VMMKIMMMMaVMnBailjN UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. SAN DIEGO 3 1822 00855 6987 hm-w r LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OP CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO ^ THI8 %u\\ or ^Oliritijc lirStii liiui^jital ^?v^^^-/"^>^ oil the Occasion of Jiis (\an|il(liug a Coiirsp ol' luhuatioii IN THAT INSTITUTION. JU)', /'^^ /!^ . hoiiM' ((nvcnior. inlilFfff'i -, 3 1822 00855 6987 ] Co 20 VV3 Central University Library University of California, San Diego Note: This item Is subject to recall after two weeks. Date Due MOW " 10Q-; 1 CI 39 (1/91) UCSDLib. la Qji^yr- J^ CRITICAL PRONOUNCING DICTIONARY AKD EXPOSITOR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE; TO WHICH AKE PUBFIXED IPrhrdpIcs 0f dpn^TrsIj ^rommdation: THE WHOLE IXTERSPBRSED WITH OBSERVATIONS, ETYMOLOGICAL, CRITICAL, AND GRA^IMATICAL. By JOHN WALKER, AUTHOK OP "ELEIIEKTS OP ELpCOTION," " KHTMING EICIIONAEr," ETO. WITH A SUPPLEMENT, CONSISTING OF UPWARDS OF FIVE THOUSAND NEW AVOBDS AND SCIENTIFIC TEEMS RECENTLY INCORPORATED WITH THE LANGUAGE. By EDWARD SMITH, FELLOW OF THE EDDCATIOMAL INSTITUTE OF SCOTLAND. LONDON: T. NELSON AND SONS, PATERNOSTER ROW^ EDINBURGH; AND NEW YORE:, JUDCCCLXVI. PREFACE. 1"* EW subjects have of late years more employed the pens of every class of critics, than the im- provement of the Englisli Language. The greatest abilities in the nation have been exerted in cultivating and reforming it ; nor have a thousand minor critics been wanting to add their mite of amendment to their native tongue. Johnson, whose large mind and just taste made him ca- pable of enriching and adorning the Language with original composition, has condescended to the drudgery of disentangling, explaining, and arranging it, and left a lasting monument of his abi- lity, labour, and patience ; and Dr. Lowth, the politest scholar of the age, has veiled his superi- ority in his short Introduction to English Grammar. The ponderous folio has gravely vindicat- ed the rights of analogy ; and the light ephemera! sheet of news has corrected errors in Gram- mar, as well as in Politics, by slyly marking them in Italics. Nor has the improvement stopped here. While Johnson and Lowth have been insensibly ope- rating on the orthography and construction of our Language, its pronunciation has not been ne- glected. The importance of a consistent and regular pronunciation was too obvious to be over- looked ; and the want of this consistency and regularity has induced several ingenious men to endeavour at reformation ; who, by exhibiting the regularities of pronunciation, and pointing out its analogies, have reclaimed some words that were not irrecoverably fixed in a wrong sound and prevented others from being perverted by ignorance or caprice. Among those writers who deserve the first praise on this subject, is Mr. Elphinston ; who, in his Principles of the English Language, has reduced the chaos to a system ; and, by a deep investiga- tion of the analogies of our tongue, has laid the foundation of a just and regular pronunciation. After him. Dr. Kenrick contributed a portion of improvement by his Rhetorical Dictionary • in which the words are divided into syllables as they are pronounced, and figures placed over the vowels, to indicate their different sounds. But this gentleman has rendered his Dictionary ex tremely imperfect, by entirely omitting a great number of words of doubtful and diflUcult pronun- ciation — those very words for which a Dictionary of this kind would be most consulted. To him succeeded Mr. Sheridan, who not only divided the words into syllables, and placed fi- gures over the vowels as Dr. Kenrick had done, but, by spelling these syllables as they are pro- nounced, seemed to complete the idea of a Pronouncing Dictionary, and to leave but little expec- tation of future improvement. It must, indeed, be confessed, that Mr. Sheridan's Dictionary is greatly superior to every other that preceded it ; and his method of conveying the sound of words, by spelling them as they are pronounced, is highly rational and useful. — But here since- rity obliges me to stop. The numerous instances I have given of impropriety, inconsistency, and want of acquaintance with the analogies of the Language, sufficiently show how imperfect* I think his Dictionary is upon the whole, and what ample room was left for attempting another thatmio'ht better answer the purpose of a Guide to Pronunciation. The last writer on this subject is Mr. Nares, who, in his Elements of OrthiJepy, has shown a clearness of method and an extent of observation which deserve the highest encomiums. His Preface alone proves him an elegant writer, as well as a philosophical observer of Language • and his Alphabetical Index, referring near five thousand words to the rules for pronouncing them is a new and useful method of treating the subject; but he seems, on many occasions, to have mis- taken the best usage, and to have paid too little attention to the first principles of pronunciation. Thus I have ventured to give my opinion of my rivals and competitors, and I hope without envy or self-conceit. Perhaps it would have been policy in me to have been silent on this head for fear of putting the Public in mind that others have written on the subject as well as myself' but this is a narrow policy, which, under the colour of tenderness to others, is calculated to raise ourselves at their expense. A writer who is conscious he deserves the attention of the Public (and unless he is thus conscious he ought not to write) must not only wish to be compared with those who have gone before him, but will promote the comparison, by informing his readers what others have done, and on what he founds his pretensions to a preference ; and if this be done vdth fairness and without acrimony, it can be no more inconsistent with modesty, than it is with honesty and plain dealing. The work I have ofl'erea on the subject has, I hope, added something to the publick stock : it not only exhibits the principles of pronunciation on a more extensive plan than others have done divides the words into syllables, and marks the sounds of the vowels like Dr. Kennck, spells Che words as they are pronounced like Mr. Sheridan, and directs the inspector to the rule by the word like Mr Nares ; but, where words are subject to difierent pronunciations, it shows the reasons from analogy for each, produces authorities for one side and the other, and points out the pronun- ciation which is preferable. In short, I have endeavoured to unite the science of Mr. Elphinston, the method of Mr. Nares, and the general utility of Mr. Sheridan ; and, to add to these ad van* tages, have given critical observations on such words as are subject to a diversity of pronuncia- tion, and have invited the inspector to decide according to analogy and the best usage. But to all works of this kind there lies a formidable objection ; which is, that the pronuncLa- V* ^S.f "'"''P'?'.^?- ^Z^' ^^?' P^' ^^^' *^*- *^-' ^'^' ^8". 530; and the words A>,um€. CoUect, Covdou,. Dona- ^vt, Sphtmera, Satuty, &e. and the inseparable preposition .Cfj. i.u<«;«uiM. i>vna- '1 PKEFAOE. tion of a Laneuat^e is necessarily indefinite and fugitive, and that all endeavours to deline- ate or settle it are viiin. Dr. Johnson, in his Grammar, prefixed to his Dictionary, says: " Most of the writers of English Grammar have given long tables of words pronounced other- wise than they are written ; and seem not sufficiently to have considered, that, of English, as of all living tongues, there ir, a double pronunciation ; one, cursory and colloquial ; the other, regu- lar and solemn. The cursory pronunciation is always vague and uncertain, being made difi'erent, in different mouths, by negligence, unskilfulness, or affectation. The solemn pronunciation, though by no means immutable and permanent, is yet always les3 remote from the orthography, and less liable to capricious innovation. They have, however, generally formed their tables ac- cording to the cursory speech of those with whon-i they happened to converse, and, concluding that the whole nation combines to vitiate language in one manner, have often established the jar- gon of the lowest of the people as the model of speech. For pronunciation the best general rule is, to consider those as the most elegant speakers wlio deviate least from the written words." Without any derogation from the character of Dr. Johnson, it may be asserted, that in these observations we do not perceive that justness and accuracy of thinking for which he is so remark- able. It would be doing great injustice to him, to suppose that he meant to exclude all possibi- lity of conveying the actual pronunciation of many words that depart manifestly from their or- thography, or of those that are written alike, and pronounced differently : and inversely. He has marked these differences with great propriety himself, in many places of his Dictionary ; and it is to be regretted that he did not extend these remarks farther. It is impossible, therefore, he could suppose, that, because the almost imperceptible glances of colloquial pronunciation were not to be caught and described by the pi-n, that the very perceptible difference between the initial ac- cented syllables of money and wionifor, or the final unaccented syllable oi finite and infinite, could not be sufficiently marked upon paper. Cannot we show that cellar, a vault, and seller, one who sells, have exactly the same sound ; or that the monosyllableyiitt, and the first syllable of fulmin- ate, are sounded differently, because there are some words in which solemnity will authorize a different shade of pronunciation from familiarity ? Besides, that colloquial pronunciation which is perfect, is so much the language of solemn speaking, that, perhaps, there is no more difference than between the same picture painted to be viewed near and at a distance. The symmetry in both is exactly the same ; and the distinction lies only in the colouring. Tlie English Language, in this respect, seems to have a great superiority over the French, which pronounces many letters in the poetic and solemn style, that are wholly silent in the prosaic and famliar. But if a so- lemn and familiar pronunciation really exists in our language, is it not the business of a gram- rasrian to mark both ? And if he cannot point out the precise sound of unaccented syllableB, (for these only are liable to obscurity,) he niay, at least, give those sounds which approach the nearest, and by this means become a little more useful than those who so liberally leave every thing to the ear and taste of the speaker. The truth is. Dr. Johnson seems to have had a confused idea of the distinctness and indistinct- ness with which, on solemn or familiar occasions, we sometimes pronounce the unaccented vow- els ; and with respect to these, it must be owned, that his remarks are not entirely without foun- dation. The English Language, with respect to its pronunciation, is evidently divisible into ac- cented and unaccented sounds. The accented syllables, by being pronounced with greater force than the unaccented, have their vowels as clearly and distinctly sounded as any given note in music; while the unaccented vowels, for want of the stress, are apt to slide into an obscurity of sound, which, though sufficiently distinguishable to the ear, cannot be so definitely marked out to the eye by other sounds as those vowels that arc under the accent. Thus some of the vowels, when neither under the accent, nor closed by a consonant, have a longer or a shorter, an opener or a closer sound, according to the solemnity or familiarity, the deliberation er rapidity of our de- livery. This will be perceived in the sound of the e in emotion,* of tiio o in obedience, and of the u in monument. In the hasty pronunciation of commo.'i speaking, the e in emotion is often shortened, as if spelt im-mo-tio?i ; the o in obedience shortened and obscured, as if written ub-be-di- ence ; and the u in m.onumctit changed into e, as if written mon-ne-m^nt i while the deliberate and elegant sound of these vowels is the long open sound they have, when the accent is on them, in equal, over, and unit: but a, when unaccented, .seems to iiave no such diversity; it has generally a short obscure sound, whether ending a syllable, or closed by a consonant. Thus the a in ab'e has its definite and distinct sound ; but the same letter in tolerable f goes into an obscure indefi- nite sound approaching the short u ; nor can any solemnity or deliberation give it the long open sound it has in the first word. Thus, by distinguishing vowels into their accented and unaccent- ed sounds, we are enabled to see clearly what Dr. Johnson saw but obscurely ; and by this dis- tinction entirely to answer the objection. Equally indefinite and uncertain is his general rule, tliai those are to be considered as the most elegant speakers who deviate least from the written words. It is certain, where custom is equal, this ought to take place ; and if the whole body of respectable English speakers were equally di- vided in their pronunciation of the word busy, one half pronouncing it bew-xc,\ and the other half bix-Ke, that the former ought to be accounted the most elegant speakers ; but till this be tli£ • Sw the wonis Collect, Commend, Dtspatch, VornffUck, Kffiice, Occarion. t I'lSucyj:!*, No. 88, Hit. t Principles, No. 17b. PTvEFACE. 5 CQ39, the latter pronunciation, though a gross deviation from orthography, will still be esteem- ed the more elegant. Dr. Johnson's general rule, therefore, can only take place where custom has not plainly decided ; but, unfortunately for the English Language, its orthography and pro- nunciation are so widely ditferent, that Dr. Watts and Dr. Jones lay it down as a maxim in their Treatises on Spelling, that all words which can be sounded different ways must be written according to that sound which is most distant from the true pronunciation ; and consequently, in such a Language, a Pronouncing Dictionary must be of essential use. But still it may be objected to such an undertaking, that the fluctuation of pronunciation is so great as to render all attempts to settle it useless. What will it avail us, it may be said, to know the pronunciation of the present day, if in a few years it will be altered ? And how are we to know even what the present pronunciation is, when the same words are often differently pronounced by different speakers, and those, perhaps, of equal numbers and reputation ? To this it may be answered, that the fluctuation of our Language, with respect to its pronunciation, seems to have been greatly exaggerated.* Except a very few single words, which are generally noticed in the following Dictionary, and the words where e comes before r, followed by another consonant, aq tnerchant, tervice, &c. the pronunciation of th9 Language is probably in the same state in which it was a century ago ; and had the same attention been then paid to it as now, it is not likely even that change would have happened. The same may be observed of those words which are differently pronounced by different speakers : if the analogies of the Language Lad been better understood, it is scarcely conceivable that so many wo:ds in polite usage would have a diversity of pronunciation, which is at once so ridiculous and embarrassing ; nay, perhaps it may be with con- fidence asserted, that if the analogies of the Language were sufficiently known, and so near at hand as to be applicable, on inspection, to every word, that not only many words which are wa- vering between contrary usages would be settled in their true sound, but that many words, which are fvxed by custom to an improper pronunciation, would by degrees grow regular and analogi- cal ; and those which are so already would be secured in their purity by a knowledge of their regularity and analogy. But the utility of a work of this kind is not confined to those parts of language where the im- propriety is gross and palpable : besides such imperfections in pronunciation as disgust every ear not accustomed to them, there are a thousand insensible deviations, in the more minute parts of language, as the unaccented syllable may be called, which do not strike the ear so forcibly as to mark any direct impropriety in particular words, but cccasion only such a general imperfection as gives a bad impression upon the whole. Speakers, with these imperfections, pass very well in common conversation ; but when they are required to pronounce with emphasis, and for that pur- pose to be more distinct and definite in their uttersnce, here their ear fails them : tl.ey have been accustomed only to loose cursory speaking, and, for want of firmness of pronunciation, are like thoae painters who draw the muscular exertions of the human body without any knowledge of a- natomy. This is one reason, perhaps, why we find the elocution of so few people agreeable when they read or speak to an assembly, while so few offend us by their utterance in common conver- RULES TO BE OBSERVED BY THE NATIVES OF IRELAND IN OEDEE TO OBTAIN A JUST PRONUNCIATION OF ENGLISH. A.