Pronouncing the “P”: Prescription or description in 19th- and 20th-century English dictionaries?
Summary
During the course of the 19th century, many English dictionaries carrying information on pronunciation directed that Greek-derived words beginning ps- should be pronounced with a silent initial p. In the relevant section of the OED, however (published 1909), the editor J. A. H. Murray (1837–1915) advised that, contrary to general practice, pronouncing the p was preferable, since it made clear the etymology of such words thus enhancing their intelligibility. Dictionaries after the OED have reported p as an optional pronunciation for many years subsequently — even as late as the 1970s — though their conflicting evidence supports the hypothesis that pronouncing the p was a dictionary chimaera never adopted by more than a handful of pedantic philologists. The article concludes that claims to descriptivism rather than prescriptivism, even by the most reputable dictionaries, should be taken with a pinch of salt.