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Richard Grant White, in his “Words and Their Uses,” says, “The pronunciation of either and neither has been much disputed, but, it would seem, needlessly. The best usage is even more controlling in pronunciation than in other departments of language; but usage itself is guided, although not constrained, by analogy. The analogically correct pronunciation of these words is what is called the Irish one, ayther and nayther; the diphthong having the sound it has in a large family of words in which the diphthong ei is the emphasized vowel sound—weight, freight, deign, vein, obeisance, etc. This sound, too, has come down from Anglo-Saxon times, the word in that language being aegper; and there can be no doubt that in this, as in some other respects, the language of the educated Irish Englishman is analogically correct, and in conformity to ancient custom. His pronunciation of certain syllables in ei which have acquired in English usage the sound of e long, as, for example, conceit, receive, and which he pronounces consayt, resayve, is analogically and historically correct. E had of old the sound of a long and i the sound of e, particularly in words which came to us from or through the Norman French. But ayther and nayther, being antiquated and Irish, analogy and the best usage require the common pronunciation eether and neether. For the pronunciation i-ther and ni-ther, with the i long, which is sometimes heard, there is no authority either of analogy or of the best speakers. It is an affectation, and in this country, a copy of a second-rate British affectation. Persons of the best education and the highest social position in England generally say eether and neether.”