Definition of "orthoepist" []

• A specialist in orthoepy, especially one of a number of 16th- and 17th-century scholars who proposed reforms of English spelling so that it would more systematically reflect pronunciation. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "It is doubtful whether on the day he died, he left a more perfect orthoepist living behind him."
• "To the correct orthoepist, several persons on the stage give offence in the pronunciation of the pronoun possessive MY -- speaking it in all cases with the full open Y, as it would rhyme to _fly_, which should only be when it is put in contradistinction to _thy_ or _his_, or any other pronoun possessive: in all other cases it should be sounded like _me_."