Chapter 4

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.]