THE SIGNIFICANCE OF ERRORS IN SPEECH. 



( Abstract of Lecture before the Institute. ) 



BY HENRY L. BROOM ALL. 



To vary from the standard pronunciation or grammatical 

 forms of our tongue is to " murder the King's English." The 

 strength of the expression shows our absolute reliance upon 

 the existence of a correct standard of language. Social and 

 educational notions alike inculcate a horror of the error of 

 speech. It stamps the speaker as now or originally of a social 

 status assumed to be beneath those who conform to the autho- 

 ritative dictionary and grammar-book. It is held to be a 

 vicious or at least careless variation from what is right — an 

 individual fault, a personal reproach. 



To enforce this regard for the standard form of language is 

 sound pedagog3^ Speech, as an intellectual and social art, 

 must have its accepted canons to ensure accurate thought and 

 exchange of thought among the members of society. But the 

 science of language has none of the practical limitations of 

 the art of speech. The art maj' condemn and avoid the error, 

 but the science must recognize it as a fact to be accounted for. 

 It exists in all tongues and it must have a cause that will 

 explain its universality and regularity. The perversity of the 

 individual speaker ma}' be cause enough for the pedagogue, 

 but it will not explain the fact that the eiTor is never unique 

 in kind and that it always has or had its analogue in a stan- 

 dard form. 



Hence the present inquiry into the scientific significance of 

 errors in speech. It pretends to nothing more than an unusual 

 illustration of the life of language. 



The personal observation of the individual is so limited in 

 time that he is led to regard linguistic change as only histori- 

 cal, as only a past growth leading up to the present and appar- 

 entlv mature state of his languaore. His fundamental notions 



