perhaps illustrate the origin as well as the decay of human speech. The only question that it raises for us is the possibility of distinguishing our own homophones by accentuation or by slight differentiation of vowels; and this may prove to be in some cases the practical solution, but it is not now the point in discussion, for no one will deny that such delicate distinctions are both inconvenient and dangerous, and should only be adopted if forced upon us. I shall assume that common sense and universal experience exonerate me from wasting words on the proof that homophones are mischievous, and I will give my one example in a note[8]; but it is a fit place for some general remarks.

[Footnote 8: The homophones sun = son. There is a Greek epigram on Homer, 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. It is plain that the Greek is untranslatable into English because of the homophone. _The thing cannot be said._

Donne would take this bull by the horns, pretending or thinking that genuine feeling can be worthily carried in a pun. So that in his impassioned '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 of pitiable imbecility.

Dr. Henry Bradley in 1913 informed the International Historical Congress that the word _son_ had ceased to be vernacular in the dialects of many parts of England. 'I would not venture to assert (he adds) that the identity of sound with _sun_ is the only cause that has led to the widespread disuse of _son_ in dialect speech, but I think it has certainly contributed to the result.']

The objections to homophones are of two kinds, either scientific and utilitarian, or æsthetic. The utilitarian objections are manifest, and since confusion of words is not confined to homophones, the practical inconvenience that is sometimes occasioned by slight similarities may properly be alleged to illustrate and enforce the argument. I will give only one example.

[Sidenote: Utilitarian objections not confined to homophones.]

The telephone, which seems to lower the value of differentiating consonants, has revealed unsuspected likenesses. For instance the ciphers, if written somewhat phonetically as usually pronounced, are thus:

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

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

[Sidenote: Æsthetic objections.]

In the effect of uniformity it may be said that utilitarian and æsthetic considerations are generally at one; and this blank statement must here suffice, for the principle could not be briefly dealt with: but it follows from it that the proper æsthetic objections to homophones are never clearly separable from the scientific. I submit the following considerations. Any one who seriously attempts to write well-sounding English will be aware how delicately sensitive our ear is to the repetition of sounds. He will often have found it necessary to change some unimportant word because its accented vowel recalled and jarred with another which was perhaps as far as two or three lines removed from it: nor does there seem to be any rule for this, since apparently similar repetitions do not always offend, and may even be agreeable. 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 inconvenient to 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 some handling.

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_ would have been impossible: even the familiar

The sea saw that and fled

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

See saw Margery daw.

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

[Footnote 10: Wherever this is not so--as in _rhétoric_, _rhetórical_, _rhetorícian_, _cómpany_, _compánion_, &c.--we have a greater freedom in the use of the words. Such words, as Dr. Bradley points out, giving _Cánada_, _Canádian_ as example, are often phonetic varieties due to an imported foreign syntax, and their pronunciation implies familiarity with literature and the written forms: but very often they are purely the result of our native syllabising, not only in displacement of accent (as in the first example above) but also by modification of the accented vowel according to its position in the word, the general tendency being to make long vowels in monosyllables and in penultimate accents, but short vowels in antepenultimate accents. 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 the root-sound the main effect, as Dr. Bradley says, is the power to free the derivative from an intense meaning of the root; so that, to take his very forcible example, the adjective Christian, the derivative of Christ, has by virtue of its shortened vowel been enabled to carry a much looser signification than it could have acquired had it been phonetically indissociable from the intense signification of the name Christ. This freedom of the derivative from the root varies indefinitely in different words, and it very much complicates my present lesser statement of the literary advantage of phonetic variety in inflexions and derivatives.

The examples above are all Latin words, and since Latin words came into English through different channels, these particular vowels can have 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_. These omnipresent words are each of them essentially weakened by the existence of the other, while their proximity in a sentence is now damaging. It is a misfortune that our Southern dialect should have parted entirely with all the original differentiation between them; for after the distinctive _k_ of the verb was dropped, the negative still preserved (as it in some dialects still preserves) its broad open vowel, more like _law_ than _toe_ or _beau_, and unless that be restored I should judge that the verb _to know_ is doomed. The third person singular of its present tense is _nose_, and its past tense is _new_, and the whole inconvenience is too radical and perpetual to be received all over the world. We have an occasional escape by using _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 for homophones is their usefulness to the punster. 'Why! would you have no puns?' I will not answer that question; but there is no fear of our being insufficiently catered for; whatever accidental benefit be derivable from homophones, we shall always command it fully and in excess; look again at the portentous list of them! And since the essential jocularity of a pun (at least when it makes me laugh) lies in a humorous incongruity, its farcical gaiety may be heightened by a queer pronunciation. I cannot pretend to judge a sophisticated taste; but, to give an example, if, as I should urge, the _o_ of the word _petrol_ should be preserved, as it is now universally spoken, not having yet degraded into _petr'l_, a future squire will not be disqualified from airing his wit to his visitors by saying, as he points to his old stables, 'that is where I store my petrel', and when the joke had been illustrated in _Punch_, its folly would sufficiently distract the patients in a dentist's waiting-room for years to come, in spite of gentlemen and chauffeurs continuing to say _petrol_, as they do now; nor would the two _petr'ls_ be more dissimilar than the two _mys_.

