PROXl'XCIAllOX OF li.NCl.ISM. 36*7 



articulate, more easily heard than the mutterings of a dialect or 

 than the inarticulate, clipped speech of some Americans, there 

 are many other advantages secured hy a careful study and 

 practice of a correct pronunciation. 



" Where nicety of pronunciation is not critically considered 

 and remarked upon, the effort to be exact will tend to relax in 

 all cases where any physical difficulty is present," says Professo: 

 Tucker. " Tongues, like governments, have a natural tendency 

 to degeneration ; we have long preserved our constitution, let us 

 make some struggles for our language," says Dr. Johnson, who 

 also tells us that a Pronouncing Dictionary' is a poor means of 

 attaining perfection. " When you want' the word," lie says, 

 " you have not the Dictionar\-. It is like a man who has a sword 

 that will not draw . It is an admirable sword, to l)e sure: but 

 while your enemv is cutting vour throat, ^'ou are unable to use 

 it.'' 



I-)ean Alford. in his once well-known liook entitled 77/,- 

 Queen's E)iiiUsh, writes as follows: — 



"Few outward indications mark a man more plainly than his habit 

 of pronoimcnio his own tongue. '! o 1)^ accurate without l)eing- precise 

 distmct without bemg artificial, to he everywhere heard, and always under- 

 stood, without noticeable effort— these are the excellencies of good pro- 

 nunciation; and while they come by a happy instinctive tact to some men 

 others seem never al)le to attain them, and seldom, if they lack them' 

 to feel then- dehciency. . . . Nothing so surely stamps a man as belovv 

 the mark in intelligence, self-respect, and energy, as the unfortunate habit 

 of a misuse of the aspirate : in intelligence, because, if he were but moder- 

 ate y keen m perception, he would sec how it marks him; in self-respect 

 and energy, because if he had these, he would long ago have set to work 

 and cured it." " ■ 



-Many of u^ would doublless agree with Lord C'hesterheld 

 about the beauty and grace of good i)ronunciation. 



" Constant experience [he writes] has shown me that great purity and 

 elegance of style with a graceful elocution, cover a multitude of fauUs 

 m either a speaker or a wriler. For my own part, I confess (ancfl 

 believe most people are ot my mind) that if a speaker should ungrace- 

 fully mutter or stammer out to me the sense of an angel, deformed bv 

 barbarisms and solecisms, or marked with vulgarisms, he should never 

 speak to me a second time, if I could Iielp it." 



iMually. if Pno-lish is to be. in spfte of local affection for 

 French. Outcli. Kahr. etc.. as mother-tongues, the common 

 imperial language, the medium of Empire, it is highly important 

 that there should l)e a genuine effort to aim at a liomogeneou'^ 

 pronunciation, and for grace, beauty, ease of utterance, acou'.tic 

 distinctness, no better variety of English can be found than that 

 spoken by well-born and well-])red. cultured, non-provincial 

 speakers of .Standard [':ng]is]i. - Let us make .some struggles for 

 our language " in this respect, as Dr. Johnson said. 



riii-; OfKSTtox OF A St.vxdard. — That there is no aljsolute 

 standard of correct pronunciation as regards manv individual 

 words may be admitted, but that there is a standard pronunciation 

 of English in general can hardly be disputed. The pronunciation 