> Mr. Sheridan was a native of Ireland, and faad the best opportunities of understanding those peculiarities of pronunciation which obtain there, I shall extract his observations on that subject as the best general direction, and add a few of my own, by way of supplement, which I hope will render this article of instruction still more complete. The reader will be pleased to take notice, that as I have made a different arrangement of the vowels, and adopted a notation different from that of Mr. Sheridan, I am obliged to make use of different figures to mark the vowels, but stili such as perfectly correspond to his. " The chief mistakes made by the Irish in pronouncing English, lie for the most part in the sounds of the two first vowels, a and e ; the former being generally sounded i by the Irish, as in the word b&r, in most words where it is pronounced k, as in diy, by the English. Thus the Irish say, p&tron, matron, the vowel £ hav- mg the same sound as in the word father ; while the English pronounce them as if written pay- tron, maytron. The following rule, strictly at- tended to, will rectify this mistake through the whole language. " When the vowel a finishes a syllable, and has the accent on it, it is invariably pronounced k, as in dhy, by the English. To this rule there are but three exceptions in the whole language, to be found in the words father, papll, mami. The Irish may think also the word rather an ex- ception, aa well as father / and so it would ap- pear to be in their manner of pronouncing it rS- tner, laying the accent on the vowel o ; but in the English pronunciation the consonant th is taken into the first syllable, as rath'er, which n^akes the difference. " Whenever a consonant follows the vowel a in the same syllable, and the accent is on the consonant, the vowel a has always its fourth sound, as hit, m&n ; as also the same sound lengthened when it precedes the letter r, as fSr, bir, though the accent be on the vowel ; as like- wise when it precedes /»», as b41m, psilm. The Irish, ignorant of this latter exception, prononnce all words of that structure as if they w^re writ- ten bavfm, ptawm, quawm, cawm, &c In ths third sound of a, marked by different combina- tions of vowels or consonants, such ■ as au, in Paul; au>, in law; afl, in call; aid, in bald; ali, in talk, &c. the Irish make no mistake, ex- cept in that of Im, as before mentioned. " The second vowel, e, is for the most part sounded ee by the English, when the accent is upon it; whilst the Irish in most words give ii the sound of Elcnder k, as in haie. This sound oti [ee] is marked by different combinations of vowels, such aa ea, ei, e final mute, ee, and te. In the two last combinations of ee anil ie, the Irish never mistake ; such as in meet, seem,fidd^ beHeoe, Sec but in all the others, they almost n- niversally change the sound of i into k. Thus in the combination ea, they pronounce the words tea, tea, please, as if they were spelt tay, say, plays { instead of tee, see, pleese. The English constantly give this sound to ea whenever the accent is on the vowel e, except in the following words, great, a pear, a bear, to bear, to forbear, to swear, to tear, to wear. In all which the e has the sound of k in hate. For want of know- ing these exceptions, the gentlemen cf Ireland, after some time of residence in London, are apt to fall into the general rule, and pronounce theso words as if spelt greet, beer, suxer, &c. " JSi is also sounded ee by the English, and as k by the Irish ; thus the words decdt, receive, are pronounced by them as if written desate, re- cave. £i is always sounded ee, except when g g follows it, as in the words reign, feign, deign, &c as also in the words rein (of a bridle), rein~ deer, vein, drein, veil, heir, which are pronounc- ed like ram, vain, drain, vail, air. *' The final mute e makes the preceding e in the same syllable, when accented, have the sound of ee, as in the words supreme, sincere, replete. This rule is almost universally broken through by the Irish, who pronounce all such words as if written suprarae, sinsire, replete, &c. There are but two exceptions to this rule in the English pronunciation, which are the words the^, where. " In the way of marking this sound, by a double e, as thus, [«,] as th« Irish never make any mistakes, the best method for all who want to acquire the right pronunciation of these seve- ral combinations is, to suppose that ea, ei, and e, attended by a final mute e, are all spelt witii a double €. " Ey is always sounded like I, by the Eng- lish, when the accent is upon it ; as in the words prey, convey, pronounced pray, comoay. To this there are but two exceptions, in the words k^y and liy, sounded kee, lee. The Irish, in attempt- ing to pronounce like the English, often give the same sound to ey, as usually belongs to a ; thus, for prey, convey, they say, pree, convee. " A strict observation of these few rules, with a due attention to the very few exceptions enu- merated above, will enable the well educated natives of Ireland to pronounce their words ex- actly in the same way as the more polished part of the inhabitants of England do, so far as tha vowels are concerned. The diphtbon;rs they com- mit no fault in, eicept ia the Bouna of ij which BUIiES TO BE OBSERVED BY THE NATIVES OF IRELAND. hns been already taken notice of in tiie Gram- mar:* where, likewise, Uie onlydiflerer.ee =- pronouncing any of tlie consonants has been pointed out ; which is, the thickening the sound | of d and t, in certain situation3 ; and an easy ■ method proposed of correcting this habit.f " In order to complete the whole, I shall now . give a list of such deUched words as do not i come under any of the above rules, and are pro- nounced differently in Ireland from what they | Rrc in England : Jrith Pronuncuitton. ch^arful, fearful, dSir, fl64r. gSth'er, (gather) bdard, bill, b&sh, p&sh, P&ll. pU'pit, cilf, kStch, (catch) c5rse, (coarse) c&rse, (course) oiurt, malicious, pftdding, quish, (quash) iSzh'ir, (leisure) cli'mour, Mi'kil, (Michael) drilh, (drought) sirch, (search) sSurce, (source;) c&shion, strinth, (strength) l^nth, (length) strtv, (strove) dr?iv, (drove) EngHsn Pronunciation. chSr'fuL fSr'ful. d&rei flAre. gipe. gith'er bSrd. o&ll. bfish. pfish. pftll. pfil'pit. cilf. citch. c6arse. c6arse. cAurt. mallsh'us. p&dding. qu5sh. l^zhire. clim'mur Ml'kel. drofit. - s^rch. sirce. cfishion. strSngkth. iJngkth. strAve. drAve. numer of pronouncing thedl^jh- Ihong 1 1> pointed out ; a>« Iriih pronouncing It ' Vide page 11, -wliere the true i _ ; much in the same nuuiner aa the French. t " The letter d hfl» aJwayi the tame Kund by those who jro- oounce Engllih well ; but the pro^lndali, parUcularly the Irish, Scotch, and Webh, In manj words thicken the sound by a mliture of breath. Thus, though thej loand the d rtght hi tht po^lUTe loud and fcroad, in the comparati'e degree they thicken It br an asrlratlon, and sound It «« If It were written loudKtr, bnadtter. This Ticious pro- nunciation U produced by pushing the tonffue forward so as to touch the teeth in forming that sound ; and the way to cure it U easy ; for •o they can pronounce the d properly In the word Umd, let them rest a •Ittle upon that syllable, keeping the tonpie In the position of forming d, and then Irt them separate It from the uirper gum without piuhlng a forward, and the sound itr will be produced of courie ; for the or- Ean being left In She position of sonndlng d at the end of the syllable hud, is necessarily In the position ./ forming the same d in utterln- the last syllable, unless It makes a new moiement, as in the case of rrotmdiiiltsoait tourh the teeth. This Utter is sometimes, though (\ot .>ften quiescent, as in the woltU handkerck.^, handsome, handtfl. "In pronoonoing the letter (, the I lish and other provincials thick, en the sotmd, as was before mentioned Mflth regard to the d; for M- trr. they say bettkcr ; for u«er, vtther ; and so on In all words of that .aLctuTC. This faulty manner arises from the fame cause th.tt was romtioned as affecting the sound of d ; I mean the protruding of tha •cnetic to m tc tcuch the teeth, and U curable o.Tly In the same way." Irish Pronuncijitinn. Engtiih JPn>nt/nc{(tt!0n t^n'uie, tt^nure. tin'able, tenable, wrath, wrlth. wrilh, (vrroth) wr&th. fa'rewell, fir'weL rAd, rAde. strAde, strAd. shAne, skAn. shlsm, (schism) slzm. v.hi'refore, wh^r'fore. therefore, thSrTore. br^th, (breadth) brSdth. cowld, (cold) cAld. bowld, (bold) bAld. cA'fer, cAffer. endi'vour, end^v'ur. fit, (foot) f&t misch^'evous, mls'chivoua I In'ion, (onion) im'yun. I p&t, pfit. 1 r^tsh, (reach) rdach. squil'dron, squAd'rua. I zaMous, zll'lus. za'lot, z^l'lut. 1 " These, after the closest attention, are all the [words, not included in the rules before laid j down, that I have been able to collect, in which the well-educated natives of Ireland differ from those of England." I shall make no observations on the accuracy of this list, but desire my reader to observe, tha» the strongest characteristics of the pronunciation of Ireland is the rough jarring pronunciation of the letter R, and the aspiration or rough breath- ing before all the accented vowels. (For the true sound of R, see that letter in the Princi- ples, No. 419.) And for the rough breathing or aspiration of the vowels, the pupil should be told not to bring the voice suddenly from the breast, but to speak, as it were, from the mouth only. It may be observed too, that the natives of Ireland pronounce rm at the end of a word so distinctly as to form two separate syllables. Thus storm and Jhrm seem sounded by them as if writ- ten gtaw^rum, fa-rum I while the English sound the r 60 soft and so close to the m, that it seems pronounced nearly as if written stawm, faam. Nearly the same observations are applicable to Im. When these letters end a word, they are, in Ireland, pronounced at such a distance, that helm and realm sound as if written kel-um and rel-lum , but in England the / and m are pro- nounced as close as possible, and so as to form but one syllable. To remedy this, it will be necessary for the pupil to make a collection ol words terminating with thesu consonants, and to practise them over till a true pronunciatioii is acquired. RULES TO BE OBSERVED BY THE NATIVES OF SCOTLAND FOll ATTAINING A JUST PRONUNCIATION OF ENGLISH. X HAT pronunciation which distinguishes the inhabitants of Scotland is of a very different kind from that of Ireland, and may be divided into the quantity, quality, and accentuation of the vowels. With respect to quantity, it may be observed, that the Scotch pronounce almost all their accented vowels long. Tlius, if I am not mistaken, they would pronounce habit, hay-bit ; tepid, tee-pid ; sinner, see-ner ; conscious, cone- shui i and tub^ect, soob-Ject ;* it is not pretended, however, that every accented vowel is so pro- nounced, but that such a pronunciation is very general, and particularly of the t. Tills vowel is short in English pronunciation, where the other vowels are long ; thus, evasion, adhesion, emotion, confusion, have the a, e, o, and u, long ; ' and in these instances the Scotch would pro- nounce them like the English : but in vision, decision. Sec- where the English pronounce the t «hort, the Scotch lengthen this letter by pro- nouncing it like ee, as if the words were writ- ten vee-sion, decee-sion, &c. and this peculiarity is universal. The best way, therefore, to cor- rect this, will be to make a collection of the most usual words which have the vowel short, and to pronounce them daily till a habit is form- ed See Principles, No. 507. With respect to the quality of the vowels, it may be observed, that the inhabitants of Scot- land are apt to pronounce the a like aw, where the English give it the slender sound : thus Sa- tan is pronounced Sawtan, &nd. fatal, fawtal. It may be remarked too, that the Scotch give this sound to the a preceded by vs, according to the general rule, without attending to the excep- tions, Principles, No. 88 ; and thus, instead of making wax, wafl, and twang, rhyme with tax, (haft, and hang, they pronounce them so as to rhyme with box, soft, and song. The short e in bed, fed, red, &c. borders too much upon tf:e English sound of a in bad, lad, mad, &c. and the short i in bid, lid, rid, too much on the Eng- lish sound of e in bed, led, red. To correct this error, it would be useful to collect the long and • That this Is the general mode of pronouncing these words in Scotland, is indispuuble : and it is highly probable that the Scotch have preserred the old English pronunciation, from wiiich the Eng- lish themselTes have insensibly departed. Dr. Hicks observed long aco, that the Scotch SaxonUed in their language much more than the Englisii ; and it is scarcely to be doubted that a i/Stuation nearer to the Continent, and a greater commercial intercourse irith other na- doiu, made the Englilh admit of numberless chajie^s which never ex- tended to Scotland. About the reicm of Queen Elliabeth. when the Oreei and Latin languages were cutlivated, and the pedantry of show- ing an acquaintance witn them became fa^unabte, it is not Improb.-i- bie that an alteration in the quantity *2, 643. — See Drarrvu short sounds of these vowels, and to pronounce the long ones first, and to shorten them by de- grees till they are perfectly short ; at the same time preserving the radical sound of the vowel in both. Thus the correspondent long sounds to the e in bed, fed, red, are bade, fade, rade ; and that of the short i in bid, lid, rid, and bead, lead, reed ; and the former of these classes will natu- rally lead the ear to the true sound of the latter, the only difference lying in the quantity. The short a in not, lodge, got, &c. is apt to slide into the short M, as if the words were written nut, ludge, gut, &c. To rectify this, it should be remembered, that this o is the short sound of aw, and ought to have the radical sound of the deep a in ball. Thus the radical sound corresponding to the o in not, Cot, tot, is found in naught, caught, sought, &c. and theia long sounds, like the former, should be abbreviated into the short ones. But what will tend greatly to clear the difficulty will be, to remember that only those words which are collected in the Principles, No. 165, have the j sounded like short u when the accent is upon it : and with respect to u in bull, full, pidl, &c. it may be observed, that the pronunciatioa peculi. ar to the English is only found in the words e. numerated. Principles, No. 174. In addition to what has been said, it may be observed, that oo in food, mood, moon, toon, &c, which ought always to have a long sound, is ge- nerally shortened in Scotland to that middle sound of the « in bull : and it must be remem- bered, tliAt wool, wood, good, hood, stood, foot, are the only words where this sound of oo ought to take place. The accentuation, both in Scotland and Ire- land, (if by accentuation we mean the stress, and not the kind of stress,) is so much the same as that of England, that I cannot recollect many words in which they difffr. Indeed, if it were not so, the versification of each country would be different : for as English verse is formed by accent or stress, if this accent or stress were up- on different syllables in different countries, what Is verse in England would not be verse in Scot- land or Ireland ; and this sufficiently shows how very indefinitely the word accent is generally used. Mr. Elphinston, who must be allowed to be a competent judge in this ca.se, tells us, that in Scotland they pronounce siUnce, bias, canvas, sen- tence, triumph, comfort, tolace, construe, rescue, respite, govern, harass, ransack, cancel, with tJie accent on the last syllable instead of the first. To this list iiiay be added the word menace, which they pronounce as if written mendts i and though they place the accent on the last syllable 10 EULES TO BE OBSERVED BY THE NATWES OF SCOTLAND, ETC. oi canai, like the English, they broaden the a and prace ; instead o{ these and those, they asy theas in the last syllable, as if the word were spelt canawl. It may be farther observed, that they place an accent on the comparative adverb as, in the phrases as much, as little, as many, as great. Sec. vrhile the English, except in some very par- ticular emphatical cases, lay no stress on this word, but pronounce these phrases like words of and thoce ; and instead of azure and osier, they say ayshtr and osher ; and for jail, chail. Thus there are nine distinct consonant sounds which, to the Welsh, are entirely useless. To speak with propriety, therefore, the Welsh ought for some time to pronounce the flat consonants and as- pira'tions only ; that is, they o*ight not only to two or three syllables witnout any accent on the pronounce them where the letters require the flat sound, but even where they require the sharp sound ; this will be the best way to acquire a ha- bit ; and when this is once done, a distinction will be easily made, and a just pronunciation more readily acquired. There is scarcely any part of England, remote from the capital, where a different system of pronunciation does not prevaiL As in Wales they pronounce the sharp consonants for the flat, 80 in Somersetshire they pronounce many of the flat instead of the sharp : thus for Somersetihint, they say Zomerxetxhire j for father, vather ; for tAink, THink ; and for sure, th\ire.