Everyman's English Pronouncing Dictionary [antikvár]

INTRODUCTIONobject of this book1.The purpose of the present Dictionary is to record, with as much accuracy as is necessary for practical linguistic purposes, the pronunciation used by a considerable number of typical Southern English people (see §3) in ordinary conversation.2.The book is a record of facts, not of theories or personal preferences. No attempt is made to decide how people ought to pronounce; all that the dictionary aims at doing is to give a faithful record of the manner in which certain people do pronounce.the pronunciation3.The pronunciation represented in this book is that which I believe to be very usually heard in everyday speech in the families of Southern English people who have been educated at the public schools.^ This pronunciation is also used (sometimes with modifications) by those who do not come from Southern England, but who have been educated at these schools. The pronunciation may also be heard, to an extent which is considerable though difficult to specify, from natives of Southern England who have not been educated at these schools. It is probably accurate to say that a majority of Londoners who have had a university education, use either this pronunciation or a pronunciation not differing greatly from it.^4.I believe that the pronunciation above referred to is readily understood in most parts of the Enghsh-speaking world. This result is perhaps due to the boarding-school system of education prevalent in England. For centuries past, boys from all parts of Great Britain have been educated together in boarding-schools. If a boy in such a school has a marked local peculiarity in his pronunciation, it generally disappears or is modified during his school career under the influence of the different mode of speaking which he hears continually around him; he consequently emerges from school with a pronunciation similar to that of the other boys. Similar considerations apply to modern boarding-schools for girls.5.In day schools local pronunciations do not disappear nearly as readily as in the boarding-schools, because the pupils continually hear^'Public school' in the English sense, not in the American sense.^ The pronunciation is in the main that which I use myself. I have, how^-ever, put my pronunciation in a secondary place in all cases where another form appears to me to be in more frequent use. Readers may like to know that my father and mother were both Londoners, and that I have lived all my life' in or near London. I was educated at Radley College (Abingdon), University College School (London) and King's College, Cambridge.