[Sidenote: Play on words.]

Puns must of course be distinguished from such a play on words as John of 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 associations of a word; a pun is led off by the _sound_ of a word in pursuit of nonsense; though the variety of its ingenuity may refuse so simple a definition.

[Sidenote: An indirect advantage of homophones.]

It is true that a real good may sometimes come indirectly from a word being a homophone, because its inconvenience in common parlance may help to drive it into a corner where it can be retained for a special signification: and since the special significance of any word is its first merit, and the coinage of new words for special differentiation is difficult and rare, we may rightly welcome any fortuitous means for their provision. Examples of words specialized thus from homophones are _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 expert academic control, it might be possible to save some of our perishing homophones by artificial specialization. Such words are needed, and if a homophone were thus specialized in some department of life or thought, then a slight differential pronunciation would be readily adopted. Both that and its defined meaning might be true to its history.]

2. _THAT ENGLISH IS EXCEPTIONALLY BURDENED WITH HOMOPHONES._

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

Otto Jespersen[12] seems to think that the inconvenience of homophones is so great that a language will naturally evolve some phonetic habit to guard itself against them, although it would otherwise neglect such distinction. I wish that this admirable instinct were more evident in English. He writes thus of the lists of words which he gives 'to show what pairs of homonyms [homophones] would be created if distinctions were abolished that are now maintained: they [the lists] thus demonstrate the force of resistance opposed to some of the sound-changes which one might imagine as happening in the future. A language can tolerate only a certain number of ambiguities arising from words of the same sound having different significations, and therefore the extent to which a language has utilized some phonetic distinction to keep words apart, has some influence in determining the direction of its sound-changes. In French, and still more in English, it is easy to enumerate long lists of pairs of words differing from each other only by the presence or absence of voice in the last sound; therefore final _b_ and _p_, _d_ and _t_, _g_ and _k_, are kept rigidly apart; in German, on the other hand, there are very few such pairs, and thus nothing counterbalances the natural tendency to unvoice final consonants.'

[Footnote 12: _A Modern English Grammar on Historical Principles_, by Otto Jespersen, Heidelberg, 1909. Streitberg's _Germanische Bibliothek_, 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 of survivors, and in the fact that a vast number of words which have not this disadvantage are equally gone out of use.

[Sidenote: Causes of obsolescence.]

Words fall out of use for other reasons than homophony, therefore one cannot in any one case assume that ambiguity of meaning was the active cause: indeed the mere familiarity of the sound might prolong a word's life; and homophones are themselves frequently made just in this way, for uneducated speakers will more readily adapt a familiar sound to a new meaning (as when my gardener called his Pomeranian dog a Panorama) than take the trouble to observe and preserve the differentiation of a new sound. There is no rule except that any loss of distinction may be a 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 became absolutely homophonous, so that one of them had to go. The first person naturally held on to its private property, and it invented _sets_ for outsiders. Now the first step towards this absurdest of all homophonies, the identity of _meum_ and _tuum_, was no doubt the modification of the true full _u_ to _ii_. The ultimate convenience of the result may in itself be applauded; but it is inconceivable that modern Greek should ever compensate itself for its inevitable estrangement from its ancient glories.]

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

[Sidenote: No direct proof]

It is plain that only general considerations can be of value, unless there should be very special evidence in any special case; and thus the 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 hearing a friend advocating the freer use of certain old words which, though they were called obsolete and are now rarely heard, yet survive in local dialects. I was surprised to find how many of them were unfit for resuscitation because of their homophonic ambiguity, and when I spoke of my discovery to a philological friend, I found that he regarded it as a familiar and unquestioned rule.

But to prove this rule is difficult; and as it is an impossible task to collect all the obsolete words and classify them, I am proposing to take two independent indications; first to separate out the homophones from the other obsolete words in a Shakespearian glossary, and secondly, to put together a few words that seem to be actually going out of use in the present day, that is, strictly obsolescent words caught in the act of flitting.

[Sidenote: Obsolescence defined.]

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

[Sidenote: Evidence of obsolescence.]

The best evidence of the obsolescence of any word is that it should still be frequently heard in some proverb or phrase, but never out of 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 combinations the words have no sense. It happens that oral teaching must be aural on the pupil's side, but that only adds to the confusion.

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

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

The glossary is relied on to contain, besides its other items, all the obsolete words: the homophones separated out from these will show various grades of obsolescence, and very different values as examples bearing 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 initials simulating 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 have destroyed _tend_.

_Table of homophones that may seem to be presently falling out of use._[15]

ail.
alms.
ascent.
augur (_v._).
barren.
bate.
bier.
bray (_pound_).
bridal.
broach.
casque.
cede.
cession.
cite.
clime.
corse.
cruse.
dene.
dun (_colour_).
desert.
fain.
fallow.
feign.
fell (_skin_).
flue (_velu_).
fray (_sub._).
fry (_small-_).
gait.
gambol.
gin (_snare_).
gird (_abuse_).
gore (_blood_).
hart.
horde.
hue (_colour_).
isle.
lea.
lessen.
let (_hinder_).
lief.
main.
march (_boundary_).
meed.
mien.
mote.
mourn.
mute (_of birds_).
neat (_animal_).
ore.
pale (_enclosure_).
pall (_v._).
pen (_enclose_).
pelt (_skin_).
pile (_hair_).
pink (_v._).
pulse (_pease_).
quean.
rail (_chide_).
raze.
reave.
reck.
repair (_resort_).
rheum.
rood.
rue.
sack (_v._).
sage (_adj._).
sallow (_willow_).
sere.
soar.
spray (_sprig_).
still (_adj._ n.b. _keep still_).
stoup.
surge.
swift.
teem.
toil (_snare_).
vane.
van (_fan_).
vail (_v._).
wage (_war_).
wain.
ween.
whit.
wight.
wile.
wrack.
wreak.
wot.
aught.

[Footnote 15: Some of the words in this table are also in the last list. This list is an attempt to tabulate words falling out of use or seldom heard now in the conversation of average educated persons who talk Southern English or what is called P.S.P. (see p. 38); to some of them the word may be unknown, and if it is known, they avoid using it because it sounds to them strange or affected. It is difficult to _prove_ that any particular word is in this condition, and the list is offered tentatively. It is made from Jones' dictionary, which is therefore allowed to rule whether the word is obsolescent rather than obsolete: some of these seem to be truly obsolete. Some will appear to be convincing examples of obsolescence, others not; but it must be remembered that the fact of a word being still commonly heard in some district or trade (though that may seem to show that it is in 'common use') is no evidence that it is not dying out; it is rather evidence that it was lately more living, which is the same as being obsolescent.]

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

New words are being added to the dictionary much faster than old words are passing out of use, but it is not a question of numbers nor of dictionaries. A chemist told me that if the world were packed all over with bottles as close as they could stand, he could put a different substance into each one and label it. And science is active in all her laboratories and will print her labels. If one should admit that as many as ninety-nine per cent. of these artificial names are neither literary nor social words, yet some of them are, since everything that comes into common use must have a name that is frequently spoken. Thus _baik_, _sackereen_, and _mahjereen_ are truly new English word-sounds; and it may be, if we succumb to anarchical communism, that margarine and saccharine will be lauded by its dissolute mumpers as enthusiastically as men have hitherto praised and are still praising butter and honey. 'Bike' certainly would have already won a decent place in poetry had it been christened more gracefully and not nicknamed off to live in backyards with cab and bus. The whole subject of new terms is too vast to be parenthetically handled, and I hope that some one will deal with it competently in an early publication of the S.P.E. The question must here remain to be determined by the evidence of the words in the table of obsoletes, which I think is convincing; my overruling contention being that, however successful we may be in the coinage of new words (and we have no reason to boast of success) and however desirable it is to get rid of some of the bad useless homophones, yet we cannot afford to part with any old term that can conveniently be saved.

We have the best Bible in the world, and in Shakespeare the greatest poet; we have been suckled on those twin breasts, and our children must have degenerated if they need asses' milk. Nor is it only because the old is better than the new that we think thus. If we speak more proudly of Trafalgar than of Zeebrugge, it is not because Trafalgar is so far finer a sounding word than Zeebrugge, as indeed it is, nor because we believe that the men of Nelson's time were better than our men of to-day, we know they were not, but because the spirit that lives on ideals will honour its parents; and it is thinking in this way that makes noble action instinctive and easy. Nelson was present at Zeebrugge leading our sailors, as Shakespeare is with us leading our writers, and no one who neglects the rich inheritance to which Englishmen are born is likely ever to do any credit to himself or his country.

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

[Sidenote: Evidence of Jones' dictionary.]

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

[Footnote 16: _A Phonetic Dictionary of the English Language_, by Hermann Michaelis, Headmaster of the Mittelschule in Berlin, and Daniel Jones, M.A., Lecturer on Phonetics at University College, London, 1913. There is a second edition of this book in which the words are in the accustomed alphabetical order of their literary spelling.]

To this an objector might fairly reply that Mr. Jones could distinguish the two sounds very well if it suited him to do so; but that, as it is impossible for him to note them in his defective phonetic script, he prefers to confuse them. I shall not lose sight of this point,[17] but here I will only say that, if there really is a difference between these two vowels in common talk, then if Mr. Jones can afford to disregard it it must be practically negligible, and other phoneticians will equally disregard it, as the Oxford Press has in its smaller dictionary.

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

[Sidenote: Its trustworthiness.]

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

Again, those who would repudiate the facts that I am about to reveal, and who will not believe that in their own careless talk they themselves actually pronounce the words very much as Mr. Jones prints them,[18] should remember that the sounds of speech are now mechanically recorded and reproduced, and the records can be compared; so that it would betray incompetence for any one in Mr. Jones' position to misrepresent the facts, as it would be folly in him to go to the trouble and expense of making such a bogus book as his would be were it untrue; nor could he have attained his expert reputation had he committed such a folly.

[Footnote 18: This is a very common condition. The habitual pronunciation is associated in the mind with the familiar eye-picture of the literary printed spelling so closely that it is difficult for the speaker to believe that he is not uttering the written sounds; but he is not competent to judge his own speech. For instance, almost all Englishmen believe that the vowel which we write _u_ in _but_, _ugly_, _unknown_, &c., is really a _u_, like the _u_ in _full_, and not a disguised _a_; and because the written _s_ is sometimes voiced they cannot distinguish between _s_ and _z_, nor without great difficulty separate among the plural terminations those that are spoken with an _s_ from those that are spoken with a _z_. I was shocked when I first discovered my own delusions in such matters, and I still speak the bad Southern English that I learnt as a child and at school. I can hardly forgive my teachers and would not myself be condemned in a like reprobation.]

Again, and in support of the trustworthiness of the records, I am told by those concerned in the business that for some years past no Englishman could obtain employment in Germany as teacher of English unless he spoke the English vowels according to the standard of Mr. Jones' dictionary; and it was a recognized device, when such an appointment was being considered, to request the applicant to speak into a machine and send the record by post to the Continent; whereupon he was approved or not on that head by the agreement of the record with the standard which I am about to illustrate from the dictionary.

All these considerations make a strong case for the truth of Mr. Jones' representation of our 'standard English', and his book is the most trustworthy evidence at my disposal: but before exhibiting it I would premise that our present fashionable dialect is not to be considered as the wanton local creator of all the faults that Mr. Jones can parade before the eye. Its qualities have come together in various ways, nor are the leading characteristics of recent origin. I am convinced that our so-called standard English sprang actively to the fore in Shakespeare's time, that in the Commonwealth years our speech was in as perilous a condition as it is to-day, and at the Restoration made a self-conscious recovery, under an impulse very like that which is moving me at the present moment; for I do not look upon myself as expressing a personal conviction so much as interpreting a general feeling, shared I know by almost all who speak our tongue, Americans, Australians, Canadians, Irish, New Zealanders, and Scotch, whom I range alphabetically lest I should be thought to show prejudice or bias in any direction. But this is beyond the present purpose, which is merely to exhibit the tendency which this so-called degradation has to create homophones.

[Sidenote: Mauling of words.]