\. There are dialects peculiar to Cornwall, Lan- cashire, Yorkshire, and every distant county in England ; but as a consideration of these would lead to a detail too minute for the present occa- sion, I shall conclude these remarks with a few observations on the peculiarities of my country- men, the Cockneys ; who, as they are the models of pronunciation to the distant provinces, ought to be the more scrupulously correct. first. But besides the mispronunciation of single words, there is a tone of voice with which these words are accompanied, that distinguishes a na- tive of Ireland or Scotland as much as an im- proper sound of the letters. — This is vulgarly, and, if it does not mean stress only, but the kind of stress, I think, not improperly, called the ac- cent.* For though there is an asperity in the Irish dialect, and a drawl in the Scotch, inde- pendent of the slides or inflections they make use of, yet it may with confidence be affirmed, that much of the peculiarity which distinguishes these dialects may be reduced to a predominant use of one of these slides. Let any one who has sufficiently studied the speaking voice to dis- tinguish the slides, observe the pronunciation of an Irishman and Scotchman, who have much of the dialect of their country, and he will find that the former abounds with the falling, and the latter with the rising inflection ;f and if this be the case, a teacher, if he understands these slides, ought to direct his instruction so as to remedy the imperfection. But as avoiding the wrong, and seizing the right at the same instant, is per- haps too great a task for human powers, I would advise a native of Ireland, who has much of the accent, to pronounce almost all his words, and end all his sentences, with the rising slide ; and a Scotchman, in the same manner, to use the falling inflection : this will, in some measure, counteract the natural propensity, and bids fair- er for bringing the pupil to that nearly equal mixture of both slides which distinguishes the English speaker, tlian endeavouring at first to catch the agreeable variety. For this purpose, the teacher ought to pronounce all the single words in the lesson with the falling inflexion to a Scotchman, and with the rising to an Irishman ; and should frequently give the pauses in a sen- tence the same inflexions to each of these pu- pils, where he would vary them to a native of England. But while the human voice remains unstudied, there is little expectation that this distinction of the slides should be applied to these useful purposes. Besides a peculiarity of inflexion, which I take Jo be a falling circumflex, directly opposite to that of the Scotch, the Welsh pronounce the sharp consonants and aspirations instead of the flat. (See Principles, No, 29, 41.) — Thus for fr^ tliey say pick ; for blood, ploot ; and for gocd coot. Instead of virtue and vice, they say Jirtue and Jice ; instead of teal and praise, they say teal ' See thli moro fiUly exemplified In ElemcnU of Elocution, toI. II. (ragt la. f Or rnlhrjr the rielnj; circumflex. For an explanAtion ojT Ihlft tn- ioa, see lihotoHoal QiainnuiA. 8d ed. p. 78^ ' FmsT Fault of the Londonebs — Pro- nouTicing s indistinctly after St. The letter s after st, from the very difficult)' of its pronunciation, is often sounded inarticu. lately. The inhabitants of London, of the low- er order, cut the knot, and pronounce it in a dis- tinct syllable, as if e were before it, but this is to be avoided as the greatest blemish in speak- ing : the three last letters in posts, Jists, mists, &C. must all be distinctly heard in one syllable, and without permitting the letters to coalesce. For the acquiring of this sound, it will be pro- per to select nouns that end in st, or ste ; to fomi them into plurals, and pronounce them forcibly and distinctly every day. The same may be observed of the third person of verbs ending in its or stes, as persists, wastes, hastes, &c. Second Faiilt. — Pronouncing w Jor V, aad imiersely. The pronunciation of v for v>, and more fre- quently of w for V, among the inhabitants of London, and those not always of the lower or- der, ic a blemish of the first magnitude. The diflSicuky of remedying this defect is the great- er, as the cure of one of these mistakes has a tendency to promote the other. Thus, if you are very careful to make a pupil pronounce veal and vinegar, not as if written weal and winegar, you will find him very apt to pronounce wine and wind, as if written vine and viruL The on- ly method of rectifying this habit seems to be this : Let the pupil select from a Dictionary, not only all the words that begin with f», but as % S« tlw void Chanee. KTJLES TO BK OBSERVED BY THE LONDONERS. 11 many as he can of those that haTe this letter in ^ny other part. Let him be told to bite his un- der lip while he is sounding the v in those words, and to practise this every day till he pronounces the V properly at first sight : then, and not till then, let him pursue the same method with the ST ; which he must be directed to pronounce by a pouting out of the lips without suffering them to touch the teeth. Ttus by giving all the at- tention to only one of these letters at a time, and fixing by habit the true sound of that, we Ghall at last find both of them reduced to their proper pronunciation, in a shorter time than by sndeavouring to rectify them both at once. Third Fault.— A'bf sounding h after w. The aspirate h is often sunk, particularly in the capital, where we do not find the least dis- dnction of sound between while and tmle, whet and wet, where and were. Sec The best method to rectify this, is to collect all the words of this description from a Dictionary, and write them down ; and instead of the wh, to begin them with hoo, in a distinct syllable, and so to pro- nounce them. Thus let while be written and sounded hoo-ile ; whet, hoo-et ; where, hoo- are / whip, hoo-ip, &c This is no more, as Dr. Lowth observes, than placing the aspirate in its true position before the », as it is in the Saxon, which the words come from : where we may observe, that though we have altered the orthography of our ancestors, we have still preserved their pro- nunciation. FotiBTH Faitlt. — Not scmnding h where it ought to he sounded, and inversely. A still worse habit than the last prevails, chiefly among the people of London, that of sinking the h at the beginning of words where it ought to be sounded, and of sounding it, ei- ther where it is not seen, or where it ought to be sunk. Thus we not unfrequently hear, es- pecially among children, heart pronourced art, and arm, harm. This is a vice perfectly similar to that of pronouncing the t» for the w, an! the a; for the v, and requires a similar method to correct it. As there are so very few words in the lan- guage where the initial h is sunk, we may select these from the rest, and, without setting the pu- pil right when he mispronounces these, or when he prefixes h improperly to other words, we may make him pronounce all the words where h is Bounded, till he has almost forgot there are any words pronounced otherwise : then he may go over those words to which he improperly pro- fixes ttie h, and those where the k Is seen bvA not sounded, witiiout any danger of an inter- change. As these latter words are but few, I shall subjoin a catalogue of them for the use of the learner : Heir, heiress, herb, herbage, honest, honest!/, honeitly, horumr, honourable, honourably, hospital, hostler, hour, hsurly, humble, humbles, humbly, humour, hum^trist, humorous, humorous- ly, humorsome ; where we may observe, that At*- mour and its compounds not only sink the A, but sound the w like the pronoun you, or the noun yew, as if written yeumumr, yewmorous, &c. Thus I have endeavoured to correct some of the more glaring errors of my countrymen, who, with all their faults, are still upon the whole the best pronouncers of the English language : for though the pronunciation of London is certain- ly erroneous in many words, yet, upon being compared with that of any other place, it is un- doubtedly the best 5 that is, not only the best by courtesy, and because it happens to be the pro- nunciation of the capital, but the best by a bet- ter title — that of being more generally received ; or in other words, though the people of London are erroneous in the pronunciation of many words, the inhabitants of every other place are erroneous in many more. Nay harsh as the sentence may seem, those at a considerable dis- tance from the capital do not only mispronounce many words taken separately, but they scarcely pronounce, with purity, a single word, syllable, or letter. Thus, if the short sound of the letter u in trunk, sunk, &c. differ from the sound of that letter in the northern parts of England, where they sound it like the u in bull, and near- ly 83 if the words were vrritten trooTik, toonk, &c. it necessarily follows that every word where tbe second sound of that letter occurs must by those provincials be mispronounced. But though the inhabitants of London have this manifest advantage over all the other inha- bitants of the island, they have the disadvantage of being more disgraced by their peculiaritiea than any other people. The grand difference between the metropolis and tlie provinces is, that the people of education in London are general- ly free from the vices of the vulgar ; but the best educated people in the provinces, if con- stantly resident there, are sure to be strongly tinctured with the dialect of the county in which they live. Hence it is, that the vulgar pronunciation of London, though not half so er- roneous as that of Scotland, Ireland, or any of the provinces, is, to a person of correct taste, a thousend times more offensive and disgusting. DIRECTIONS TO FOREIGNERS, in ORDER TO ATTAIX A KNOWLEDGE OF THE MARKS IN THIS DICTIONARY, AND TO ACQUIRE. A RIGHT PRONUNCIATION OF EVERT WORD IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, A.S the sounds of the vowels are differefit in different languages, it would be endless to bring parallel sounds from tlie various languages of Europe ; but, as the French is so generally un- derstood upon the Continent, if we can reduce the sounds of the English letters to those of the French, we shall render the pronunciation of our language very generally attainable : and this, it is presumed, will be pretty accurately accomplished by observing the following direc- tions: A « B bi C ci D di E i F G H dgi etch I ai J K L dji qtii eU M em N en O P pi Q kiou R nrr S ess T ti U iou V vi W dohliou X ex Y ouai Z zedd The French have all our yowel sounds, ar.d will therefore find the pronunciation of them very easy. The only difiiculty they will meet with seems to be t, which, though demonstrably composed of two successive sounds, has passed for a simple vowel with a very competent judge of English pronunciation.* Tlie reason is, these two sounds are pronounced so closely to- gether as to require some attention to discover their component parts : this attention Mr. Sheri- dan-f never gave, or he would not have told us, that this diphthong is a compound of our fullest and slenderest sounds a and i • the first made by the largest, and the last by the smallest aper. ture of the mouth. Now nothing is more cer- tain than the inaccuracy of this definition. The third sound of a, which is perfectly equivalent to the third sound of o, when combined with the first sound of e, must inevitably form the diph- thong in boj/, joy, &c. and not the diphthongal sound of the vowel t in idle, or the personal pro- noun /; this double sound will, upon a close examination, be found to be composed of the I- Ltlian a in the last syllable of papa, and the first kound of e, pronounced as closely together as possible;! and for the exactness of this defini- • NarG«, KlenienU of Orthoepy, page 1 t See S«;tion 111. of tus ProsodiaJ Grammar preAzed to hU Dic- tliinan* ? Holder, the mont philosophical and accurate investigator of the fermation aiui powen of the lettera, f.aj* ; *• Our vulgar i. aa in etiitf ftv?nu to be such a diphthong, (or rather Kyltable, or part of a tyllablcj :a:npoicd of o, i, or i, i, and not a simple orl^nal Towoi." Elementl of Speech, p. i'5. Dr. 'nallis, tpeaking of the lone Enpli^h i, %KfT> it ia ftounded *• eo- drm fere nio ble to their diphthong ou, or the English ii and i, perfectly equivalent to the sound the French would give to the letters you, and which is ex- actly the sound the English give to the plural of the second personal pronoun. The diphthong oi or oy is composed of the FriBnch d and i ; thus toy and boy would be ex- actly expressed to a Frenchman by writing them tdi, bau The diphthongs ou and ow, when sounded like w..v.........w.»__»__ S?0 ON SYLLABICATION. SyUeMcatUm different according to the different ends to be attained by U, - 53* Syllabication exhibiting the sound of a word, depend- ing, in some measure, on the nature of the Utters prior to actual pronunciation, . — ~>.- ., 543 7^e almost total independe^ice of the English quantity on that of the Greek avd Latin, exemplified by an euutneralion of most of the dls.':yUabUs in our lan- guage derived from the Latin and Greek, ___-„. 544 The only possibU case in which we can argue from the Latin quantity to the English,..,. . 545 Dissyllables from the Saxon and French languages e- numerafed, ibk Causes of the prevalence of shortening the first syUa- bU of dissyllables from these languages. Of the quantity qf unaccented syllables ending with a vowel. — - 547 Uncertainty and inconsistency of Dr. Kenrlck in h is notatioi. of the quantity of these vowels, ——..«. Uncertainty and inconsistency of Mr. Sheridan ana Dr. Kenrick in marking the quantity of these Exception to the general ruU of pronouncing these syllables when e is followed bp r, ; Uncertainty of our best orthoepists in their syllabica- tion ofsucn words, exemplified by a list from Sheri- dan, Kenrlck, Scott, and Perry, ..~ — Peculiar delicacy of the sound of these syUabUs, Tendency of o Sefore r to go into the same obscurity as e, exemplified In Hit diver My and inconsistency of our best orthoepists in marking these syllabUs,-.^ Tabu of the simpU and diphthongal vowets, refi-rred to as a kejj to the figures over the Utters in the DlctUmsiry, 051 PRINCIPLES OF ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION. 1. The First Principles or Elements of Pronunciation are Letters : The Letters of the English Language are, Roman. A a B C D E F G g H h I i 'A L 1 M m N n O P Q R S T U u V T W w X X Z z Italic. A a B b C c D d E e Ff H h I i ! J 7 K k L I Mm N n P p Q. q R r S t T t Uu V V Ww Xx Z z bee see dee e € avtch t or eye j consonant, or Jay. kay el em en o pee cue ar est tee «, or you V consonant, or vee. double u eks wy zed, or izzard, 418. 