Boston. But it was as much an affectation in those [Pg060] days as it is today, and Webster indicated the fact pretty plainly in his "Dissertations." How, despite his opposition, the broad /a/ prevailed East of the Connecticut river, and how, in the end, he himself yielded to it, and even tried to force it upon the whole nation--this will be rehearsed in the next chapter. The colonists remained faithful much longer than the English to various other vowel-sounds that were facing change in the eighteenth century, for example, the long /e/-sound in /heard/. Webster says that the custom of rhyming /heard/ with /bird/ instead of with /feared/ came in at the beginning of the Revolution. "To most people in this country," he adds, "the English pronunciation appears like affectation." He also argues for rhyming /deaf/ with /leaf/, and protests against inserting a /y/-sound before the /u/ in such words as /nature/. Franklin's authority stands behind /git/ for /get/. This pronunciation, according to Menner,[49] was correct in seventeenth century England, and perhaps down to the middle of the next century. So was the use of the Continental /i/-sound in /oblige/, making it /obleege/. It is probable that the colonists clung to these disappearing usages much longer than the English. The latter, according to Webster, were unduly responsive to illogical fashions set by the exquisites of the court and by popular actors. He blames Garrick, in particular, for many extravagant innovations, most of them not followed in the colonies. But Garrick was surely not responsible for the use of a long /i/-sound in such words as /motive/, nor for the corruption of /mercy/ to /marcy/. Webster denounced both of these barbarisms. The second he ascribed somewhat lamely to the fact that the letter /r/ is called /ar/, and proposed to dispose of it by changing the /ar/ to /er/.