The Jeweller’s Window

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30586, 31 October 1964, Page 5

The Jeweller’s Window

[Specially written [or “The Press" by ARNOLD WALL]

Ought we to say INTerstice,' stressing the first syllable, or inTERSTice stressing the second? During the eighteenth century the authorities were divided with the majority in favour of the stress on the “TERST.” At the present day most of the authorities permit both pronunciations but Daniel Jones and Webster (New Collegiate Dictionary, 1957) prescribe inTERSTice only. John Walker in his first edition, 1791, put the stress on “ —terst,” but in 1806 on “int”; in later editions he allowed both, but with a strong preference for the stressed first syllable. He devoted much attention to the point. It seemed to him hard to understand why the majority of his predecessors favoured the stress on “ —terst”; he maintained “that there was not the shadow of a reason, from the original Latin, that we should place the stress on the second syllable.” If we do that, he argued, we should treat the other words of the group in the same way and say “inTEßval,” “inTEßview,” “inTEßfere,” and so on. Now why do we insist on the stressing which seemed to this good authority so unreasonable? It is true that the derivation from Latin “interstitium” provides no reason for it, but there is nevertheless a very strong and good one which he rather surprisingly failed to observe. This is the obvious fact that “interstice” if stressed on “int” has a most uncomfortable plural; “INTerstissiz” is hard, inTERSTices is easy and, as it happens, the word is far more often used in the plural than in the singular, in fact I doubt whether the singular form is ever used at usually expressed by “chink,” all. The singular idea is “crevice,” or “opening.”