The Mechanics and Rhetoric of Conversation : Page 32

Perhaps it is well to suggest here that, without disrespect to the dictionary, it remains as true of speech as of everything else: When in Rome do as the Romans do. In any locality or situation that speech, that turn of expression and pronunciation, is best which is most like that of everyone else, which calls least attention to itself. What, for example, is one to do with aunt} Conscious that the dictionary's preference is for aunt as in arm, you also realize that if "way out west in Kansas" you pronounced it that way, you would provoke a dubious whistle. In such a case, what will you do? The following story is told of an Irishman at a University of Pennsylvania public-speaking class: