Of course your Cockney orthography goes upon very broad lines, and you are quite justified in raising a laugh by apparent confusions, where no confusions are made by the speakers themselves, as Hans Breitmann did with the German. The confusion is only in our ears. They speak a language we do not use. To write the varieties of sounds, especially of diphthongs, with anything like correctness, requires a phonetic alphabet which cannot even be read, much less written, without great study, such as you cannot look for in readers who want only to be amused. But another question arises, Should we lay down a pronunciation? There never has been any authority capable of doing so. Orthoepists may protest, but the fashion of pronunciation will again change, as it has changed so often and so markedly during the last six hundred years; see the proofs in my _Early English Pronunciation_. Why should we not pronounce _ā_ as we do _ī_, pronouncing _ī_ as we do _oy_? Why should we not call _ō_ as we now call _ow_, pronouncing that as _aow_? Is not our _ā_ a change from _ī_ (the German _ei_, _ai_) in _say_, _away_, _pain_, etc.? Is not our _ou_ a change from our sound of _oo_ in _cow_, etc.? Again, our _oo_ replaces an old _oh_ sound. There is nothing but fashion which rules this. But when sounds are changed in one set of vowels, a compensating change takes place in another set, and so no confusion results. In one part of Cheshire I met with four sounds of _y_ in _my_, never confused by natives, although a received speaker hears only one, and all arose from different sources. Why is one pronunciation _horrid_ (or aw-ud), and another not? Simply because they mark social grades. Of course I prefer my own pronunciation, it's been my companion for so many years. But others, just as much of course, prefer theirs. When I brought out the _Phonetic News_, in phonetic spelling, many years ago, a newsvendor asked me, "Why write _neewz_? We always say _nooze_." Very truly yours, ALEXANDER J. ELLIS. [Illustration] Index. Page A dip and a wallop for a bawbee!, 29, 125, 126 Act, Chimney Sweeps', 64 Addison, Cries of London, 25, 30 Albert Smith's "Covered Uncertainties", 111 Ale Scurvy-grass, 32 All my teeth ache!, 30 All the fun of the fair!, 50 Ancient tavern sign, 110 Anecdote of a simpler, 32 _Aphorisms, Book of_, 36 Area sneak thieves, 48 'Arry and Emma Ann, 50 Bartholomew Fair, 38, 39, 42 _Bartholomew Fair_, Ben Jonson's (1614), 25 Beating of one's wife, 51 Beaumont and Fletcher's _Bonduca_, 25 Beau pot? Will you buy a, 86 Bellows-mender, 94 Bells, Merry Christ Church, 33 Belman, 20 Blacking, cake, 44 Black sheep, 48 Blowing a horn in the night, 51 _Bonduca_, Beaumont and Fletcher's, 25 _Book of Aphorisms_, 36 Boot-black, The modern, 44 Boot laces--AND the boot laces!, 54 Brickdust, 92 Bridgwater Library, 14 British Museum, Collection of cries in, 16 Buggs! Water for the, 29, 125, 126