Those who pronounce Harvard
Hahvad won"t find any precedent in the traditional pronunciation of the letter
R. Since Roman times R
has been thought of as the dog's letter, or the
snarling letter, because its sound resembles the snarling of a dog -
r-r-r-r. Ben Jonson, in his English Grammar Made For the Benefit of All
Strangers (1636), put it this way: "R is the dog's letter, and hurreth in
the sound; the tongue striking the palate, with a trembling about the
teeth." Shakespeare has Juliet's nurse in Romeo and Juliet call R the
dog-name, when she tells Romeo that his name and rosemary, an herb
associated with weddings, both begin with an R. In parts of America,
especially the Midwest, R is still pronounced as the dog letter, while in
other regions, particularly parts of New England and the South, it is
sounded as ah.