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"...instead merely marking certain vowels of the entry word with diacritics to indicate the specific sounds."
That include schwas? [innocent face-e]
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enthusiast
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enthusiast
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Whewell coined the word 'scientist', around 1830 I think.
That thing's just a syllable divider.
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OP
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I think Bean makes a lot of good points here. But I also think the citation shows how much our perception of science has changed from the early to late 19th century, and even up till today.
No science doth make known the first principles on which it buildeth.
RELATIVITY
PART I
THE SPECIAL THEORY OF RELATIVITY
I
PHYSICAL MEANING OF GEOMETRICAL PROPOSITIONS
In your schooldays most of you who read this book made acquaintance with the noble
building of Euclid's geometry, and you remember -- perhaps with more respect than love --
the magnificent structure, on the lofty staircase of which you were chased about for
uncounted hours by conscientious teachers. By reason of your past experience, you would
certainly regard everyone with disdain who should pronounce even the most out-of-the-way
proposition of this science to be untrue. But perhaps this feeling of proud certainty would
leave you immediately if some one were to ask you: "What, then, do you mean by the
assertion that these propositions are true?" Let us proceed to give this question a little
consideration.
Geometry sets out from certain conceptions such as "plane," "point," and "straight line," with
which we are able to associate more or less definite ideas, and from certain simple
propositions (axioms) which, in virtue of these ideas, we are inclined to accept as "true."
Then, on the basis of a logical process, the justification of which we feel ourselves compelled
to admit, all remaining propositions are shown to follow from these axioms, i.e. they are
proven. A proposition is then correct ("true") when it has been derived in the recognised
manner from the axioms. The question of the "truth" of the individual geometrical propositions
is thus reduced to one of the "truth" of the axioms.Now it has long been known that the
last question is not only unanswerable by the methods of geometry, but that it is in
itself entirely without meaning...... The concept "true" does not tally with the assertions
of pure geometry, because by the word "true" we are eventually in the habit of designating
always the correspondence with a "real" object; geometry, however, is not concerned with
the relation of the ideas involved in it to objects of experience, but only with the logical
connection of these ideas among themselves.
Albert Einstein
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>That thing's just a syllable divider.
no, it actually is meant to show the major empha'sis... follow the link for "pronuncia'tion" I gave above.
>That include schwas? [innocent face]
gee, I'm so glad you mentioned the schwa (in innocence): [insouciant glee]
Landau goes on, "He [Robert Secrist] even dares to question the almost universally praised adoption of the schwa in dictionary pronunciation systems, on the ground that it is unnecessary and is used as a catchall for a variety of different sounds... and is in reality neither phonetic or phonemic...." (hi bill!)
p.s. - I just had a revelation! WO'N's original question about the apostrophe wasn't in regard to sci'ence but rather Webster's(!) and he was just too magnanimous to point out my misapprehension. Webster's Dictionary of 1828 is indeed the last actual dictionary from Noah Webster (except for a second edition, published in 1841, two years before his death).
p.p.s. - In 1830 Joseph Worcester published the Comprehensive Pronouncing and Explanatory Dictionary of the English Language. he was accused a few years later of plagiarizing by Webster. Worchester had worked on the 1828 dictionary, but was able to prove that he had been working on his own before he began abridging Webster's and show considerable differences between his work and Webster's.
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He even dares to question the ... adoption of the schwa ... on the ground that it is ... used as a catchall for a variety of different sounds
I got points taken off on a linguistics test in college one time for spelling my name wrong. I still maintain that the i sound that I use in David is, if less than a full [i], more than a schwa.
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old hand
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I got points taken off on a linguistics test in college one time for spelling my name wrongum . . . shouldn't you know how to spell your name by the time you get to college? 
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I find it interesting that the wordscience means knowledge in Latin, whereas mathematics means the same thing in Greek. Today we consider mathematics to be a science, but do not consider science to be only a branch of mathematics, one term having generalized more than the other.
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The Bean said...
Webster's (1828)dictionary is a strange beast...it uses biblical and religious quotes as sample sentences.
Milo said...
Well burn down the barn, Bean, a little morality want kill us. Back then, Webster and the gang realized that words don't exist in a vacuum, but rather they exist in accord with all aspects of human endeavors. In comparison, our guarded, contemporary dictionaries seem computer generated.
Then Jackie read and then asked...
No sci'ence doth make known the first principals on which it buildeth. This isn't true today is it?
And Milo answered...
Yes, it is true today, but how refreshing to hear a direct and un-mealy mouth admission.
Then Einstein said...
I agree with Milo. Didn't yall read my rambling post?
Finally Faldage spoke...
(Concerning a pedantry) AEnigma suggests [sissor]. I take that to mean cut it out.
Then Ray Bradbury sang in sing-song...
Robot mice and robot men run 'round in robot towns.
And at last, Kurt Vonnegut said...
And so it goes...
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And in a spirit of agreement, to show what a thoroughly nice guy I am, and to claim kinship on some level with Kurt Vonnegut, I say:
Yes. And so, indeedy, it does go.
But where to? he asked plaintively.
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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