But all these vowels, whether approved or disapproved, have been under the pressure, for the past century, of a movement toward a general vowel neutralization, and in the long run it promises to dispose of many of them. The same movement also affects standard English, as appears by Robert Bridges' "Tract on the Present State of English Pronunciation," but I believe that it is stronger in America, and will go farther, at least with the common speech, if only because of our unparalleled immigration. Standard English has 19 separate vowel sounds. No other living tongue of Europe, save Portuguese, has so many; most of the others have a good many less; Modern Greek has but five. The immigrant, facing all these vowels, finds some of them quite impossible; the Russian Jew, as we have seen, cannot manage /ur/. As a result, he tends to employ a neutralized [Pg238] vowel in all the situations which present difficulties, and this neutralized vowel, supported by the slip-shod speech-habits of the native proletariat, makes steady progress. It appears in many of the forms that we have been examining--in the final /a/ of /would'a/, vaguely before the /n/ in /this'n/ and /off'n/, in place of the original /d/ in /use' to/, and in the common pronunciation of such words as /been/, /come/ and /have/, particularly when they are sacrificed to sentence exigencies, as in "I /b'n/ thinking," "/c'm 'ere/," and "he would /'ve/ saw you." Here we are upon a wearing down process that shows many other symptoms. One finds, not only vowels disorganized, but also consonants. Some are displaced by other consonants, measurably more facile; others are dropped altogether. /D/ becomes /t/, as in /holt/, or is dropped, as in /tole/, /han'kerchief/, /bran-new/ and /fine/ (for /find/). In /ast/ (for /ask/) /t/ replaces /k/: when the same word is used in place of /asked/, as often happens, /e. g./, in "I /ast/ him his name," it shoulders out /ked/. It is itself lopped off in /bankrup/, /quan'ity/, /crep/, /slep/, /wep/, /kep/, /gris'-mill/ and /les/ (=/let's/ = /let us/), and is replaced by /d/ in /kindergarden/ and /pardner/. /L/ disappears, as in /a'ready/ and /gent'man/. /S/ becomes /tsh/, as in /pincers/. The same /tsh/ replaces /c/, as in /pitcher/ for /picture/, and /t/, as in /amachoor/. /G/ disappears from the ends of words, and sometimes, too, in the middle, as in /stren'th/ and /reco'nize/. /R/, though it is better preserved in American than in English, is also under pressure, as appears by /bust/, /stuck on/ (for /struck on/), /cuss/ (for /curse/), /yestiddy/, /sa's'parella/, /pa'tridge/, /ca'tridge/, /they is/ (for /there is/) and /Sadd'y/ (for /Saturday/). An excrescent /t/ survives in a number of words, /e. g./, /onc't/, /twic't/, /clos't/, /wisht/ (for /wish/) and /chanc't/; it is an heirloom from the English of two centuries ago. So is the final /h/ in /heighth/. An excrescent /b/, as in /chimbley/ and /fambly/, seems to be native. Whole