546 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



fact not so widely known as it deserves to be, that English orthography 

 two centuries ago was just emerging from a state of confusion and 

 chaos; and law and order were then for the first time beginning to 

 appear. The result is the conventional spelling which only since the 

 eighteenth century has been stereotyped in the form now so familiar 

 to all educated people. And not even yet, as we know, has English 

 orthography had its perfect work. As late as Doctor Johnson's time, N 

 the spelling of many English words had not yet been crystallized, and 

 not a few words could be spelled in two distinct ways, either of which 

 was recognized as correct. For instance, the spelling of soap, cloak, 

 choke and fuel, to select only a few examples, as recorded in his dic- 

 tionary, vacillated between ' sope,' ' cloke,' ' choak,' ' f ewel ' and the 

 present accepted spelling of these words. These variant spellings, 

 long since rejected, now seem to us either attempts at phonetic spell- 

 ing or quaint and curious imitations of Chaucerian orthography. 

 Having discussed elsewhere* the subject of English spelling, I dismiss 

 the matter here with this passing reference. 



The crystallized form of English spelling which has been brought 

 about mainly through the influence of the printing-press in the last 

 few centuries we accept as a matter of course, little thinking of the 

 difficulties innumerable which the printer and the ' gentle ' reader 

 encountered three centuries ago. But the very existence of a standard 

 orthography, as a moment's reflection will show, has necessitated as its 

 indispensable adjunct the pronouncing dictionary. 



The pronouncing dictionary, therefore, is a modern production; it 

 was hardly known before the first quarter of the eighteenth century. 

 It is held by some scholars, notably Professor Lounsbury in his 

 ' Standard of Pronunciation in English,' that the pronouncing dic- 

 tionary was called into existence by the desire on the part of the im- 

 perfectly educated middle class to know what to say and how to say it. 

 This desire became stronger and stronger as the members of that 

 growing class of England's population rose by degrees into social 

 prominence. Possessing little culture and few social advantages, and 

 lacking confidence in their meager training, such people were not will- 

 ing to exercise the right of private judgment, and consequently they 

 sought out an authority and guide. They were eager to learn the 

 modes of speech which obtained in the most highly cultured circles, 

 the jus et norma loquendi of the nobility. It was natural therefore, 

 since the occasion appeared to demand it, that self-appointed guides 

 should come forward and offer to conduct the multitudes of social 

 pariahs through the wilderness of orthoepical embarrassment into the 

 Canaan of polite usage. Such was probably the origin of the pro- 

 nouncing dictionary. 



* See The Popular Science Monthly, May, 1904, ' The Question of 

 Preference in Spelling.' 



