ORTHOEPICAL ERRORS OF THE PROFESSIONS.
Although errors of speech are at all times to be deprecated, and are generally criticised without much leniency, it must be admitted that unless they are very gross, reasonable excuses are to be taken for those who have never made their language a subject of close study, and whose only use of words is entirely impromptu in the business affairs of life, in the home circle, or in the social gathering.
Though a person's descent from Belgravia or Billingsgate is in a great measure revealed by the propriety of his discourse, yet this refers principally to those words that are employed by the masses in the every-day conversations of life, rather than to technicalities and words related to particular professions, the use of which is generally confined to the specially instructed. But when a man stands forth as an orator, a teacher, a minister, or a professor of some college, it is certainly not unreasonable for those that sit under his instruction, to expect and demand that his speech should be almost free from errors.
One occupying such a position may well be excused for occasional embarrassment, poor voice, unpleasant address, hesitation of delivery, and various failings and peculiarities that can not be overcome, but little or no allowance can be made for constantly repeated errors.
Probably there has never been a public speaker so perfect in diction, that he has not in moments of embarrassment, or when much absorbed in his subject, been guilty of grammatical inaccuracies or mistakes of pronunciation; and doubtless he is as often aware of them as his listeners are, as soon as they drop from his lips, but it would be foolish to call attention to them by going back to correct them. But when these offenses are so glaring and so frequently repeated that it is evident the speaker knows no better, it is no wonder that the educated hearer often thinks that the teacher had better leave his position and submit to being taught.
What allowance can an intelligent congregation make for their minister who has nothing else to do but prepare his sermons, if, besides a multitude of common English mistakes, he pronounces more than half of his scriptural names in a manner that is not sanctioned by any authority?
When the orotund medical professor stands up to address his students, or to engage in the discussions of a convention, and rolls out technicality after technicality pronounced in a manner that would be disowned by the original Latin or Greek, and is totally at variance with established usage, who would not ask for a little less elegance and a little more education? If it required a great amount of labor outside of the usual course of study for professional men to acquire a knowledge of the pronunciation of words peculiar to the professions, the subject might be treated with more tolerance; but as the definitions and the orthoepy might be so readily learned together during those years of daily reference to books that are required before one should be considered competent to stand as a guide to others, it certainly seems that they do not properly appreciate the dignity of their position by thus laying themselves open to public criticism.
Many a student, in order to become instructed in certain branches, has been compelled to reluctantly sit for months or years at the feet of those that he felt were far inferior to him in common school education, hearing hourly such violations of orthoepy and syntax as would be a discredit to school children. And, doubtless, many such students have had such a charity for their teachers that they have wished to direct their attention to their faults, but have been restrained on account of the fear of enmity, expulsion, or of lessening the chances for passing the final examination.