Otto Jespersen[12] seems to think that the inconvenience of homophones is so great that a language will naturally evolve some phonetic habit to guard itself against them, although it would otherwise neglect such distinction. I wish that this admirable instinct were more evident in English. He writes thus of the lists of words which he gives 'to show what pairs of homonyms [homophones] would be created if distinctions were abolished that are now maintained: they [the lists] thus demonstrate the force of resistance opposed to some of the sound-changes which one might imagine as happening in the future. A language can tolerate only a certain number of ambiguities arising from words of the same sound having different significations, and therefore the extent to which a language has utilized some phonetic distinction to keep words apart, has some influence in determining the direction of its sound-changes. In French, and still more in English, it is easy to enumerate long lists of pairs of words differing from each other only by the presence or absence of voice in the last sound; therefore final b and p, d and t, g and k, are kept rigidly apart; in German, on the other hand, there are very few such pairs, and thus nothing counterbalances the natural tendency to unvoice final consonants.'
3. That homophones are self-destructive and tend to become obsolete.
For the contrary contention, namely, that homophones do not destroy themselves, there is prima facie evidence in the long list of survivors, and in the fact that a vast number of words which have not this disadvantage are equally gone out of use.
Causes of obsolescence.
Words fall out of use for other reasons than homophony, therefore one cannot in any one case assume that ambiguity of meaning was the active cause: indeed the mere familiarity of the sound might prolong a word's life; and homophones are themselves frequently made just in this way, for uneducated speakers will more readily adapt a familiar sound to a new meaning (as when my gardener called his Pomeranian dog a Panorama) than take the trouble to observe and preserve the differentiation of a new sound. There is no rule except that any loss of distinction may be a first step towards total loss.[13]
It is probable that the working machinery of an average man's brain sets a practical limit to his convenient workable vocabulary; that is to say, a man who can easily command the spontaneous use of a certain number of words cannot much increase it without effort. If that is so, then, as he learns new words, there will be a tendency, if not a necessity, for him to lose hold of a corresponding number of his old words; and the words that will first drop out will be those with which he had hitherto been uncomfortable; and among those words will be the words of ambiguous meaning.
No direct proof
It is plain that only general considerations can be of value, unless there should be very special evidence in any special case; and thus the caution of Dr. Henry Bradley's remarks in note on page [19].
I remember how I first came to recognize this law; it was from hearing a friend advocating the freer use of certain old words which, though they were called obsolete and are now rarely heard, yet survive in local dialects. I was surprised to find how many of them were unfit for resuscitation because of their homophonic ambiguity, and when I spoke of my discovery to a philological friend, I found that he regarded it as a familiar and unquestioned rule.
But to prove this rule is difficult; and as it is an impossible task to collect all the obsolete words and classify them, I am proposing to take two independent indications; first to separate out the homophones from the other obsolete words in a Shakespearian glossary, and secondly, to put together a few words that seem to be actually going out of use in the present day, that is, strictly obsolescent words caught in the act of flitting.