2. To these may be added certain combi- nations of letters sometimes used in printing ; as flf^ fi, fl, ffi, ffl, and &, or and per se and, or rather et per se and ; ff,fi,fl,ffi.,ffl, and 8;. 3. Our letters, says Dr. Johnson, are com- monly reckoned twenty-four, because ancient- ly j andj', as well as u and v, were expressed by the same character; but as these letters, which had always different powers, have now differ- ent forms, our alphabet may be properly said to consist of twenty-six letters. 4. In considering the sounds of these first principles of language, we find that some are so simple and unmixed, that there is nothing required but the opening of the mouth to make them understood, and to form different sounds. Whence they hare the names of vowels, or vcnces, or vocal sounds. On the contrary, we find that there are others, whose pronunci- ation depends on the particular application and use of every part of the mouth, as the teeth, the lips, the tongue, the palate, &c. which yet cannot nsake any one perfect sound but by their union with those vocal sounds ; and these are called consonants, or letters sounding with other letters. Definition of Vowels and Co-nsonanis. 5. Vowels are generally reckoned to be five in number : namely, a, e, %, o, u ; — y and w are called vowels when they end a syllable or word, and consonants when they begin one. 6. The definition of a vowel, as little liable to exception as any, seems to be the follow- ing : A vowel is a simple sound formed by a continued effusion of the breath, and a cer- tain conformation of the mouth, without any alteration of the position, or any motion of the organs of speech, from the moment the vocal sound commences till it ends. 7. A consonant may be defined to be an interruption of the effusion of vocal sound, arising from the application of the organs of speech to each other. 8. Agreeably to this definition, vowels may be divided into two kinds, the simple and compound. The simple a, e, 0, are those which are formed by one conformation of the organs only; that is, the organs remain exactly in the same position at the end as at the beginning of the letter ; whereas in the compound vowels t and u, the organs alter their position before the letter is completely sounded : nay, these letters, when commenc- ing a syllable, do not only require a different position of the organs in order to form them perfectly, but demand such an application of the tongue to the roof of the mouth, as is in- consistent vfith. the nature of a pure vowel ; for the first of these letters, i, when sounded alone, or ending a syllable with the accent upon it, is a real diphthong, composed of the sounds of a in fa-ther, and of e in the, exact- ly correspondent to the sound of the noun eye ; and when this letter commences a syl- lable, as in min-ion, pin~%on, &c. the sound of e with which it terminates is squeezed into a consonant sound, like the double e heard in queen, different from the simple sound of that letter in quean, and this squeezed sound in the commencing t makes it exactly similai to y in the same situation ; which, by all grammarians, is acknowledged to be a con- nonant.* The latter of these compound " How M accurate « granunarian as Dr. I o«-th could promounc* to definitiTdj on the nature of y, and in»i.it on iu beinE always p Towel, can only be accounted for by considering the tmall attenlio? which U generally paid to this part of grammar. His woxtls an these : " The same sound which we esp-ess by the Initial y, our Saxoa ancestors in many instances exprt-^^t under the oo in the words woo and coo ; these letters have, in these two words, eveiy pro- perty of a pure vowel, but when found in food, mood, &c. and in the word too, pro- nounced like the adjective two, here the oo has a squeezed sound, occasioned by con- tracting the mouth, so as to make the lips nearly touch each other ; and this makes it, like the t and m, not so much a double vowel, as a sound between a vowel and a coiiso- simple ► or pure vowels. i ..ti-tle, y cy-der, u lu-cid, w pow-er, j compound or impure Diphthongs ana Triphthongs enumerated. 17. Two vowels forming but one syllable are geneially called a diphthong, and three a triphthong: these are the following: ail., aw. ay.. Ciesar, ....aim, ...gaol, taught, ....law, ....say, -- clean, Classification of Vowels and Consonants. ^^ reed 1 1. Vowels and consonants being thus de-k' ceiling, fined, it will be necessary, in the next place,! '^''••••people, to arrange them into such classes as their si-|*" lend, tnilitudes and specific differences seem to re quiie. ew .jewel, ey they, ia poniard, ie friend, io passion, oa coat, oe .ceconomy, oi voice, oo moon, ou found, ow now. oy boy Kcmansuetude, «« languid, uy buy, eye . (for ever), eau beauty, eou ..plenteous, ieu adieu, iew view, oeu manocuvTc. Initial v ^'S* prec:\l^7 tht #aine sound with t in the *\orns n^m . Ii**, ^duu ixhe I if> acinowltd|5«i to be a vflw.-) in th..*e latter ; how then can the y. which has the very uune ftounii, [loMiibl; t>e a consonaiu m the fbriucr ? It* Initial sound l» getierally like that of i in *'»>*, or w nearly ; it it forn.«l bj the ofxmir^ of the mouth without any motion or eontract of tlie ]>arts : in a word, it hni eTexy property of a Towel, and not one of a conaonanu" lotJoductiaQ to Kn^Ush Oranjirio;, page 3. Tbutfar the learned bifchnp ; who hai too fixed a f^me to nuffer an; diminution by a mistalEe iji m trifling a part of literature a* this : Imt i: may be aOted, If y has crery prtjperty of a vowel, and not oxie of a con- senant, why, whei. it bejin* a word, does il not admit the eujiiionlc article an before it f • An Iffnorance of the real co»ition of u, :\ml a wnnt of know- ing thatTt partook of the xarure of 3 ctmsoaant, ha* occasioned a prea: diTer^ty arid uncertainty in prefixing the indefinite article an l^fore It. Our ancestors, judgintr of Its nature from its name, nrrcr suspeol- ed that it waa not a pure vowel, and c^mstantly prefixed the article an before nouns t>ejtlnning with this letter ; as an imiofi, an m^fW tooJfc. They were confirmed in this opinion by finding the an alwavi adajit- «l to t^.t■ phort u, Bs an trmpirt. an umhrella, without ever ureaminjt that the aliort k Ls a pure vowel, and eshentially dltlerent from the long one. But the rnR.l.Tnji, rot rmtinp in the name nf a letter, and conaultirtg their ears r.utier llian tlicir eyes, have freijucntly place*! the a instead nf an iK.Ii:.ie the loog u, and we have swn a union, a tuti- vnrrity, t uttj\d tfwk, from some of ^iie moRt rcspeclanle pens of the present age. Nor can we doubt a nioinent of tlie propriety of this o.-. thotrraphy, when we reflect that the*e words actually begin to the car wltii Vi and might l>e ipeiled j(f>univn, youniveriilii, youirfitt, and rJUi 4heiefore no more admit of on l>cfore them than year ajui yiUth. — S«e R«ntark« on tho void An Iji tliis Dictionary. Consonants enumerated and disting-uished into Classes. 1 8. The consonants are divisible into mu tL-s, aemi-vowels, and liquids. 19. The mutes are such as emit no sound vrithoiit a vowel, as b, p, t, d, A-, and c and \ g hard. 20. Tlie semi-vowels are such as emit a sound without the concurrence of a vowel, as,/, V, s, z, J, g soft oTj. 21. The liquids are such as flow into, or unite easily with the mutes, as, /, m, n, r. 22. But, besides these, there is another classification of tlie consonants, of great im- portance to a just idea of the nature of the letters, and that is, into such as are sharp or flat, and simple or asjiirated. 23. The sharp consonants arep, /, t,t,jft c hard. ORGANIC FORMATION OF THE LETTERS AND VOWELS. 17 1J4. The flat consonants are,i,r, d.z, g hard. ] contracting itself to the root, as if to make way 25. The simple consonants are those which have always the sound of one letter unmixed with othei-s, as, b, p, f, v, k, g hard, and g soft orj. 26. The mixed or aspirated consonants are tliose which have sometimes a hiss or aspira- tion joined with them, which mingles with the letter, and alters i^s sound, as, t in motion, d in soldier, t in viission, and z in azure. 27. There is another distinction of conso- nants arising either from the seat of their for- mation, or from those organs which are chief- ly emp^.oyed in forming them. The best dis- tinction of this kind seems to be that which divides them into labials, dentals, gutturals, and nasals. 28. The labials are, b, p,f, v. The dentals are, t, d, s, z, and soft g or j. The gutturals are, k, q, c hard, and g hard. The nasals are, m, n, and ng. 29. These several properties of the conso- nants may be exhibited at one view in the following table, which may be called An Analogical Table of the Consonanti. > Ubio-nual Liquid m. l-af^^M, "} dento-naaal JSlfJg,, orjjliquidn. Hitting denial. {^^V I 1 -r f tah, patsion 1 dental J a l««A», vitim ilJquid L [ait lilt, i^/tht. Dento-guUurkl or n^ial tig, hang. 30. Vowels and consonants being thus de- fined and arranged, we are thebetter enabled to enter upon an inquiry into their different pow- •ers, as they are differently combined with each other. But previous to this, that nothing may be wanting to form a just idea of the first principles of pronunciation, it may not be im- proper to show the organic formation of each letter. Organic Formation of the Letters. 31. Though I think every mechanical ac- count of the organic formation of the letters rather curious than useful, yet, that nothing which can be presented to the eye may be wanting to inform the ear, I shall, in this, fol- i described, for the sound, almost rests upon the under jaw 34'. The Italian a, heard in fa-ther, closes the mouth a little more than the German a ; and by raising the lower jaw, widening the tongue, and advancing it a little nearer to the lips, renders its sound less hollow and deep. 35. The slender a, or that heard in lane, is formed in the mouth still higher than the last ; and in pronouncing it, the lips, as if to give it a slender sound, dilate their aperture hori- zontally ; while the tongue, to assist this nar- row emission of breath, widens itself to the cheeks, raises itself nearer the palate, and by these means a less hollow sound than either of the former is produced. 36. The e in e-qual is formed by dilating the tongue a little more, and advancing it nearer to the palate and the lips, which pro- duces the slenderest vowel in the language ; for the tongue is, in the formation of this let- ter, as close to the palate as possible, without touching it ; as the moment tne tongue touch- es the palate, the squeezed sound of ee in thee and meet is formed, which, by its description, must partake of the sound of the consonant v. 37. The i in i-dol is formed by uniting toe sound of the Italian a mfa-thcr and the e in e-qual, and pronouncing them as closely toge. ther as possible. See Directions to Foreign- ers at the beginning of this book. 38. The in o-pen is formed by nearly the some position of the organs as the a in wa-ter; but the tongue is advanced a little more into the middle of the mouth, the lips are protrud- ed, and form a round aperture like the form of the letter, and the voice is not so deep in the mouth as when a is formed, but advances to the middle or hollow of the mouth. 39. The u in u-nit is formed by uniting the squeezed sound ee to a simple vowel sound, heard in woo and coo ; the oo in these words is formed byjjrotruding the lips a little more than in o, forming a smaller aperture with them, and, instead of swelling the voice in the middle of the mouth, bringing ii as forward as possible to the lips. 40. 1" final, in try, is formed like t: and w final, in now, like the oo, which has just been low those who have been at the pains to trace «very letter to its seat, and make us, as it vrere, to touch the sounds we articulate. Organic Formation of the Vowels. 32. It vstII be necessary to observe, that there are three long sounds of the letter a, which are formed by a greater or less expan- sion of the mternal parts of the mouth. 33. The German a heard in ball, wall, &c. « formed by a strong and grave expression of the breath through the mouth, which is open nearly in a circular form, while the tongue. In this view of the organic formation of the vowels we find that a, e, and o, are the only simple or pure vowels : that t is a diphthong, and that « is a semi-consonant. If we were inclined to contrive a scale for measuring the breadth or narrowness, or, as others term it, the openness or closeness of the vowel, we might begin with e open, as Mr. Elphinston calls it, and which he announces to be the closest of all the vocal powers. In the pro- nunciation of this letter we find the aperture of the mouth extended on each side ; the lips almost closed, and the sound issuing horiaon- 18 OKGANIC FORMATION OF THE VOWELS AND CONSONANTS. tally. The slender a in waste opens the mouth | nounce with greater force, the same may be a little wider. The a in fa-ther opens the mouth still more, without contracting the cor- ners. The German a, heard in waU, not only opens the mouth wider than the former a, but contracts the corners of the mouth so as to make the aperture approach nearer to a cir- cle ; while the o opens the mouth still more, and contracts the comers so as to make it the OS rotundum, a picture of the letter it sounds. If therefore the other vowels were, like o, to take their forms from the aperture of the mouth in pronouncing them, the German a ought necessarily to have a figure as nearly approaching the o in form as it does in sound ; that is, it ought to have that elliptical form which approaches nearest to the circle ; as the a of the Italians, and that of the English in fa-ther y ought to form ovals, in exact pro- portion to the breadth of their sounds ; the English a in weute ought to have a narrower oval ; the e in the ought to have the curve of a parabola, and the squeezed sound of ee in teen, a right line : or, to reduce the lines to solids, the o would be a perfect globe, the German a an oblate spheroid, like the figure of the earth, the Italian a like an egg, the English slender a a Dutch skittle, the e a rol- ling pin, and the doubie e a cylinder. Organic Formation of the Consonants. 41. The best method of showing the organ- ic formation of the consonants will be to class them into such pairs as they naturally fall into, and then, by describing one, we shall nearly describe its fellow ; by which means the la- bour wUl be lessened, and the nature of the consonants better perceived. The conson- ants that fall into pairs are the following . p f t t sh th k ch — chair, b V d z zh dh g j — ^'ctf. 42. Holder, who wrote the most elalborate- lyand philosophically upon this subject, tells us, in hie Elements of Speech, that when we only whisper we cannot distinguish the first rank of these letters from the second. It is certain the difference between them is very nice ; the upper letters seeming to have only a smarter, brisker appulse of the organs than the lower ; which may not improperly be dis- tinguished by sharp and flat. The most marking distmction between them will be found to be a sort of guttural murmur, which precedes the latter letters when we wish to pronounce them forcibly, but not the former. Thus, if we close the lips, and put the finger on them to keep them shut, and strive to pronounce the p, no sound at all will be heard ; but in striving to pronounce the b we shall find a murmuring sound from the throat, v/hich seems the commencement of the let- ter; and if we do but stop the breath by the appuhe of the organs, in order fopro- i observed of the rest of the letter; 43. This difference in the formation of these consonants may be more distinctly perceived in the * and z than in any other of the letters ; the former is sounded by the simple issue of the breath between the teeth, without any vibration of it in the throat, and may be cal- led a hissing sound ; while the latter cannot be formed without generating a sound in the throat, which may be called a vocal sound. The upper rank of letters, therefore, may be called breathing consonants ; and the lower, vocal ones. 44. These observations premised, we may proceed to describe the organic formation of each letter. 