grant, glass and their analogues, and in his 1829 revision he clung to this pronunciation, beside adding master, pastor, amass, quaff, laugh, craft, etc., and even massive. There is some difficulty, however, in determining just what sound he proposed to give the a, for there are several a–sounds that pass as broad, and the two main ones differ considerably. One appears in all, and may be called the aw–sound. The other is in art, and may be called the ah–sound. A quarter of a century later Richard Grant White distinguished between the two, and denounced the former as "a British peculiarity." Frank H. Vizetelly, writing in 1917, still noted the difference, particularly in such words as daunt, saunter and laundry. It is probable that Webster, in most cases, intended to advocate the ah–sound, as in father, for this pronunciation now prevails in New England. Even there, however, the a often drops to a point midway between ah and aa, though never actually descending to the flat aa, as in an, at and anatomy.
But the imprimatur of the Yankee Johnson was not potent enough to stay the course of nature, and, save in New England, the flat a swept the country. He himself allowed it in stamp and vase. His successor and rival, Lyman Cobb, decided for it in pass, draft, stamp and dance, though he kept to the ah–sound in laugh, path, daunt and saunter. By 1850 the flat a was dominant everywhere West of the Berkshires and South of New Haven, and had even got into such proper names as Lafayette and Nevada.[1]
Webster failed in a number of his other attempts to influence American pronunciation. His advocacy of deef for deaf had popular support while he lived, and he dredged up authority for it out of Chaucer and Sir William Temple, but the present pronunciation gradually prevailed, though deef remains familiar in the common speech. Joseph E. Worcester and other rival lexicographers stood against many of his pronunciations, and he took the field against them in the prefaces to the successive editions of his spelling-books. Thus, in that to "The Elementary Spelling
- ↑ Richard Meade Bache denounced it, in Lafayette, during the 60's. Vide his Vulgarisms and Other Errors of Speech, 2nd ed., Philadelphia, 1869, p. 65.
