Footnote 22: [(return)]
This is no exaggeration. Let a humane teacher think what an infant's mind is, the delicate bud of intelligence opening on the world, eager to adjust its awakening wonder to the realities of life, absolutely simple, truthful, and receptive, reaching out its tender faculties like the sensitive antennae of a new-born insect, that feel forth upon the unknown with the faultless instinct of eternal mind—one has only to imagine that condition to realize that the most ingenious malignity could hardly contrive anything to offer it so perplexing, cramping, and discouraging as the unintelligible and unreasonable absurdities of English literary spelling. That it somehow generally wrestles through is only a demonstration of the wrong that is done to it; and I would say, better leave it alone to find its own way, better teach it nothing at all, than worry it with the incomprehensible, indefensible confusion of such nonsense.
Footnote 23: [(return)]
The peril that we are in of having Mr. Jones' degraded pronunciation thus sprung upon us in England and taught in all our schools is really threatening. Indeed, as things are, there is little prospect of escaping from it, supposing the democracy should once awake to the commercial and spiritual advantages of teaching language phonetically: and that would seem to be only a question of time: the demand may come at any moment, and a complete machinery which has been skilfully prepared to meet the demand will offer practical conveniences to outbalance every other consideration.
Even supposing the authorities in the Education Department sufficiently alive to the situation which it is the purpose of this section of my essay to bring to the fore, yet even then, were they all unanimous, they could not give effect to their convictions, because—
They are forbidden to recommend or give preference to any particular book. They may not order or prohibit the use of any book, however good or bad they may know it to be, and they probably desire to avoid the suspicion of favouring the authors of books that have the advantage of national circulation.
However that may be, it is a lamentable situation that our high-salaried Board of Education, composed of the best trained intelligence of the country, should not be allowed to exercise its discretion efficiently. The people, no doubt, cannot be agreed as to the principles on which they desire to be educated, whether political, official, or religious, and they deprecate official control in such matters. Every one objecting to some principle, they consent in requiring that the central authority should have no principle at all; but this lack of principle should not be extended to paralyse action in questions that demand expert knowledge and judgement, such as this question of phonetic teaching—and it shows that the public by grudging authority to their own officers may only fall under a worse tyranny, which they will suffer just because it has no authority.
Footnote 24: [(return)]
Writing er, always unaccented, for ə.
Footnote 25: [(return)]
Of course Mr. Jones knows that these are not and cannot be fixed. He must often bewail in secret the exigencies of his 'styles'.
Footnote 26: [(return)]
Phonetic Transcriptions of English, by D. Jones, 1907, Introd., p. v, 'The peculiarities of Style A as compared with Style B are especially marked. These differences are partly natural, i.e. modifications produced involuntarily as the result of speaking more slowly or of endeavouring to speak more distinctly, and partly artificial, i.e. modifications due to the well-established though perhaps somewhat arbitrary rules laid down by teachers of elocution,' &c., and Mr. Jones is quite right in complaining that his pupils make fools of themselves when they try to speak slower.
Footnote 27: [(return)]
I do not deny that he allows some exceptions: and these, few as they are, concede the principle for which I contend.
Footnote 28: [(return)]
His own words are, 'Thus Margate trippers now generally speak of Ma:geit instead of Ma:git: teachers in London elementary schools now often say eksept for iksept 'except', ekstrəɔ:dinəri for ikstrɔdnri 'extraordinary', often for ɔ:fn 'often'. We feel that such artificialities cannot but impair the beauty of the language.' Dictionary, 1st edition, Preface, p.v.
Footnote 29: [(return)]
In the first edition of the Dictionary [1913] ə has only one interpretation, the illustration being the a of about. In the Phonetic Transcriptions [1907] it was the er of over, but in the new Dictionary [1917] ə has three interpretations with the following explanation: 'ə varies noticeably according to its position in the word and in the sentence. In final positions it is often replaced (sic) by "Λ" [=u of up], in other positions its quality varies considerably according to the nature of the surrounding sounds; the variations extend from almost "Λ" to the half-close mixed position. Three different values may be heard in the words china, cathedral: in the latter word the second "ə" has a lower and more retracted tongue-position than the first ə.'
The value of ə when Mr. Jones first substituted it for a disguised unaccented vowel, was that the speaker might know what sound he had to produce. It was wrong, but it was definite. Mr. Jones would now make it less wrong by making it less definite. That is, in the place of something distinctly wrong we are offered something which has an offchance of being nearly right: but as it has entirely ousted and supplanted the original vowel I do not see how there is any means of interpreting it correctly. The er of over is a definite sound, and to print it where it was out of place was a definite error—to give it three interpretations makes it cover more ground: but its usurpations are still indefensible.
Footnote 30: [(return)]
Neither the British Academy nor the Academic Committee of the Royal Society of Literature has shown any tendency to recognize their duties and responsibilities in this department.