45. P and B are formed by closing the lips till the breath is collected, and then letting it issue by forming the vowel a*t, [ait, cfmn^, &c. to which be annexes the long sound of a in fattier. That tliii d formerly, is hlghjv protiaMc, from Its lieing still thi It by the vol^ir, who are gen(?ra!iy the last to alter tha munciation ; but that the short a in thcrte words Is now med world, seems ta ,-- ^ ,. ledged by Mr. Smith ^dm6elf : and as every ror- W^e seldom find ^**^ ^^^ wotild t-e disgusted nt giving the a in tJaefie words the fuJH sound of the a mfath^, any middle sound ouj,'ht to be dlscountenasa. ed, as tending to render the pronunciation of alangu.-t^ obicura «^t1 indefinite, lea. Ben Jonson, In his Grammar, classes .aW, matt, balm, and calm, su having the same sound of a ; and aunt^ as having the same dtjoy nc:>ad4 •i.UJiVtort tan DIFFERENT SOUNDS OF THE LETTER A when, by impatience, that grand corrupter of Eisnners as well as language, the no is cut out of the word cannot, and the two syllables re- duced to one, we find the a lengthened to the Italian or middle a, as cannot, can^t ; have not, ha'nt: shall not, sha'n^t, &c. This is no more than what the Latin language is subject to ; it being a known rule in that tongue, that when, by composition or otherwise, two short syllables become one, that syllable is almost always long, as alius has the penultimate long because it comes from a/MM*,and the two short vowels in coago become one long vowel in cogo, &c. 81. The short sound of the middle or Itali- an a, which is generally confounded with tiie short sound of the slender a, is the sound of this vowel in man, pan, tan, mat, hat, &c. We generally find this sound before any two successive consonants (those excepted in the foregoing remarks,) and even when it comes before an r, if a vowel follow, or the r be doubled ; for if this consonant be doubled, in order to produce another syllable, the long sound becomes short, as mar, marry ; car, carry, &'C. where we find the monosyllable has the long, and the dissyllable the short sound ; but if a come before r, followed by another consonant, it has its long sound, as in part, partial, &c. 82. The only exception to this rule is in adjectives derived from substantives ending in r ; for in this case the a continues long, as in the primitive. Thus the a in starry, or full of stars, is as long as in star ; and the a in the adjective tarrT^or besmeared with tar, is as long as in the substantive tar, though short in the word tarry, to stay. 83. The third long sound of a is that which we more immediately derive from our mater- nal language the Saxon, but which at present we use less than any other : this is the a in fall, ball, gall, 33 : we find a correspondent sound to this a in the diphthongs au and aw, as laud, law, taw, &c. ; though it must here be noted, that we have improved upon our German pa- rent, by giving a broader sound to this letter, in these words, than the Germans themselves would do, vv^ere they to pronounce them. 84. The long sound of the deep broad Ger- man a is produced by // after it, as in all, wall, call ; or, indeed, by one /, and any other consonant, except the mute labials p, b, f, and V, as salt, bald, false, falchion, falcon. See. The exceptions to this rule are generally words from the Arabic and Latin languages, as Alps, Albion, asphaltic, falcated, salve, cal- culate, amalgamate, Alcoran, and Alfred, &t. the two last of which maybe considered as an- cient proper names, which have been frequ nt- ly latinized, and by this means have acqu.red a slenderer sound of a. This rule, however, must be understood of such syllables only as have the accent on them : for wnen al, fol- lowed by a consonant, is in the first syllable of a word, having the accent on the second, it is then pronounced as in the first syllables of al-ley, vaUley, &c. as alternate, balsamic, falcade, falcation, &c. Our modern orthogra- phy, which has done its utmost to perplex pronunciation, has made it necessary to ob- serve, that every word compounded of a mo- nosyllable with //, as albeit, also, abnost, down- fall, &c. must be pronounced as if the two liquids were still remaining, notwithstanding our word-menders have wisely taken one a- way, to the destruction both of sound and e- tymology ; for, as Mr. Elphinston shrewdly observes, " Every reader, young and old, must now be so sagacious an analyst as to discern at once not only what are compounds and what are their simples, but that al in com- position is equal to all out of it ; or in other words, that it is both what it is, and what it is not." — Prin. Eng. Language, vol. L page 60.— See No. 406. 85. The w has a peculiar quality of broad- ening this letter, even when prepositive : this is always the effect, except when the vowel is closed by the sharp or flat guttural k, or g, X, ng, nk, or the sharp labial /, as wax, waft, thwack, twang, twank: thus we pro- nounce the a broad, though short in wad, wan, want, was, what, &c. and though other letters suffer the a to alter its sound before //, when one of these letters goes to the formation of the latter syllable, as tall, tal-Iow; hall, hal~ low ; call, cal-low, &c. yet we see w preserve the sound of this vowel before a single con- sonant, as wal-loto, sival-low, &c. 86. The q including the sound of the w, and being no more than this letter preceded by A:, ought, according to analogy, to broaden every a it goes before, like the w ; thus qjtan- iiiy ought to be pronounced as if written kwontify, and quality should rhyme with jo/&. ty ; instead of*^ which we frequently hear the w robbed of its rights in its proxy ; and qua- lity so pronounced as to ryhme with legality ; while to ryhme quantity, according to this af- fected mode.of pronouncing it, we must coin such words as plantittj, and consonantity. The a in quaver and equator is an exception to this rule, from the preponderancy of another which requires a, ending a syllable under tlie accent, to have the slender sound of that let- ter ; to which rule, father, master, and water. and, perhaps, quadrant, are the only excep- tions. 87. The short sound of this broad a is heard when it is preceded by w, and succeeded by a single consonant in the same syllable, as wal-low, swal-low, &c. or by two consonant* in the same syllable, as want, ivast, wasp,&c. but when / or r is one of the consonants, the a becomes long, as walk, swarm, &c DIFFERENT SOUNDS OF THE LETTER ^1. Irregular and uJiacceiUed Soutidx. 88. But besides the long and short souir.:.. common to all the vowels, there is a certain transient indistinct pronunciation ot" some of them, when they are not accented, that cannot be so easily settled : when the accent is not up- on it, no vowel is more apt to run into this im- perfect sound than the a ; thus, the particle a before participles, in the phrases, a-going, o-walking, a-shooting, &c. seems, says Dr, Lowth, to be the true and genuine preposition on, a little disguised by familiar use and quick pronunciations the same indistinctness, from ^pidity and coincidence of sound, has con- founded the pronunciation of this nuitilated preposition to the e^r, in the different ques- tions, whaft o'clock, when we would know the hour, and what's a clock, when we would bave the description of that horary machine; and if the accent be kept strongly on the first syllable of the word tolerable, as it always ought to be, we find scarcely any distinguisn- able difference to the ear, if we substitute a or o instead of a in the penultimate syllable. Thus, tolerable, toleroble, tolervble, are exactly the same word to the ear, if pronounced without premeditation or transposing the ac- cent, for the real purpose of distinction ; and inwards, outwards, &c. might, with respect to j as in the first syllable o( candle, gander, &c.' sound, be spelt inwurds, outwurds, &c. the interposition of the ^ is very perceptible, £3 n/rage, umpirage, embassage, /leryntta/ae, keri- ■'sge, parentage, messuage. 01. The a in the numerous tenninatioa ■^ie, when the accent is on it, is pronounced soiiewhat differently in different words. li the word be a substantivt;, or an adjective, the a seems to be shorter ihan when it is a verb : thus a good ear will discover a differ- ence in the quantity of this letter, in de/icatc and dedicate; in climate, privmte, and idti' mate: and the verbs to calculate, to regtdate, and to speculate, where we find the nouna and adjectives have the a considerably short- er than the verbs. Innate, however, pre- serves the a as long as if the accent were on it : but the unaccented terminations in ace, whether nouns or verbs, have the a so short and obscure as to be nearly similar to the u in us ; thus, palace, solace, vienace, pinnace, populace, might, without any great departure fi-om their common sound, be written pallus, toUus, &c. while /Mm nouncingthe languageof scripture: here every participle ed ought to make a distinct syllable, where it is not preceded by a vowel : thus, " Who hath believed our report, and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed ?" Here the participles are both pronounced in three syl- lables ; but in the following passage, " Whom he did predestinate, them he also called; and whom he called, them he also justijied ; and whom he justijied, them he also glorified." Called preserves the e, and is pronounced in two syllables ; and justijied and glorified sup- press the 'in< liy - DIFFERENT SOUNDS OF THE LETTER 1. viiie, or ckopin, caprice, chagrin, chtn;aux^de-\ frise, critique, (for criticism) /«/t«in in the first syllable oi ji-delHy ; and why we should give the long sound to the t in fiducial and fiduciary/, as marked by Mr. Sheridan, I know not : he is certainly erroneous in marking the first i in frigiditi/ long, and equally so in placing the accent up- on the last syllable o? finite. Finance has the i short universally. 127. Gigantic has the t in the first syllable always long. 128. Li has the t generally long, as li-ba- ^n, li-brarian, li-braiion, li-centious, li-pothy- my, li-quescent, li-thography, li-thotomy. Li- tigious has the t in the first syllable always short. The same may be observed of libidin- Bus, though otherwise marked by Mr. Sheri- dan. 129. Mi has the «' generally short, as in minority, mililia, mimograpker, vvnanious, mi- Tiacity, miraculous ; though the four last are marked with the long i by Mr. Sheridan : and what is still more strange, he marks the i, which has the accent on it, long in minato- ry ; though the same word, in the compound comminatory, where the i is always short, might have shown him his error. The word mimetic, which, though in very good use, and neither in Johnson nor Sheridan, ought to be pronounced with the first t short, as if writ- ten mim-et-ic. The t is generally long in mir irometer, micrography, and migration. 130. Ni has the i long in nigrescent. The Fa-st t in nigrification, though marked long by Mr. Sheridan, is shortened by the secondary accent (527,) and ought to be pronounced as If divided into nig-rifi-cation. 131. Phi has the i generally short, as in philanthropy, phUippic,phUosopher, philosophy, philosophize ; to which we may certainly add, philologer, philologist, philology, philological, notwithstanding Sir. Sheridan has marked the j in these last words long. 132. Pi and pli have the i generally short, as, pilaster, pituitous, pilosity, plication. Pi- aster and piazza, being Italian words, have the i short before the vowel, contrarj' to the analogy of words of this form (116,) where the i i§ long, as in pi-acular, pri-ority, &c Piratical has the i marked long by Mr. She- ridan, and short by Dr. Kenrick. The for- mer is, in my opinion, more agreeable both to custom and analogy, as the soimd of the i before the accent is often determined by the sound of that letter in the primitive word. 133. Pri has the j generally long, as in primeval, primevous, primitial, primero, pri- mordial, privado, privation, privative, but al- ways short in primitive and primer. 134'. Ri has the » short, as in ridiculous i long in the first syllable, Sn compliment to rival, as piratical has the i long, because ae- rived from pirate. Rhinoceros has the t long in Sheridan, Scott, Kenrick, W. Johnston, and Buchanan ; and short in Perry. 135. Si has the t generally short, as timili- tudc, siriasis, and ought certainly to be short in sUicious, (better written cilicious,) though marked long by Mr. Sheridan. Simultaneous having the 'secondary accent on the first syli lable, does not come under this head, but re- tauis the i long, notwithstanding the shorten- ing power of the accent it is under. (527.) 136. 7\ has the t short, as in timidity. 137. Tri has the j long, for the same rea- son as bi, v.'hich see, (118) (119.) 138. Ft has the t so unsettled as to puz- zle the correcte.-it speakers. The i is gene-^ rally long in v'warious, notwithstanding the short » in vicar. It is long in vibration, from its relation to vibrate. Vitality has the i long like vital. In vivifick, vivificate, and vivipoi rouj, the first i is long, to avoid too great a sameness with the second. Vi7)acioiis and vi^ vaciiy have the t almost as often long as short ; Mr. Sheridan, Mr. Scott, and Dr. Kenrick, make the t in vivacious long, and Mr. Perry and Buchanan, short ; Mr. Sheri. dan, Mr. Scott, and W. Johnston, make the t in the first of vivacity long, and Perry and Buchanan, short : but the short sound seems less formal, and most agreeable to polite usage. Vicinity, vicinal, vicissitude, vituperate, vim;- neous, and virago, seem to prefer the short i though Mr. Sheridan has marked the three last words with the first vowel long. But the diversity will be best seen by giving the authorities for all these words : — Vicinity, Dr. Kenrick. Vicinity. Mr. Sheridan, Mr. Scott, Buchan&n, W. Johnston, and Perry. I Vicinal. Mr. Sheridan. Vicissitude. Mr. Sheridan, Dr. Kenrick, W, Johnston, Buchanan, and Perry. Vituperate. Mr. Sheridan, Dr. Kenrick, and W. Johnston, Vituperate. Mr. Perry. VimineovkS, I\Ir. Sheridan. Virago. Mr. Sheridan, and "W. Johnston. Virago. Dr. Kenrick, Mr. Scott, Buchanan, and Perry. I have classed vicinal here as a word with the accent on the second syllable, as it stands in Sheridan's Dictionary', but think it ought to have the accent on the first. See Medi^ CINAL. 139. The same diversity and uncertaintv in the sound of this letter, seem to reign in those final unaccented syllables which are terminated with the mute e. Perhaps the R^dity is marked with the i long by Mr. { best way to give some tolerable idea of the Shendati, and short by Dr. Kenrick: the analogy of the language in this point, will be. Utter is undoubtedly right. Rivalitjj ha.% tijelto shew the general rule, and mark the. ex- oO DIFFERENT SOUNDS OF THE LETTER I. oepdons; though these are sometimes so 'derived from them; and this tendency ie a numerous as to make us doubt of the rule it- sufficient reason for pronouncing the worda self: therefore the best way will be to givel projectl^le, traciile, and imectile with the i a catalogue of both. i short, though wc have no classical Latin words 140. There is one rule of very great ex- to appeal to, from which they are derived, tent, in words of this termination, which have I I'il. But when the accent is on the last the accent on the penultimate syllable, and | syllable but two, in words of this termination, that is, that the i in the final syllable of these 1 the length of the vowel is not so easily ascer- words is short : thus servile, hostile, respite, ' tained. deposite, adamantine, amethystine, Szc. are pro- li2. Those ending in ice, have the i shorty nounced as if wTitten servil, hostil, respit, dc- except sacrifice and cockatrice, posit, &c. The only exceptions in this nu- I'tS. Those ending in ide have the i Iong3 merous class of words seem to be the follow- notwithstanding we sometimes hear suicide ing : Exile, senile, edile, evjpire, umpire, ram- pire, finite, feline, ferine, archives; and the substantives, d!ri/?7;'DS'1F THE LETTER I. 31 nouncecf long: Cannabine, carabine, coMm- cosmopolite, chrysolite, eremite, aconite, viar- Vine, bizantine, gelatine, legatine, oxyrrhodlne,\garite, narcasite, parasite, appetite, bipartite, rmcubine, muscadine, incarnadine, celandine^ ' tripartite, quadripartite, convertite. anchorite, almandine, secundine, amygdaline, crystalline, pituite, satellite. As the last word stands in vituline, calamine, asinine, saturnine, saccha rine, adtdterine, vipcrine, uterine, lamentine, armentine, serpentine, turpentine, vespertine, helluinc, porcupine, countermine, leonine, sap- phirine, and metalline. 