[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR."
Sm.—One of yciur correspondents- brings home to me the' truth' of Bernard Shaw's dictum that no Englishman can open. his mouth without making some other Englishman. want to. murder him.. The letter have 'just been reading is most helpfkil—it enables me: to' determine: that no- young. person for whose education.' Ir might be- responsible, shall- enter our oldest University I might haare- to-live with him or her afterwards. It is unfortunate that in this country there is no court of final appeal, as in France and Spain, regarding the pronunciation of our langwidge.
It is on record in the annals of my family that a cousin once found in a dictionary the form idea r as correct. A well-known writer was heard by myself, and it is the truth I speak, to say, when giving a broadcast talk on the pro- nunciation of English, that it is awd that the letter R so seldom gets its jay.
Does your correspondent who speaks of a langwidge give his servants their widges ? The vowel-sound is the same in both words. For his information I may say with deference that the 1 in half is mute, and that anyone trying to pro- nounce it would probably damage himself. To insert an r in the word, or in laugh or gone, would make me feel, in hearing that, that one of my immediate ancestors must have been inordinately fond of sour grapes. Outside our oldest University the word half is usually pronounced by the literate as hahf. The thing that most reminds me of those grapes, though, is the dropping of an h—wot ? That might make any gal larf.
I have not yet encountered the example quoted of ascribing to the uneducated the pronunciation of night as nite : I have never heard it pronounced in any other way. The spelling of come as cum is an attempt to convey the vowel sound so often heard in Yorkshire and the neighbouring counties— the sound is between u and oo, but neither spelling gives it exactly : once heard it can never be forgotten, and always
it distresses.—! am, Sir, &c., JESSIE S. BOYD. The Old Vicarage, Broadway, Worcs.
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