Salt Lake Telegram | 1952-03-19 | Page 14 | Take My Word

Take My M Word ff I IBy By Frank Colby Milwaukee 1 Your column is a delightful discovery and I read rend rendit it faithfully finding it both informative informative informative in in- formative and interesting But ButI I cannot agree with you that correct English is dictated by the people J. J AM A.M. Answer As the people have always dictated the culture of oC any race they will always dictate dictate dictate dic dic- tate the style of their lang language age Which is as it should he be Who should determine correct speech The populace or the intellectual few It makes no difference what the answer SHOULD BE it is a fact that the language develops de only as the people themselves want it and only legislation andora or and/or a linguistic Gestapo could change itEen it Even en Noah Webster realized the futility of opposing the desire desire desire de de- de- de sire of the people In his 1839 dictionary the word deaf was pronounced DEEF to rh rhyme me with leaf sheaf This is the explanation his original dictionary dictionary dictionary diction diction- ary carried This word is generally generally gen gen- pronounced in this country so as to rhyme with leaf sheaf etc ete according to uniform analogy of words of this kind Such was the pronunciation pronunciation pro pro- tion in England The synopsis at the beginning of oC the dictionary shows shoves that six eminent English pints pronounced deaf as DEFF In 1859 Websters Webster's dictionary carried this notation under the word deaf deaf- DEFF in England more commonly DEEF in America America Amer Amer- ica The true English pronunciation pronunciation pronunciation pro pro- of oC this word is DEEF as appears from the poetry of Chaucer Then the picture changed In 1928 the pronunciation listed by Webster's Websters dictionary was DEFF and DEEF was indicated as a dialectal or archaic pro pro-