150. The words of this termination, where the i is short, are the following : JacoNme, medicine, discipline, masculine, jessamine, fe- minine, heroine, nectarine, libertine, genuine, hyaline, palatine. To these, I think, ought to be added, alkaline, aquilme, coralline, brig' antine, eglantine: to this pronunciation of the t, the proper names, Valentine and Gbn- stantine, seem strongly to incline ; and on the stage, Cymbeline has entirely adopted it. Thus we see how little influence the Latin language has on the quantity of the i, in the final syllable of these words. It is a rule in that language, that adjectives ending in ilk or inus, derived from animated beings or proper names, with the exception of very few, have this i pronounced long It were to be wish- ed this distinction could be adopted in Eng- lish words from the Latin, as in that case we might be able, in time, to regularize this very irregular part of our tongue ; but this alter- ation would be almost impossible in adjec- tives ending \nive, as relative, vocative, fugitive^ &c. have the i uniformly short in English, and long in the Latin relativus, vocativus,fu- qitivus, &c. 151. The only word ending in trr, ^vith the accent on the antepenultimate syllable, is acrospire, with the i long, the last syllable sounding like the spire of a church. ' 152. Words ending in ise, hav^ the j short, when the accent is on the last syllable but one, ns, franchise, except the compounds end- ing in wise, as, likewise, lengthwise, 8zc. as marked by Mr. Scott, Mr. Perry, and Bu- chanan; but even among these words we sometimes hear otherwise pronounced other- wiz, as marked by Mr. Sheridan and W. Johnston ; but, I think, improperly. 153. When the accent is on the last sylla- ble but two in these words, they are invaria- bly pronounced with the i long, as, criticise equalise. ] 54. In the termination ite, when the ac- cent is on it, the t is always long, as, requite, Kenrick's Dictionary sa-tcll-it, having the i short, and the accent on the second syllable, it is doubly wrong. The j in the last syllable is shortened also by W. Johnston and Perry, but made long, as it ought to be, by Mr. She- ridan, Mr. Scott, and Mr. Nares. See Rh- aONDITE. 156. The i is short in cucurbite, ingenife, definite, indefinite, infinite, hypocrite, favourite, requisite, pre-requisite, perquisite, exquisite, apposite, and opposite. Hcteroclite has the i long in Sheridan, but short in Kenrick. The former is, in my opinion, the best pronuncia- tion, (see the word in the Dictionary;) but ite, in what may be called a gentile termina- tion, has the i always long, as in Hivite, Sam- nite, cosmopolite, bedlamite, &c. 157. The termination ive, when the accent is on it, is always long, as in hive, except in the two verbs, gtVe, live, and their compounds, giving, living, &c. for the adjective live, as, a live animal, has the i long, and rhymes with strive; so have the adjective and adverb, lively and livelily the noun livelihood follows the same analogy ; but the adjective live-long, as, the live-long day, has the i short, as in the verb. When the accent is not on the i in this termination, it is always short, as, spor- tive, plaintive, &c. rhyming with give, (150,) except the word be a gentile, as in Arg've. 158. All the other adjectives and substan- tives of this termination, when the accent is not on it, have the i invariably short, as, of- fensive, defensive, &c. The i in salique is short, as if written sallick, but long in oblique, rhym- ing with pike, strike, &c. while antique has the i long and slender, and rhymes with speak. Dr. Kenrick, Mr. Elphinston, Mr. Perry, Buchanan, and Barclay, have obleek for ob- lique ; Mr. Scott has it both ways, but gives the slender sound first ; and Mr. Sheridan, Mr. Nares, and W. Johnston, obllke. The latter is, in my opinion, more agreeable to polite usage, but the former more analogical ; for as it comes from the French obliqne, we cannot write it oblike, as Mr. Nares wishes, any more than antique, antike, for fear of de- parting too far from the Latin anfiquus and obliquus. Opaque, Mr. Nares observes, has become O'pake ; but then it must be remem- When the accent is on the last syllable but bered, thjit the Latin is opacus, and not opa one, it is always short, as, respite, (140,) pro- 'ruus. noimced as if written respit, except contriu \ 159. All the terminations in ize have the : and crinite ; but when the accent is on thej?ong, except to endenize ; which, having the last syllable but two, the i is generally long: j accent on the second syllable, follows the the exceptions, however, are so many, that al general rule, and has the i short, pronounced catalogue of both will be the best rule. |as the verb is, (140.) To these observations 155. The i is long in expedite. recondtte,\we may add, that though evil and devil sup- ircondite, ksrma:phrodite,^Carmelitei iiieodalite,\ ])xess the i as if written ev'l and dev'l, yet 32 DIFFERENT SOUNDS OF THE LETTEKS I AND O. {hat cavil and pencil preserve ks sound dis-Tor the fifth, that in or, nor, for ; and a sixth, tinctly; and that Laiin ought never to bt pronounced as it is generally at schools, as if written Latfn. Cousin and cozen, both drop the last vowels, as if spelled cuzz'n, and ui'e only distinguishable to the eye. Thus we see how little regularity there is in the sound of this letter, when it is not un- der the accent, and, when custom will per- mit, how careful we ought to be to preserve the least trace of analogy, that " confusion n;ay not be worse confounded." The sketch that has been just given may, perhaps, afford something like a clue to direct us in this la- byrinth, and it is hoped it will enable the ju- dicious speaker to pronounce with more cer tainty and decision. 160. It was remarked under the vowel A, that when a hard g or c preceded that vowel, a sound like e interposed, the better to unite the letters, and soften the sound of the con sonant. The same may be observed of the better /. When this vowel is preceded by g that in woman, wolf, &c. 162. The first and only peculiar sound of this letter is that by which it is named in the alphabet : it requires the mouth to be form- ed, in some degree, like the letter, in order to pronounce it. This may be called its long open sound, as the o in prove may be called its long slender sound, (65). This sound we find in words ending with silent e, as tone, bone, alone ; or when ending a syllable with the accent upon it, as mo-tion, po-tent, &c likewise in the monosyllables, go, so, no. This Bound is found under several combinations of other vowels with this letter, as in moan, groan, bow, (to shoot with), low (not high,) and before st in the words host, ghost, post, most, and before s.i in gross. 163. The second sound of this letter is called its short sound, and is found in not, got, lot, &c. ; though this, as in the other short vowels, is by no means the short sound of the former long one, but corresponds exact- hard c, it is pronounced as if an mong the vulgar, lengthened to a middle sound approaching to its long sound, the o in or. This sound is generally heard, as in the case of a, when it is succeeded by two consonants : thus Mr. Smith pronounces broth, froth, and moth, as if written braivth, nalogj' we may see how greatly mistaken is a frawtJi, and mawth. Of the propriety or im- very solid and ingenious writer on this sub- propriety of this, a well-educated ear is the ject, who says, that " ky-ind for kind, is a best judge ; but, as was observed under the monster of pronunciation, heard only on our 'article A (79), if this be not the sound heard stage." Nare's English Orthoepy, page 28. 'emong the best speakers, no middle sound Dr. Beattie, in his Theory of Language, ought to be admitted, as good orators will takes notice of this union of vowel sounds, ever incline to definite and absolute sounds, page 266. See No. 92. ' rather than such as may be called nondescripts It may not, perhaps, seem unworthy of in language, notice, that when this letter is unaccented in 164. The third sound of this letter, as was the numerous terminations ity, iblc, &c. it is j marked in the first observation, may be call- frequently pronounced like short u, as if the ed its long slender sound, corresponding to the double o. The words where this sound of o occurs are so few, tliat it will be easy to <(\ye a catalogue of them : prove, move, be- hove, and their compounds, lose, do, ado, Rome, poltron, ponton, sponton, who, whom, womb, tomb. Sponton is not in Johnston* and this and the two preceding words ought rather to be written with oo in the last sylla- ble. Gold is pronounced like goold in fami- liar conversation ; but in verse and solemn language, especially that of the scripture, ought always to rhyme with old fcid, &o See EnconE, Gold, and Wind. DIFFERENT SOUNDS OF THE LETTEii 0. S3 165. The fourth sound of tliis vowel is chat which is found in love, dove, &c. ; and the long sound, which seems the nearest relation to it, is the first sound of o in note, tone, rove, &c, Tliis sound of o is generally heard when ft is shortened by the succeeding liquids n, m, r, and the semi-vowels v, z, th ; and as Mr. Nares has given a catalogue of those words, I shall avail myself of his labour. Above, affront, allonge, among, amongst, attomeif, bomb, bombard, borage, borotigh, brother, cochi- neal, colour, come, comely, comfit, comfort, com- nany, compass, comrade, combat, conduit, coney, conjure, constable, covenant, cover, covert, covet, covey, cozen, discomfit, done, doth, d.ost, dove, dozen, dromedary, front, glove, gover?i, honey, hover, love, Monday, money, viongrel, monk, monkey, month, mother, none, nothing, one, vnion, other, oven, plover, pomegranate, pom- mel, pother, romage, shove, shovel, sloven, smo- ther, some, Somerset, son, sovereign, sponge, stomach, thorough, ton, tongue, word, work, wonder, world, worry, worse, worship, wort, worth: to which we may add, rhoTnb, once, comfrey, and colander. 166. In these words the accent is on the o in every word, except pomegranate : but with very few exceptions, this letter has the same sound in the unaccented terminations, oc, ock, od, ol, cm, on, op, or, ot, and soine ; as, mam- mock, cassock, method, carol, kingdom, union, amazon, gallop, tutor, turbot, troublesome, &c. all which are pronounced as if written mam- muck, cassuck, methud, &c. The o in the ad- junct monger, as cheesemonger, &c. has always this sound. The exceptions to this rule are technical terms from the Greek or Latin, as, achor, a species of the herpes; and proper names, as, Calor, a river in Italy. 167. The fifth sound of o, is the long soum' produced by r final, or followed by anothei consonant, as, for, former. This sound is perfect!}' equivalent to the diphthong au ; and for &nd former might, on account of sound only, be written faur, and faurmer. There are many exceptions to this rule, as, borne, corps, corse, force, forge, form, (a seat,) fort, horde, porch, port, sport, &c which have the first sound of this letter, 168. O, like A, is lengthened before r, when terminating a monosyllable, or followed by another consorant ; and, like a too, is short- ened by a duplication of the liquid, as we mav hear by comparing the conjunction or with the same letters in torrid, florid, &c. ; for though the r is not doubled to the eye in ^orid, yet, as the accent is on it, it is as ef- fectually doubled to the ear as if written florrid; so, if a consonant of another kind succeed the r in this situation, we find the o fts long as in a monosyllable : thus, the o ia ; c<3tton, button, mutton, glutton, pronounced as orchard is as long as in the conjunction ct [if written sei'n, cotCn, &c. When x piM- and that in /or/?!a/, as in tho v/ord /or ; but in orifice, slx\A forage, where the r is followed by a vowel, the o is as short as if the r were doubled, and the words written orrifice taid forrage. See No 81. 169. There is a sixth sound of o exactly corresponding to the u in bidl, full, pull, &c. which, from its existing only in the following words, may be called its irregular sound. These words are, woman, bosom, ivorsted, wolf, and the proper names, Wolsey, fVorces- ter, and Wolverhampton. Irregular and unaccented Sounds. 170. What was observed of the a, when followed by a liquid and a mute, may be ob- served of the o with equal justness. This letter, like a, has a tendency to lengthen, when follov/ed by a liquid and another con- sonant, or by s, ss, or « and a mute. But this length of o, in this situation, seems every day growing more and more vulgar : and, as it would be gross, to a degree, to sound tho a in castle, mask, and plant, like the a in palm, psalm, &c. so it would be equally ex- ceptionable to pronounce the o in moss, dross, and frost, as ii written maivse, draivse, and frawst, (78) (79). The o in the compounds of solve, 3S, dissolve, absolve, resolve, seem tha only words where a somewhat longer sound of the is agreeable to polite pronunciation : on the contrary, when the o ends a syllable, immediately before or after the accent, as in po-lite, im-po-tent, &c. there is an elegance in giving it the open sound nearly as long as in po-lar, andpo-tcnt, &c. See Doiestic, Col- lect, and Command. It may likewise be observed, that the o, like the e, (102,) is sup- pressed in a final unaccented syllable when preceded by c or k, and followed by n, as, bacon, beacon, deacon, beckon, reckon, pro- nounced bak'n, beak'n, deak'n, beck'n, reckon; and when c is preceded by another conso- nant, as, /a/con, pronounced /aw^'w. Thee is likewise mute in the same situation, when preceded by d in pardon, pronounced pard'n, but not in guerdon: it is mute when preced- ed by p in weapon, capon, &c. pronounced weapon, cap'n, &c. ; and when preceded by s in reason, season, treason, oraison, benison, de^ nison, unison, foison, poison, prison, damson^ crimson, advowson, pronounced reaz^n, treaz'n, &c. and mason, bason, garrison, lesson, capa-^ rtson, comparison, disinherison, parson, and person, pronounced mas'n, bas'n, &c. Uni' son, diapason, and cargason, seem, particular. Iv in solemn speaking, to preserve the sound of like u, as if written unizun, diapazun^ &e The same letter is suppressed in a final un^ aocented syllable beginning with t, as, teton, DIFFERENT SOUNDS OF THE LETTEKS O AND V. 84 cedes the ^ the o is pronounced distinctly, as in texton. When / is the preceding letter, the o is generally suppressed, as in the pro- per names, Stilton cheese, Wilton carpets, and Melton Mowbray, &c. Accurate speak- ers sometimes struggle to preserve it in the name of our great epic poet, Milton; but the former examples sufficiently shew the tendency of the language ; and this tenden- cy cannot be easily counteracted. This let- ter is likewise suppressed in the last syllable of blazon, pronounced blaz'n ; but is always to be preserved in the same syllable of hori- zon. This suppression of the o must not be ranked among those careless abbreviations found only among the vulgar,but must be con- sidered as one of those devious tendencies to brevity, which has worn itself a currency in the language, and has at last become a part of it. To pronounce the o in those cases svhere it is suppressed, would give a singular- ity to the speaker bordering nearly on the pedantic; and the attention given to this singularity by the hearer, woiild necessarily diminish his attention to the subject, and consequently deprive the speaker of something much more desirable. U. 171. The first sound of u, heard in tubcy or ending an accented syllable, as in cu-bic, is a diphthongal sound, as if e were prefixed, and these words were spelt tewbe and kewbic. The letter a is exactly the pronoun you. 172. The second sound of u is tne short sound which tallies exactly with the o in done, ton, &c. which every ear perceives might, as well, for the sound's sake, be spelt dun, sun, &.C. Sec all the words where the o has this sound, 'No. 16^. 