Iowa

PRONOUNCING IOWA BY FRANK I.. SIOTT OK MIMPSON COLLEGE. INDIANOLA, la. To the Editor: May I suggest an answer to a question asked recently In your "Matters of Opinion" column by Curator Harlan? I am interested in the discussion of the pronunciation of the name Iowa, which was started by an article in the "Lexicographer's Chair" of the Literary Digest. Mr. Harlan puts his question thus: "In the absence of an official pronunciation such as Arkansas provided In her laws, what do you say Is the actual authority for the pronunciation of the name of our state?" There is, after all, but one authority fo,r the pronunciation of any word that is in common use. That authority la the consensus of usage of the people who employ the word. If there is division ot usage, then there are two or more pronunciations and the conscientious seeker after correctness imist pay his money and take his choice. He may choose to be guided by etymological considerations, but it Is more likely that he will be guided by the usage of some one or some group he respects. Or he may have recourse to the "preferred" pronunciation ot his favorite dictionary. Dictionaries nowadays are simply tho lecords of usages collected by trained observers, together with etymologkul and scientific data. Read the preface to any dictionary and dependence on popular usage in a barefaced way tlytt would have shocked old Samuel Johnson and even made Noah Webster shako his head a little. Fifty or sixty years ago, "Ioway" nunciation of the name of our state. as the etymological pronunciation. a llBt of sixty-four spellings of the name, with citations for each, see Hodge's "Handbook of American Indians," published as Bulletin 30 of the bureau of American ethnology. Then along camo the purist bent on softening down our rude western speech. Iowans were thereupon pereuaded largely through the schools, to pronounce the flnul consonant like the first syllable of about. Whether the result was an Improvement over the earlier pronunciation or not, (here is no doubt that the name as we have It Is a charmingly musical one. I say the name as we have It, for I make no doubt that the adherents of the old pronunciation are now In a hopeless minority. In some rural districts there are a few who still dictionaries rightfully neglect them. Dictionaries are etwiietimes led into error in their records ot tho pronunciation ot place names by lack of accurate local observation. Professor Krapp's "Pronunciation of Standard English in America" is the only manual I know that gives the correct pronunciation of "Des Moines." The vowel in the first syllable is not like "e" in set or in they, but like "i" in sit. You never hear it any other way, I think, except in the mouths of those more or less illiterate individuals who pronounce the s's. If the loyal people of Arkansas had chosen not to follow their legislature In its queer procedure ot fixing the pronunciation of the name of their state French-fashion, the filial s would be correct yet; and It is still given a secondary pronunciation sometimes. Fiat language is seldom successful because it Is contrary .to the genius of language itself, which is a live, self-developing thing. Tho people who uso tho name most that Is, the citizens of a state or country or city are the authority. The people of St. Louis refuse to acknowledge French origin by dropping the g. w hile no citizen of Louisville, Ky., pronounces it. Athens, III., keeps the "long" a In defiance of the law and the prophets, and Hawarden, la., forgets Gladstone, who would have rimed it with garden, and calls It Haywarden, with the accent on the first syllable. The Bard of Avon, If he could return to life long enough to enjoy the rare privilege of looping the loops in one of those caterpillar trains they run oter the Des Molnes-Indlanola branch of the Rock Island system, would be surprised to hear the brakeman call Avon, la., In a way to rime with Bpavin; but so it is. Language is democratic. It acknowledges no masters save the common folk who use it most, but they are masters absolute. see how the lexicographer admits his was undoubtedly tho correct pro Tho best evidence Indicates Ioway See Salter's "Iowa 1673-1846." For say Ioway but they are few and our