Cambridge History of American Literature: volume 3
Trent, William Peterfield, 1862-1939., Erskine, John, 1879-1951., Sherman, Stuart Pratt, 1881-1926., Van Doren, Carl, 1885-1950., Ed.

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[561] extent, in Virginia, except in father, before r (car, arm), and somewhat uncertainly before lm (calm, psalm). The American, then, who pronounces pass, dance, aunt, with the vowel of hand does only what all the authorities before the last quarter of the eighteenth century told him to do, and what apparently everybody in England did do who wished to avoid an appearance of vulgarity.

Certain anomalous British forms, of comparatively recent origin, have never become established in America. The pronunciation of wrath as if wroth, and the occasional pronunciation of the latter with long ō, are seldom (one dare not say never) heard in America. Wrath (with the vowel of law) does not seem to be older than the end of the eighteenth century, and wroth (with the vowel of no) is a recent attempt to distinguish anew between the words. Another anomaly is schedule, commonly pronounced by the British with sh. The earlier pronunciation of this French word was sedyul, and it might have retained this pronunciation in spite of its classical spelling, just as schism has done. But the spelling suggests other classical analogies like scholar and scheme, and this pronunciation followed by American English seems to offer the only reasonable alternative to sedyul. What analogy the British pronunciation follows is not easy to see; one hesitates now to urge afresh the old suggestion that in this word, as in schist, the determining influence is German.

The pronunciation of either, neither, with the diphthong of eye, which is not recorded before the eighteenth century, has met with better reception in America. It was Franklin's pronunciation. But with many of the persons who use it it is a conscious affectation. The Elizabethan pronunciations, it may be noted, were ‘nayther,’ ‘nayther,’ just as the Irishman still says it, and ‘ether,’ ‘nether,’ to rhyme with leather. The ordinary American pronunciation is the representative of the former type; the latter seems to have left no modem descendants.

Besides being in some respects more conservative; American English has in still other respects grown apart from British English through following different analogies. The question how an English word shall be pronounced breaks up at once into a whole set of queries. Shall it be pronounced as a Latin word,