These, amongst others, the immediate causes of erroneous enunciation, have been adduced not for the sake of exhausting, but for the sake of illustrating the subject.
[§ 245]. In matters of orthoepy it is the usual custom to appeal to one of the following standards.
I. The authority of scholars.—This is of value up to a certain point only. The fittest person for determining the classical pronunciation of a word like anemone is the classical scholar; but the mere classical scholar is far from being the fittest person to determine the analogies that such a word follows in English.
II. The usage of educated bodies, such as the bar, the pulpit, the senate, &c.—These are recommended by two circumstances: 1. The chance that each member of them is sufficiently a scholar in foreign tongues to determine the original pronunciation of derived words, and sufficiently a critic in his own language to be aware of the analogies that are in operation. 2. The quantity of imitators that, irrespective of the worth of his pronunciation, each individual can carry with him. On this latter ground the stage is a sort of standard.
The objection to the authority of educated bodies is its impracticability. It is only the usage of the component individuals that can be determined. Of these many may carry with them the dialects of their provinces, so that, although good standards on points of accent and quantity, they are bad ones upon points of articulation.
III. The authority of societies constituted with the express purpose of taking cognizance of the language of the country.—These, although recognized in Italy and other parts of the Continent, have only been proposed in Great Britain. Their inefficacy arises from the inutility of attempting to fix that which, like language, is essentially fluctuating.
IV. The authority of the written language.—The value of this may be collected from the chapter on orthography.
V. These, amongst others, the standards that have been appealed to, are adduced not for the sake of exhausting the subject, but to show the unsatisfactory nature of authority in matters of speech.
[§ 246]. For a person, on a point of pronunciation, to trust to his own judgment, he must be capable, with every word that he doubts about, of discussing three questions:—