This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1909. Excerpt: ... in the eighteenth century, when the great middle class had begun to attain to prominence, provincial pronunciation fell into disrepute, and people everywhere clamored for a guide to Court usage in the matter of English orthoepy. From that time to the present there has been a close approach to uniformity of utterance in our English speech. But in the very nature of things there cannot, of course, be a standard pronunciation without absolute uniformity of utterance, and it need hardly be remarked that this does not exist. Nevertheless, the influence and dominance of the pronouncing dictionary are clearly in the direction of a standard pronunciation and have made possible the existing approach to that end. It is quite remarkable how potent the influence of the pronouncing dictionary is upon English pronunciation. Despite the fact that such an orthoepic authority is at best arbitrary, and somewhat artificial, it has enjoyed a kind of undisputed supremacy since the days of Dr. Johnson, the literary autocrat of the eighteenth century; and its tyranny seems not yet ended. For the English-speaking world still defers to the authority of the pronouncing dictionary and to that extent is under its thrall and has not the courage to challenge it and to assert its own independence in matters of orthoepy. Prior to the eighteenth century the pronouncing dictionary was unknown. It therefore cannot boast the authority of a long antiquity. There were, however, certain guides to correct orthoepy even in those See Authority in English Pronunciation. early times, at least in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. There are preserved to us certain records of contemporary orthoepists which throw light upon English pronunciation in those remote times. We are not therefore left t...