173. The third sound of this letter, and that in which the English more particularly depart from analogy, is the u in bull, fuU, ^uU, &c. The first or diphthongal u in tube seems almost as peculiar to the English as the long sound of the i in thine, mine, &c. ; but here, as if they chose to imitate the La- tin, Italian, and French u, they leave out the e before the a, which is heard in tube, mule, hv.. and do not pronounce the latter part of u quite so long as the oo in pool, nor so short Rfl the u in dull, but with a middle sound be- tween both, which is the true short sound of the in coo and woo, as may be heard by comparing woo and wool ; the latter of which a perfect rhyme to huli 174. This middle sound of «, so unlike the general sound of that letter, exists only in liie following words : bull, full, puU ; words compounded o^ full, as wonderful, dreadful, tec. bullock, bully, bullet, bulwark, fuller, fuU fingmill, pulley, pullet, push, busK bushel, pul- pit, puss, bullion, butcher, cushion, cuckoo, pud* ding, sugar, hussar, huzza, and put when a verb : but few as they are, except full, which is a very copious termination, they are suffi-. cient to puzzle Englishmen who reside at any distance from the capital, and to make the inhabitants of Scotland and Ireland (who, it is highly probable, received a much more regular pronunciation from our ances- tors,) not unfi-equently the jest of fools. 175. Bui vague and desultory as thig sound of the u may at first seem, on a closer view we find it chiefly confined to wordi which begin with the mute labials, b, p, f, and end with the liquid labial /, or the den- tals *, t, and d, as in bull, full, pull, bush, push) pudding, puss, put, &c. Whatever, there-, fore, was the cause of this whimsical devia-. tion, we see its primitives are confined to a very narrow compass : put has this sound only when it is a verb ; for putty, a paste for glass, has the common sound of m, and rhymes exactly with nutty, (having the tfualities of a imt;) so put, the game at cards, and the vulgar appellation of country put, follow the same analogy. All bull's compounds regu^ larly follow their primitive; as, bull-baiting, buli-beggar, bull-dog, &c. But though /w^r, a whitener of cloth, and FuUiam, a proper name, are not compounded oi full, they ara sounded as if they were ; while Putney fol- lows the general rule, and hai its first sylla- ble pronounced like the noun put. Pulpil and pullet comply with the peculiarity, on account of their resemblance to piJl, though Dothing related to it; and butcher and puss adopt this sound of « for no other reason but the nearness of their form to the other words; and when to these we have added cushion, sugar, cuckoo, hussar, and the interjection huzza, we have every word in le whole lan^. guage where the « is thus pronounced. 176. Some speakers, indeed, have attempt- ed to give bulk and punish this obtuse sound of «, but luckily have not been followed. The words which have alread}' adopted it are sufficiently numerous ; and we cannot be too careful to check the growth of so unmeaning an irregularity. ^^Tien this vowel is preced- ed by r in the aame syllable, it has a sound somewhat longer than this middle sound, and exactly as if written oo : thus rue, true, &c, are pronounced nearly as if written roo, troo, &c. (339). 177. It must be remarked, that this sourd of «, except in the word fuller never extends to words from the learned languages ; for, fulminant, fulmination, ebullition, repulsion, sepulchre, &c. sound the u as in dull, gull, &.C. and the m in pus and pustule is exactly like the same letter in thus. So the pure Eng« lish yiovAi, fulsome, buss, bhigc, bustle, busiaril DIFFKRENT SOUNDS OP THE LETTERS U AND Y. 35 buzzard, preserve the « in its second sound, ns, us, hull, and cjutard. It may likewise not be unworthy of remark, that the letter « is never subject to the shortening power of either the primary or secondary accent ; but when accented, is always long, unless short ened by a double consonant. See the words Drama and Mucjlent, and No. 503, 534. Irregular and unaccented Sounds. ITS. But the stranirest deviation of thi 181. The second sound of the vov.'cl 3 is its short sound, heard in tt/steni, syntax, son, of very frequent use in the Latin lan- guage, which seems not properly to have any place in the English ; since the ce of the Sax- ons has been long out of use, being changed to e simple; to which, in words frequently occurring, the cb of the Romans is, in tha same manner, altered, as in equator, equinoc- till, and even in Eneas. 200. .But though the diphthong ce is per- fectly useless in our language, and the sub- stitution of e in its stead, in Cesar and Eneas, is recommended by Dr. Johnson, we do not find his autiiority has totally annihilated it, especiallyin proper names and technical terms derived from the learned languages. Ca;sar JEneas, ^sop, pcsan, cether, ^thiop's mine- ral, amphisbccna, anacephalcEosis, aphcsresis, (Tgilops, ozcBna, &c. seem to preserve the ili[)hthbng, as well as certain words which are either plurals or genitives, in Latin words not naturalised, as, corniu:opux, exuvice, aqua vitfE, ininutics, strice, &c. 201. This diphthong, when not under the accent, in Michaelmas, and when accented in DcBdalm, is pronounced liice short e: it is, like e, subject to the short sound when under the secondary accent, as in lEnobarhus, where a:n, in the first syllable, is pronounced exactly like the letter n, (530.) AI. 202. The sound of this diphthong is exact- ly like the long slender sound of a; thus paU, a vessel, and pale, a colour, are perfect- ly the same sound. The exceptions are but few. 203. ^^1len said is the third person preter- imperfect tense of the verb to say, ai has the sound of short e, and said rhymes with bed; the same sound of ai may be observed in the third person of the present tense sailh, and the participle said: but when this word is an adjective, as the said man, it is regular, and riuTnes with trade. 204. Fluid, a striped garment, rhymes with nuid. 205. Raillery is a perfect rhyme to sala, and raisin, a fruit, is pronounced exactly like reason, the distinctive faculty of man. ;^ee t'Oth these words in the Dictionary. 206. Again and against sound as if written cgcn and agenst. 207. Tiie aisle of a church is pronounced exactly like isle, an island ; and is sometime written He. 208. When this diphthong is in a final un- accented syllable, the a is bunk, and the i pronounced short : thus, mountain, fountain, captain, curtain, villain, are all pronounced as if written mountin, foutdi?i, cujitin, (.-artin, vit- 38 DIFFEKENT SOUNDS OP THE DIPHTHONGS AO, AU, AW, AY. hu : but when the last word takes an addi- tional syllable, the » is dropped, and the a has its short sound, as, vUlanous, villani/. Sec the words in the Dictionary. 209. The ai in Britain has the short sound approaching to u, so common with all the vowels in final unaccented syllables, and is pronounced exactly like Briton, !y real exceptions to this sound of a in the whole list; and as these words Lire chiefly confined to tragedy, they may be allowed to " fret and strut their hour upon the stage" in the old traditionary sound of awe. 217. This diphthong is pronounced like long 0, in hautboy, as if written ho-boy ; and like short in cauliflower, laurel, and tauda- 210. Plait, a fold of cloth, is regular, and j num ; as if written colMower, lorrel, and lod- ought to be pronounced like plate, a dish ; j danum. In gauge, au has die sound of slen- pronouncing it so as to rhyme with meat is a i der a, and rhymes with page. vulgarism, and ought to be avoided. I 218. There is a corruot pronunciation o! 211. P/awfer belongs no longer to this class j this diphthong among the vulgar, which i^ of words, being now more properly written | giving the au in daughter, sauce, saucer^ and plaster, rhyming wi^ caster. AO. 212. This combination o/ vowels in a diph- thong is only to be met with in the word gaol, now more properly written as it is pronounc- ed, jai/. AU. 213. The general sound of this diphthong is that of the noun awe, as, taught, caught, &c or of the a in hall, ball, &c. ' 214. When these letters are followed by n\ and another consonant, they change to the | second sound of a, heard in far, farther, &c. ; j thus, aunt, askaunce, askaunt, flaunt, haunt, gauntlet, jaunt, haunch, launch, craunch, jaun- dice, laundress, laundry, have the Italian sound of the a in the last syllable oi papa and man.- ma. To these, I think, ought to be added, daunt, paunch, gaunt, and saunter, as Dr. Ken- rick has marked them with the Italian a, and not as if written dawnt, pawnch, &c. as Ptlx. Sheridan sounds them. Maund, a basket, is always pronounced with the Italian a, and nearly as if written mamd; for which rea- son. Maundy Thursday, which is derived ,Tom it, ought, with IVIr. Nares, to be pro- nounced in the same manner, though gene- rally heard with the sound of aw. To maun- ier, to grumble, though generally heard as if written mawnder, ought certainly to be pronounced, as Mr. Nares has classed it, with the Italian a. The same may be ob- served of taunt, which ought to rhyme with aunt, though sounded tawnt by Mr. Sheri- dan ; and being left out of the above list, supposed to be so pronounced by Mr. Nares. 215. Laugh and draught, which are very properly classed by INIr. Nares among those words which have the lOng Italian a in fa- ther, are marked by Mr. Sheridan with his first sound of a in hat, lengthened into the sound of a in father, by placing the accent on it. Staunch is spelled without the u by Johnson, and therefore improperly classed by Mr. Nares in the above list. 216. Vaunt and avaunt seem to be the on- saucy, the sound of the Italian a, and nearly as if written darter, sarce, sarcer, and sarcy ; but this pronunciation cannot be too care- fully avoided. Au in sausage also, is sound- ed by the vulgar with short a. as if written sassage ; but in this, as in the other words, au ought to sound auie. See the words in the Dictionary. AW 219. Has the long broad sound of a in baU^ with which the word bawl is perfectly ideii- dcal. It is always regular. AY. 220. This diphthong, like its near relatios ai, has the sound of slender a in pay, day, &c. and is pronounced like long e in the word quay, which is now sonietuues seen written key ; for if we cannot bring the pronuncia- tion to the spelling, it is looked upon as some improvement to bring the spelling to the pro- nunciation: a most pernicious practice in language. See Bowl. 221. To flay (to strip off the skin,) also, is corruptly pronounced flea ; but the diph- thong in this word seems to be recovering its rights. 222. There is a wanton departure from analogy in orthography, by changing the y in this diphthong to i in the words paid, said, laid, for payed, sayed, and layed. Why these words should be written with i, and thus contracted, and played, prayed, and delayed, remain at large, let our wise correctors of or- thography determine. Stayed also, a parti- cipial adjective, signifying steady, is almost always written staid. 223. When aye comes immediately after the accent in a final syllable, like ai, it drops the former vowel, in the colloquial pronun- ciation of the days of the week. Thus, as we pronounce captain, curtain, &c. as if writ- ten captin, curtin, &c. ; so we hear Sunday, Monday, &c. as if written Sundy, Mundy, &c. A more distinct pronunciation of day, in these words, is a mark of the northern di- alect, (208). 22i. The familiar assent, ay for jfes, is a DUKERENT SOUKTS OF THE DIPHTHONGS AYE AND EA, 39 we give the a the sound of that letter in ball, the word degenerates into a coarse rustic pronunciation. Though, in the House of Commons, where this word is made a noun, we frequently, but not correctly, hear it so pronounced, in the phrase. The ayes have it. AYE. 225. Thb triphthong is a combination of the slender sound of a, heard in pa^er, and the e in me~tre. The word which it com- poses, signiiying ever, is almost obsolete. EA. 226. The regular sound of this oiphthong \i that of the first sound of e in here ; but its irregular sound of short e is so frequent, as to make a catalogue of both necessary ; especially for those who are unsettled in the pronunciation of the capital, and wish to practise in order to form a habit. 227. The first sound of ea is like open e, and is heard in the following words : Afeard, affear, anneal, appeal, appear, appease, aread, arrear, beacon, beadle, beadroU, beads, beads- man, beagle, beak, beaker, beam, bean, beard, bearded, beast, beat, beaten, beaver, beleaguer, beneath, bequeath, bereave, besmear, bespeak, bleach, bleak, blear, bleat, bohea, breach, bream, to breathe, cease, cheap, cheat, clean, cleanly, (adverb,) clear, clearance, cleave, cochineal, colleague, conceal, congeal, cream, creak, crease, creature, deacon, deal, dean, deanery, dear, decease, defeasaru:e, defeasible, defeat, demean, demeanor, decrease, dream, drear, dreary, each, eager, eagle, eagre, ear, east, easier, easy, to eat, eaten, eaves, entreat, endear, escheat, fear, fearful, feasible, feasibility, feast, feat, feature, fleayjleam, freak, gear, gleam, glean, to grease, grease, greaves, heal, heap, hear, heat, heath, Tvcathen, heave, impeach, increase, imeam, in- terleave, knead, lea, to lead, leaf, league, leak, lean, lease, leash, leasing, least, leave, leaves, mead, meagre, meal, mean, meat, measles, meathe, neap, near, neat, pea, peace, peak, peal, pease, peat, plea, plead, please, reach, to read, ream, reap, rear, rearward, reason, recheat, redstreak, release, repeal, repeat, retreat, reveal, ncreak, scream, seal, sea, seam, seamy, tear, (farcloth, season, seat, shear, shears, sheath, theatke, sheaf, sieazy, sneak, sneaker, sneakup, speak, spear, steal, steam, streak, streamer, streamy, surcease, tea, teach, lead, league, teal, team, tear, (substantive,) tease, teat, treacle, treason, treat, treatise, treatment, treaty, tweag, tweak, tweague, veal, underneath, uneasy, un- reave, tiprear, weak, weaken, weal, vieald, mean, weanling, weariness, wearisome, weary. combination of the long Italian a in the last ! 228. In this catalogue we fmd heard ^u^ syllable a? papa, and the first sound of eijjle, seize, seisin, seignior, seigniory, sciiif, niFFERENT SOUNDS OP THE DIPHTHONGS EI, EO, EOU, EU. ffteheian. Obeisance ought to be in the pre- ceding class. See the word. 251. Leisure is sometimes pronounced as rliyming with pleasure ; but, in my opinion, very improperly ; for if it be allowed that custom is equally divided, we ought, in this case, to pronounce the diphthong long, as more expressive of the idea annexed to it. (241.) 252. Either and neither are so often pro- nounced eye-ther and nigh'ther, that it is hard to say to which class they belong. Analogy, however, without hesitation, gives the diph- thong the sound of long open e, rather than that of i, and rhymes them with breather, one who breathes. This is the pronunciation Mr. Garrick always gave to these words ; but the true analogical sound of the diphthong m these words is that of the slender a, as if written ay-ther, and nay-ther. This pro- nunciation is adopted in Ireland, but is not favoured by one of our orthoepists ; for Mr. Sheridan, Mr. Scott, Mr. Elphinston, Mr. Perry, Mr. Smith, Steele's Grammar, and Dr. Jones, all pronounce these words with the diphthong like long e. W. Johnston alone idopts the sound of long i exclusively ; Dr. Kenrick gives both ether and ither : He pre- fers the first, but gives neither the sound of long e exclusively. INIr. Coote says these words are generally pronounced with the ei like the t in mine. Mr. Barclay gives no de- scription of the sound of ei in either, but says neither is sometimes pronounced mther, and by others nether ; and IMr. Nares says, " ei- Iher and neither are spoken by some with the sound of long j. I have heard even that of long a given to them ; but as the re- gular way is also in use, I think it is pre- ferable. These dLSerences seem to have a- risen from ignorance of the regular sound of ei." If by the regular way, and the regular sound of this diphthong, Mr. Nares means the long sound of e, we need only inspect No. 249 and 250, to see that the sound of a is the more genera! sound, and therefore ought to be call- ed the regular, but as these are so many in- stances of words where this diphtnong has the long sound of e, and custom is so uni- form in these words, there can be no doubt which is the safest to follow. 253. Ei has the sound of long open j, in height and sleight, rhyming wth white and right. Height is, indeed, often heard rhym- ing with eight and weight, and that among very respectable speakers ; but custom seems to decide in favour of the other pronuncia- tion, that it may better tally with the adjec- tive high, of which it is the abstract 254. Ei has the sound of short e, in the t^o words heifer and nonpareil, pronounced htffer and nonpareil. 