he is not competent to judge his own speech. For instance, almost all
Englishmen believe that the vowel which we write _u_ in _but_, _ugly_,
_unknown_, &c., is really a _u_, like the _u_ in _full_, and not a
disguised _a_; and because the written _s_ is sometimes voiced they
cannot distinguish between _s_ and _z_, nor without great difficulty
separate among the plural terminations those that are spoken with an
_s_ from those that are spoken with a _z_. I was shocked when I first
discovered my own delusions in such matters, and I still speak the bad
Southern English that I learnt as a child and at school. I can hardly
forgive my teachers and would not myself be condemned in a like
reprobation.]

Again, and in support of the trustworthiness of the records, I am
told by those concerned in the business that for some years past no
Englishman could obtain employment in Germany as teacher of English
unless he spoke the English vowels according to the standard of
Mr. Jones' dictionary; and it was a recognized device, when such an
appointment was being considered, to request the applicant to speak
into a machine and send the record by post to the Continent; whereupon
he was approved or not on that head by the agreement of the record
with the standard which I am about to illustrate from the dictionary.

All these considerations make a strong case for the truth of Mr.
Jones' representation of our 'standard English', and his book is the
most trustworthy evidence at my disposal: but before exhibiting it
I would premise that our present fashionable dialect is not to be
considered as the wanton local creator of all the faults that Mr.
Jones can parade before the eye. Its qualities have come together in
various ways, nor are the leading characteristics of recent origin.
I am convinced that our so-called standard English sprang actively