DISCOVERY 



267 



and flagella (lash-like appendages). The form known 

 as Ceratium is the most abundant. 



The phosphorescence noticeable in the North and 

 Baltic Seas is usually due to Ceratium ; in the Irish 

 Sea, on the other hand, it is due to Noctilitca, a flagellate 

 inf usorian which is so abundant that at times the water 

 is discoloured by it. 



Careful comparisons have been made between the 

 productivity of the sea and of cultivated land, and it is 

 found that the sea is about 20 per cent, below culti- 

 vated land in fertility. Further research and experi- 

 ment are, however, necessary before generalisations of 

 this kind can be made with confidence. 



Standards of Correctness 

 in English' 



By Henry Cecil Wyld, M.A. 



Merton Professor of English Languaje and Literature in the University 

 of O-rford 



(Continued jrom p. 234 in the September number). 



The sources of our information as to the pronuncia- 

 tion of the 17th and i8th centuries are of three kinds 

 — {a) private letters and diaries in which the writers 

 often depart from the regular and ' correct ' spelling, 

 and imconsciously spell as they pronounce ; [h) state- 

 ments of grammarians and writers on pronunciation ; 

 (c) rhymes of poets. Of these the first are the best. 

 The material they afford is very copious, and as we 

 find the same spellings occurring several times, in 

 the letters of different persons, they must be taken 

 seriously ; as the writers of the letters are expressing 

 themselves in a natural unstudied manner, we almost 

 gain the impression that we are actually listening to 

 them speaking ; further, many of the unstudied 

 spellings, which tell us so much, are used by the writers 

 on pronunciation of about the same time to express 

 identical pronunciations. 



The best collections of letters for our purpose are 

 those contained in the Memoirs of the Verney Family 

 (1639-1696), edited by Lady Verney, four vols., 189- ; 

 the letters of Mrs. Basire, in Correspondence of Dr. and 

 Mrs. Basire, ed. Dr. Darnell, 1831 (Mrs. Basire's 

 letters cover from 1651 to i66i) ; for the i8th century 

 we have the Wentworth Papers (ed. Cartwright, 1883), 

 and especially the letters therein of Lady Wentworth, 



' Readers desiring a bibliography of the writers mentioned 

 in Prof. Wyld's article are referred to the September number, 

 page 234. 



her son Peter, and her daughter-in-law Ladj' Strafford. 

 These letters cover the period 1705-1739. 



The Verneys -were an ancient county family living 

 at Claydon in Buckinghamshire, not far from the 

 Oxfordshire border. The letters are from Sir Edmund 

 Verney (' the Standard Bearer '), his son Sir Ralph, 

 the wife and sisters of the latter, his uncle Dr. Denton, 

 and his cousins and friends, a large and representative 

 circle. The writers of these letters are all persons of 

 the same class — that of the wealthier squires, and in 

 some cases peers and their wives. Some of them 

 write from the country, others from London, where 

 they occupied positions about the Court or in the 

 Government. Many are travelled and highly cultivated 

 persons. 



Mrs. Basire, who belonged to an old Shropshire 

 family of the same standing and position as the Verneys, 

 was the wife of the Rev. Dr. Basire, a French noble- 

 man by birth, who came in his youth to England, 

 studied at Cambridge, took orders in the Church of 

 England and became Rector of Egglescliff, co. Durham, 

 and subsequently Archdeacon of Northumberland. 

 He was exiled from this country on the fall of the 

 Monarchy, but returned and lived happily with his 

 family after the Restoration. 



Lady Wentworth lived in the best society of her 

 day. She had been Lady of the Bedchamber to the 

 Queen of James IL Her eldest son, who afterwards 

 became Earl of Strafford, was for a long time ambas- 

 sador at Berlin. 



All these people, then, belong to the higher ranks of 

 society, they all belong to the same world, are persons 

 of education and social experience, and we may take 

 it that their speech, which, by the way, shows remark- 

 able similarity, represents the best type of English 

 spoken in their Aaj. It is also the natural traditional 

 development of the English of the i6th century, so 

 far as we are able to form an idea of this from materials 

 of the same kind as these letters, written by Elizabeth 

 and her contemporaries. 



I have selected for treatment the following general 

 subjects : (i) pronunciation of consonantal sounds ; 

 (2) pronunciation of vowels in unaccented syllables. 



I. Pronunciation of Consonants and 

 Combinations of Consonants 

 (a) Substitution of -n for -ng in the suffix -ing 



Much has been written, and more said, often in 

 derision of the habit, which still survives in nearly all 

 popular dialects and among many speakers of stan- 

 dard English, of saying rainin , huntin , comin, and 

 so on. So far from being a modern affectation, this 

 pronunciation is found as early as the 14th century. 

 The evidence of spellings, the statements of gram- 



