DIFFERENTIATION OF HOMOPHONES
On this very difficult question the attitude of a careful English speaker is shown in the following extract from a letter addressed to us:
METAL, METTLE: and PRINCIPAL, PRINCIPLE
'I find that I do not naturally distinguish metal and mettle in pronunciation, tho' when there is any danger of ambiguity I say metal for the former and met'l for the latter; and I should probably do so (without thinking about it) in a public speech. In my young days the people about me usually pronounced met'l for both. Theoretically I think the distinction is a desirable one to make; the fact that the words are etymologically identical seems to me irrelevant. The words are distinctly two in modern use: when we talk of mettle (meaning spiritedness) there is in our mind no thought whatever of the etymological sense of the word, and the recollection of it, if it occurred, would only be disturbing. So I intend in future to pronounce metal as metəl (when I don't forget). And I am not sure that metəl is, strictly speaking, a "spelling-pronunciation": It is possible that the difference in spelling originated in a difference of pronunciation, not the other way about. For metal in its literal sense was originally a scientific word, and in that sense may have been pronounced carefully by people who would pronounce it carelessly when they used it in a colloquial transferred sense approaching to slang.
'The question of principal and principle is different. When I was young, educated people in my circle always, I believe, distinguished them; so to this day when I hear principal pronounced as principle it gives me a squirm, tho' I am afraid nearly everybody does it now. That the words are etymologically distinct does not greatly matter; it is of more importance that I have sometimes been puzzled to know which word a speaker meant; if I remember right, I once had to ask.
'It would be worth while to distinguish flower and flour (which originally, like metal and mettle, were the same word); yet in practice it is not easy to make the difference audible. The homophony is sometimes inconvenient.'
CORRECTION TO TRACT II
On p. 37 of TRACT II the words 'the Anglo-prussian society which Mr. Jones represents' have given offence and appear to be inaccurate. The German title of the series in which Jones's Dictionary is one has the following arrangement of words facing the English title:
HERAUSGEGEBEN
UND
DER "ASSOCIATION PHONÉTIQUE INTERNATIONALE" GEWIDMET
VON
H. MICHAELIS,
and this misled me. I am assured that, though the dictionary may be rightly described as Anglo-Prussian, the Phonetic Association is Gallo-Scandinavian. In behalf of the S.P.E. I apologize to the A. Ph. I. for my mistake which has led one of its eminent associates to accuse me of bearing illwill towards the Germans. The logic of that reproach baffles me utterly.
[R.B.]