In the fashionable world, _heard_ is pronounced _herd_ or _hurd_. This was almost unknown in America till the commencement of the late war, and how long it has been the practice in England, I cannot determine. By Chaucer's orthography, one would imagine that it had been handed down from remote antiquity; for he writes _herd_, _herde_, and _herden_.[58] In reading more modern poets, I have rarely found any instance of a verse's closing with this word; so that it is difficult to say what has been the general practice among the learned. But for centuries, the word has been uniformly spelt _heard_; the verb _hear_ is in analogy with _fear_, _sear_, and yet _e_ in the past time and participle has been omitted, as _heard_, not _heared_. That _herd_ was not formerly the pronunciation, is probable from this circumstance; the Americans were strangers to it when they came from England, and the body of the people are so to this day.[59] To most people in this country, the English pronunciation appears like affectation, and is adopted only in the capital towns, which are always the most ready to distinguish themselves by an implicit imitation of foreign customs. Analogy requires that we should retain our former practice; for we may as well change _feared_, _seared_, into _ferd_, _serd_, as to change _heard_ into _herd_. _Beard_ is sometimes, but erroneously, pronounced _beerd_. General practice, both in England and America, requires that _e_ should be pronounced as in _were_, and I know of no rule opposed to the practice. _Deaf_ is generally pronounced _deef_. It is the universal practice in the eastern states; and it is general in the middle and southern; tho some have adopted the English pronunciation, _def_. The latter is evidently a corruption; for the word is in analogy with _leaf_ and _sheaf_, and has been from time immemorial. So in Sir William Temple's works, Virg. Ecl. ----"We sing not to the deaf, An answer comes from every trembling leaf." _Leaf_ and _deaf_, with a different orthography, are repeatedly made to rhime in Chaucer's works; as in the Wife of Bath's Prologue, L. 6217, "For that I rent out of his book a lefe, That of the stroke myn ere wex al _defe_." So also line 6249. This was the orthography of his time, and an almost conclusive evidence that _deaf_ was pronounced _deef_.[60] This pronunciation is generally retained in America, and analogy requires it.