AUTHORITY IN ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION. 555 



incorrect, transcends the legitimate bounds of his province. Moreover, 

 he arouses suspicion in the minds of the thoughtful as to his trust- 

 worthiness as a guide in matters of pronunciation. For no orthoepist 

 records all the pronunciations sanctioned by good usage, and no one 

 therefore can affirm positively that a given pronunciation of a word 

 may not be warranted by reputable usage in some quarter. Even so 

 high an authority and careful an observer as Ellis lapsed into error 

 in his comment upon the pronunciation of trait, claiming that the 

 silent final t was an unfailing shibboleth of British practice. As a 

 matter of fact, the pronunciation of the final letter of trait, as Pro- 

 fessor Lounsbury has clearly shown, had been recognized by English 

 orthoepists as allowable for more than a century. It is manifest that 

 one can not afford to be very positive in English orthoepy : if he is, he 

 will be compelled either to retract or to qualify some of his sweeping 

 statements. 



The pronouncing dictionary is, as a general rule, a good guide to 

 standard usage, though it can not be relied upon implicitly. When the 

 orthoepists are all agreed upon a particular pronunciation, one ought 

 to be very chary of using one's customary or pet pronunciation that 

 differs. The chances are that it is not in good repute. But when, 

 on the contrary, the orthoepists themselves differ, one may reasonably 

 infer that no statement of any one of them about the proper pronun- 

 ciation of a word, however positive it may be, ought to be recognized 

 as a binding authority. For no pronouncing dictionary is an absolutely 

 final authority. jSTor can it ever justly claim to be, since the pro- 

 nouncing dictionary purports to record only such pronunciations as are 

 sanctioned by good usage, and good usage ever varies with the living 

 speech, which, like all living things, is always slowly changing from 

 century to century. The change is sometimes so gradual that hardly 

 the lapse of a century will reveal it. Again, for one reason or another, 

 it is so rapid in development that even a generation suffices to re- 

 cord it. 