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

_Examples from Mr. Jones' Pronouncing Dictionary._[19]

parsonage. p[a]:s[n.]i[dz] [-sn-] pahs'nidge _or_
pahsnidge.
picture. pik[ts][e] pictsher.
scriptural. skrip[ts][er]r[er]l scriptshererl _or_
scriptshrl.
temperature. tempri[ts][e] tempritsher.
interest. intrist intrist.
senator. senit[e] _and_ senniter _and_
sen[e]tor sennertor.
blossoming. bl[o]s[e]mi[ng] blosserming.
natural. næ[ts]r[er]l natshrerl _or_
natshrl.
orator. [o]r[e]t[e] orrerter.
rapturous. ræp[ts][er]r[e]s raptsherers _or_
raptshrers.
parasite. pær[e]sait parrersite.
obloquy. [o]bl[e]kwi oblerquy.
syllogise. sil[e][dz]aiz sillergize.
equivocal. ikwiv[e]k[er]l ikwívverk'l.
immaterial. im[e]ti[e]ri[e]l immertierierl.
miniature. mini[ts][e] minnitsher.
extraordinary. ikstr[o]:dnri ikstrordnry.
salute. s[e]lu:t [-lju:-] serloot _and_
serlute.
solution. s[e]lu:[s][e]n [-lju:-] serloosh'n _and_
serl[=u]sh'n.
subordinate (_adj._). s[e]b[o]:d[n.]it serbord'nit.
sublime. s[e]blaim serblime.

[Footnote 19: The dictionary allows mitigated variants of some of these words.]

In culling these flowers of speech I was not blind to their great picturesque merits, but they must not be taken for jokes, at least they must not be thought of as conjuring smiles on the faces of Messrs. Jones, Michaelis and Rippmann: they are deadly products of honest study and method, and serious evidence whereby any one should be convinced that such a standard of English pronunciation is likely to create homophones: and yet in searching the dictionary I have not found it guilty of many new ones.[20] For examples of homophones due to our 'standard' speech one might take first the 20 _wh_- words (given on page 14) which have lost their aspirate, and with them the 9 _wr_- words: next the 36 words in table iv and note, which have lost their trilled _R_: and then the 41 words from table vi on page 15; and that would start us with some 100 words, the confusion of which is due to our Southern English pronunciation, since the differentiation of all these words is still preserved in other dialects. The differentiation of these 100 words would of course liberate their twins, so the total number of gains should be doubled.

[Footnote 20: A fair list might no doubt be made; the most amusing item would be--_Ophelia_ = _aphelia_: then _illusion_ = _elusion_, _paten_ = _pattern_, _seaman_ = _seamen_, _phial_ = _file_, _custody_ = _custardy_, and of course _verdure_ = _verger_ and _fissure_ = _fisher_. It would also allow _partition_ = _petition_, _proscribe_ = _prescribe_, and _upbraid_ = _abrade_! I take these from the first edition.]

[Sidenote: Example of one class.]

But number is not so important as the quality and frequency of the words involved, so I will instance one class in detail, namely the words in which _aw_ and _or_ are confused. Here are a dozen of them:

core = caw.
door = daw*.
floor = flaw*.
hoar* = haw.
lore* = law.
more = maw*.
oar, ore = awe*.
pore = paw.
roar = raw.
soar, sore = saw, saw.
tore = taw.
yore* = yaw.

Of these 12 words, 6 exhibit stages or symptoms of obsolescence. I should think it extremely unlikely that _yore_ has been in any way incommoded by _yaw_; and _flaw_, which is now more or less cornered to one of its various meanings, was probably affected more by its own ambiguities than by _floor_; but others seem to be probable examples: _shaw_ and _lore_, and I think _maw_, are truly obsoletes, while _hoar_ and _daw_ are heard only in combination. _Awe_ is heard only in _awful_, and has there lost its significance. I should guess that this accident has strengthened its severity in literature, where it asserts its aloofness sometimes with a full spelling [_aweful_] as in speech two pronunciations are recognized, _awful_ and _awf'l_.

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

Since the circumflex accent properly indicates a rise and fall of voice-pitch on a vowel-sound such as almost makes a disyllable of a monosyllable (e.g. in Milton's verse the word _power_ may fill either one or two places in the line) I will adopt it here to denote this fuller and differentiating pronunciation of _ore_.

Now to all these words, and to the finals of such words as _ad[ore]_, _impl[ore]_, _ign[ore]_, Jones gives the diphthongal _aw_ as the normal South English pronunciation, and he allows the longer _[ore]_ sound only as a variant, putting this variant in the second place.

Hence, all these _[ore]_ words are being encouraged to cast off the last remnant of their differentiation, which it is admitted that they have not yet quite lost.[21]

[Footnote 21: The two editions of Jones' dictionary do not exactly correspond, e.g. in the first edition the words _boar_ and _bore_ are under _baw_, and no other pronunciation is mentioned. But in the second edition _b[ore]_ and _b[oar]_ are allowed as variants. In the first edition _four_, _fore_ and _for_ are all under _faw_ [f[e]:], and I find _pour_, _pore_, and _poor_ all under _paw_, though in every case there are variants, and on p. 404 he records that _shore_ and _sure_ may be pronounced alike. Again, in the first edition, _yerr_ [j[e]:] is one normal for _year_ and also dialectal for _ear_ (!), while in the second edition only _y[ear]_ [ji:] is given for _year_, and _yerr_ is not mentioned at all. As I am sure that this sort of stuff must be almost more tedious and annoying to read than it is to write, I desist from further details, but cannot resist the opportunity of pointing out that in their English pronunciation of Latin our classical teachers and professors have wantonly introduced this mischievous homophony of _au_ and _or_ into Latin, although the proper pronunciation of the 'diphthong' _au_ in Latin is not like our _awe_, but like the _ou_ of _out_. Thus with them _corda_ and _cauda_ are similar sounds, and the sacred _Sursum corda_ means 'Cock your tail' just as much as it means 'Lift up your hearts'.]

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 educational need. By the phonetic system any spoken language can now be learned quickly and easily, just as by the _sol-fa_ system the teaching of music was made easy and simple. If a clergyman who had no practical knowledge of music were offered the post of minor canon in a cathedral, he would find it very difficult to qualify himself passably, whereas any village schoolboy could learn all the music necessary for such an office, and learn that solidly too and soundly and 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 to have a distinct symbol for every separate sound; in music it is a name, the idea of which quickly becomes indissociable from the note of 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 all letters were originally intended to be. When you see it you know what it 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 advantages which it ensures, not only in the saving of time, but in the rescuing of English children from the blighting fog through which their tender minds are now forced to struggle on the first threshold of life,[22] then all spoken languages will be taught on that method. What now chiefly hinders its immediate introduction is not so much the real difficulty of providing a good simple system, as the false fear that all our literature may take on the phonetic dress; and this imagination is frightful enough to be a bugbear to reasonable people, although, so far as one can see, there is no more danger of this result than there is of all music appearing in sol-fa notation.

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

[Sidenote: Demand of the market.]

Now here is a promising field for adventure. Not only is the creation of a new fount of type an elaborate and expensive process, but the elaboration of a good system and its public recognition when produced involve much time; so that any industrial company that is early in the market with a complete apparatus and a sufficient reputation will carry all before it, and be in a position to command and secure great monetary profit.

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

[Footnote 23: The peril that we are in of having Mr. Jones' degraded pronunciation thus sprung upon us in England and taught in all our schools is really threatening. Indeed, as things are, there is little prospect of escaping from it, supposing the democracy should once awake to the commercial and spiritual advantages of teaching language phonetically: and that would seem to be only a question of time: the demand may come at any moment, and a complete machinery which has been skilfully prepared to meet the demand will offer practical conveniences to outbalance every other consideration.

Even supposing the authorities in the Education Department sufficiently alive to the situation which it is the purpose of this section of my essay to bring to the fore, yet even then, were they all unanimous, they could not give effect to their convictions, because--

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

However that may be, it is a lamentable situation that our high-salaried Board of Education, composed of the best trained intelligence of the country, should not be allowed to exercise its discretion efficiently. The people, no doubt, cannot be agreed as to the principles on which they desire to be educated, whether political, official, or religious, and they deprecate official control in such matters. Every one objecting to some principle, they consent in requiring that the central authority should have no principle at all; but this lack of principle should not be extended to paralyse action in questions that demand expert knowledge and judgement, such as this question of phonetic teaching--and it shows that the public by grudging authority to their own officers may only fall under a worse tyranny, which they will suffer just because it has no authority.]

In the preceding section Mr. Jones' dictionary was taken as authority for the actual condition of Southern English pronunciation. It must now be considered in its other aspect, namely as the authoritative phonetic interpretation of our speech; my contention being that it is a 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 English is actively productive of homophones. This present Section 6 is contending that the mischief is being encouraged and propagated by the phoneticians, and Mr. Jones' books are taken as an example of their method.

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

The reason why the work of these phoneticians is so mischievous is that 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 of reason, that the actual 'vernacular' talk of the people is the living language of any country: they would allege that a spoken language is always changing, and always will change; that the actual condition of it is the only scientific, and indeed the only possible basis for any system of tuition; and that it is better to be rather in advance of change than behind it, since the changes proceed inevitably by laws which education has no power to resist, nay, so inevitably that science can in some measure foresee the future.