255. This diphthong, when unaccented. 41 like ai, (208.) drops the former vowel, and ?8 pronounced like short s, in foreign, foreigner, forfeit, forfeiture, sovereign, sovereignty, sur- feit, counterfeit. EO. 256. This diphthong is pronounced like e long in people, as if written peeple ; and like e short, in leopard and jeopardy, as if written leppard and jeppardy ; and in the law terms feoffee, feoffer, and feoffment, as if written feffee,feffer, and feffment. 257. We frequently hear these vowels con- tracted into shortoin geography and geometry, as if written joggraphy and jommetry ; but this gross pronunciation seems daily wearing away, and giving place to that which separates the vowels into two distinct syllables, as it is always heard in geographical, geometer, geo- metrical, and geometrician. Georgia is always heard as if written Jorgic, and must be given up as incorrigible. (1 16). 258. Eo is heard like u \n feod, feodal, feo- datory, which are sometimes written as they are \>xono\xnced, feud, feudal, feudatory . 259. Eo, when unaccented, has the sound of u short in surgeon, sturgeon, dudgeon, gud- geon, bludgeon, curmudgeon, dungeon, luncheon, puncheon, truncheon, bourgeon, habergeon ; but in scutcheon, escutcheon, pigeon, and widgeon, the eo sounds like short s. 2G0. Eo sounds like long o in yeoman and yeomanry ; the first syllable of which words rhyme with go, no, so. See the w^ords. 261. Eo in galleon, a Spanish ship, sounds as if written galloon, rhjTiiing with mooti. EOU. 262. This assemblage of vowels, for they cannot be properly called a triphthong, is often contracted into one syllable in prose^ and poets never make it go for two. In cm- taneous and vitreous, two syllables are palpa- ble ; but in gorgeous and outrageous, the soft g coalescing vrith e seems to drop a syllable, though polite DronunciatioD will always pre- serve it. 263. This assemblage is never found but in an unaccented syllable, and generally a final one ; and wnen it is immediately preceded by the dentals d or /, it melts them into the sound of^' and tch: thus, hideous and piteous are pronounced as if written hijeous and pi- tcheous. The same may be observed of righ' teous,plenteous, bounteous, courteovs, beauteotu, and duteous. (293,) (294.) EU. 264. This diphthong is always sounded lika long u or ew, and is scarcely ever irregular, thus, feud, deuce, &c. are pronounced as if written /eu'i, dewse, &c. ^ DIFFERENT SOUNDS OF THE DIPHTHONGS EW, EWE, B EW. 2G5. This dii)!uhong is pronounced like long u, and is almost always regular. There is a corrupt pronunciation of it like oo, chiefly in London, where we sometimes hear amv and neiv pronounced as if written doo and noo ; but when r precedes this di[)hthong, as in brew, crew, drew, &c. pronouncing it like oo, is scarcely improper. See 176, 339. 256. Shew and strew have almost left this class, and, by Johnson's recommendation, are become show and strow, as they are pro- nounced. The proper name Shrewsbury, however, still retains the e, though always pronounced Shrowshury. Sew, with a needle, always rhymes with no ; and sewer, signify- ing a drain, is generally pronounced shore: but sewer, an officer, rhymes with fewer. See SfiWER. 267. Ew is sometimes pronounced like aw in the verb to chew ; but this is gross and vulgar. To chew ought always to rhyme with new, riew, &c, EWE. 268. This triphthong exists only in the word ewe, a female sheep, which is pronounc- ed exactly lilce yew, a tree, or the pronoun you. Tliere is a vulgar pronunciation of this word, as if written yoe, rhyming with doe, which must be carefully avoided. See the word. ET. 269. When the accent is on this diphthong, it is always pronounced like ay, or like its kindred diphthong ei in vein, reign, &c. ; thus, bey, dey, grey, prey, they, trey, whey, ohey, convey, purvey, survey, hey, eyre, and eyry, are always heard as it written hay, day, &c. Key and ley are the only exceptions, which always rhyme with sea. (220.) 270. Ey, when unaccented, is pronounced like ee : thus, galley, valley, alley, barley, &c. are pronounced as if written gallee, vallee, &c. The noun survey, therefore, if we place the accent on the first syllable, is anomalous. See the word. EYE. 271. This trip"hthong is only found in the word eye, which is always pronounced like the letter /. lA. 272. This diphthong, in the terminations ian, ial, iard, and iate, forms but one syllable, though the », in this situation, having the squeezed sound of ee, perfectly similar to y, gives the syllable a double sound, very dis- tinguishable in its nature from a syllable fonn- etl without the i: thus, christian, Jtlial, po- uiard, (mwUiaie, sound as if written crist~yan. \fil-yai; poniard, concU-yate, and have In the ' last syllable an evident mixture of the sound oi y consonant. (113.) 273. In diamond, these vowels are properlj no diphthong; and in prose the word ought to have three distinct syllables ; but we fre- quently hear it so pronounced as to drop the a entirely, and as if written dimond. This, however, is a corruption that ought to be a- voided. 274. In carriage, marriage, parliament, and miniature, the a is dropped, and the i has its short sound, as if written carridge, marridge, parliment, and ininiture. (90.) IE. 275. The regular sound of this diphthong is that of ee, as in grieve, thieve, fiend, lief, liege, chief, kerchief, handJcerchief, auctionier, grenadier. Sec. as if written greeve, iheeve, feend, &c. 276. It has the sound of long t in die, hie, lie, pie, tie, vie, as if written dy, hy, &c, 277. The short sound o(e is heard in frienO, tierce, and the long sound of the same letter in teer, frieze. 278. In variegate, the best pronunciation is to sound both vowels distinctly like e, as if written vary-c-gate. 279. In the numeral terminations in ieth, as twentieth, thirtieth, &c. the vowels ought always to be kept distinct ; the first like open e, as heard in the y in twenty, thirty, &c. and the second like short e, heard in breath, deaths &c. 28*. In fiery too, the vowels are heard dis- tinctly, 281. In orient, and spaniel, where these letters come after a liquid, they are pronounc- ed distinctly ; and great care should be taken not to let the last word degenerate into span' nel. {113.) 282. When these letters meet, in conse- quence of forming the plurals of nouns, they retain either the long or short sound they had in the singular, without increasing the number of syllables : thus, afiy makes fiics, a lie makes lies, company makes companies, and dignity, dignities. The same may be observ- ed of the third persons and past participles of verbs : as, Ifiy, hefiies, I deny, he denies, he denied, I sully, he sullied, &c. which may be pronounced as if written denize, denide, sulUd, &c. (104.) 283. When ie is in a termination without the accent, it is pronounced like e only, in the same situation : thus, brasier, grasier, and glasier, have the last syllable sounded as if written brazhur, grazfiur, and glazhur, or ra- ther as hraze-yur, graze-yur, &c. (98) (418.) lEU. 284. These vowels occur ixx adieu Jieu,i:ur- DIFFERENT SOUNDS OF THE DIPHTHO^JGS ICW, lO, 4? heu, where they have the sound of lonij «, as if written adeii, leu, purleu. 285. In one word, lieutenant, these letters are pronounced like short «?, as if written lev- tenant. See the word. lEW. 28r>. These letters occur only in the word tiew, where they sound like ee, rhyming with few, new. 10. 287. Wlien the accent is upon the first of these vowels, they form two distinct syllables, as violent, violet ; the last of which is some- times corruptly pronounced vi4et. 288. In marchioness, the i is entirely sunk, and the unaccented o pronounced, as it usu- ally is in this situation, like short u, as if writ- ten marshuness. (352.) 289. In cushion, the o is sunk, and the word pronounced cushin. See the word. 290. In the very numerous termination ion, these vowels are pronounced in one 8yllal)!e like short u; but when they are preceded by a liquid, as in million, minion, clarion, &c. (113) the two vowels, though they make but one syllable, are heard distinctly : the same may be observed when they are preceded by any of the other consonants, except s and /, as champion, scorpion, &c. where tlie vowels are heard separately : but the terminacions tion and sion are pronounced in one syllable, iike the verb shun. 291. The only exception to this rule is, when the / is preceded by *; in this case the I goes into tch, and the i is in a small degree audible like short e. This may be heard in question, mvction, digestion, combustion, and, what is an instance of the same kind, in chris- tian, as if written ques-tchun, mix-tckun, &c. or quest-yun, mixt-yun, &c. (461) (462."' 10 U. 292. This triphthong, when preceded by a liquid, or any mute but a dental, is heard distinctly in two syllables, as in bilious, vari- ous, glorious, abstemious, ingtTiious, c undiscernedly, preparedly, assuredly, advisedly, 3G0. By the foregoing rule of contraction, i dispersedly, diffusedly, confusedly, unperceived-^ arising from the very nature of the letters, i iy, resolvedly, deservedly, undeservedly, reserve we see the absurdity of substituting the t for 1 edlv, unreservedly, avowedly, perplexedly, fixi ed, when the verb ends in a sharp consonant ; for when the pronunciation cannot be mis- taken, it is folly to alter the orthography : thus the Distressed Mother, the title of a tragedy, needs not to be written Distrest Mo- Vier, as we generally find it, because, though we write it in the former manner, it must necessarily be pronounced in the latter. 361. By this rule, too, we may see the im- propriety of writing blest for blessed, when a participle. " Ble« in thj genius, in thj love too blCTt-'—Pope. But when the word blessed is an adjective, it ought always to be pronounced, even in the most familiar conversation, in two syllables, as, this is a blessed day, the blessed thistle, &c. 362. This word, with learned, cursed, and edly, aniazedly. 365. To this catalogue may be added seve. ral abstract substantives formed from partici^ pies in ed : which ed makes a distinct syUn^ ble in the former, though not in the latter ; thus numbedness, blearedness, preparedness, assuredness, diseasedness, advisedness, rejjosed- ness, composedness, indisposedness, diffused^ ness, confusedness, distressedness, resolvedncss, reservedness, perplexedness, fixedness, amazed^ ness, have ed pronounced distinctly. 366. The adjectives naked, wicked, picked, (pointed,) hooked, crooked, forked, tusked, and wretched, are not derived from verbs, and arc therefore pronounced in two syllables, Tho same may be observed of scabbed, crabbed, chubbed, stubbed, shagged, snagged, ragged unnged, are the only participial adjectives ( scrubbed, dogged, rugged, scragged, hawked, which are constantly pronounced in two syl- ij'agge-t/ ; to which we may add, the solomp 4 50 PRONtmCTATrON OF THE CONSONANT D. pronunciation of j<{^7i^c/rcd; and these whenj therefore doubly irregular. Weep, slcep^ formed into nouns by the addition of ness,^ and creep, would not have required t to form preserve the cd in a distinct syllable, as, wick- their preterits, any more than peeped, and edness, scabbedncss, raggcdnen, &c. I sl-eeped, but custom, which has shortened the 307. Passed, in the sense of beyond, be- 1 diphthong in the former words, very natural- comes a preposition, and may allowably bp ly annexed t as the simplest method of con- written /)a«^ as past twelve o'clock ; but whei> vsying the sound, an adjective, though it is pronounced in one 371. The only two words which occasion syllable, it ought to be written with two, as eome doubt about classing them are, to learn passed pleasures are present pain: this \\tmA to spell. The vulgar (who are no con- know is contrary to usage ; but usage is, in temptible guides on this occasion) pronounce this case, contrary to good sense, and the! them in the preterit /ear«f and «je/<; but as settled analog;/ of the language. \n and / will readily admit of d after them, it 368. It needs scarcely be observ ed, that seems more correct to favour a tendency to when the verb ends in t or d, the ed in the regularity,both in writing and speaking, which past time and participle has the d pronounc- the literary world has given into, by spelling ed with its own sound, and always forms an them learned and spelled, and pronouncing additional syllable, as landed, matted, &c. O" them learn' d and spelTd: thus eamerf, the pre- therwnse the final d could not be pronounced tent of to earn, has been recovered from the at all. [vulgar eamt, and made a perfect rhyme to 369. And here, perhaps, it may not be discerned. useless to take notice of the very imperfect I 372. To these observations may be added, and confused idea that is given m Lov,'th'sithat, in such irr^ular verbs as have the pre- grammar, of what are called contracted verbs, sent, the preterit, and participle the same, as, such as snatcht, checkt, snapt, mixt, dwelt, and ^cast, cost, cut, &c. ; the second person singu- fiast, for snatched, checked, snapped, mixed, lar of the preterit of these verbs takes ed he- dwelled, and passed. To these are added, those that end in /, m, and n, or p, after a diphthong; which either shorten the diph- thong, or change it into a single vowel ; and instead of ed, take t only for the preterit, as, dealt, dreamt, meant, felt, slept, crept ; and these aic said to be considered not as irr^u- lar, but contracted only. Now nothing can !\e clearer than that verbs of a different kind nre here huddled together as of the same. Snatched, checked, snapped, mixed, and passed, are not irregular at all ; if they are ever ^^-rit- ten snatcht, checkt, snapt, mixt, and past, it is from pure ignorance of analogy, and not considering that if they were written with ed, unless we were to pronounce it as a dis- tinct syllable, contrary to the most settled usage of the language, the pronunciation, from the very nature of the letters, must be the same. It is ver}' different with dwelled; here, as ?. liquid, and not a shaip niute, ends ihe verb, 370. The same may be observed of deal, iream, mean, feel, weep, sleep, and creep. It h certain we can pronounce d after the four first of these words, as well as in sealed, screamed, cleaned, and reeled; but custom i;as not only annexed / to the preterit of these verbs, but has changed the long diph- Xhonijal sound into a short one : they are great injury of the language, have expellee] the d, and left the vowel to shift for itself because there h no d in the Latin words from which these are derived. 376. D like t, to which it is so nearly re- lated, when it comes after the accent, either primary or secondary, (522,) and is followed by the diphthong ie, io, ia, or eou, slides in. to gzh, or the consonant j : thus soldier is universally and justly pronounced as if v»Tit- ten soUjer ; grandeur, jsrau-jeur ; and ver- PEONtTNCIATTON OF THE CONSONANTS F, G, ETC. 51 durr, (where it must be remembered that u ig a diplithong,) ver-jure: and, for the same reason, education is elegantly pronounced ed- jucation. But duke and reduce, pronounced jjike and rejuce, where the accent is after the d, cannot be too much reprobated. F. 377. F has its pure sound in often, ojf, &c. but in the preposition of, slides into its near relation v, as if written o». But when this preposition is in composition at the end of a word, the/ becomes pure; thus, though we sound of, singly, ov, we pronounce it as if the / were .double in whereof. 378. There is a strong tendency to change the/ into », in some words, which confounds the plural number and the genitive case : thus we often hear of a wivc's jointure, a calve' t head, and houze rent, for u4fe'e jointure, a calfs head, and house rent. G 379. G, like C, has two sounds, a nard and a soft one : it is hard before a, o, u, /, and r, as, game, gone, gull, glory, grandeur. Gaol is the only exception; now more commonly written _;rt«7. (212.) 380. G, before e and i, is sometimes hard and sometimes soft ; it is generally soft before words of Greek, Latin, or French original, and hard before words from the Saxon. These latter, forming by far the smaller num- ber, may be considered as exceptions. 381. G is hard before e, in gear, geek, geexe, geld, gelt, gelding, get, gewgaw, shag- ged, snagged, ragged, cragged, tcragged, dog- S<'-d, rugged, dagger, nvagger, staler, trigger, dogger, pettifogger, tiger, auger, eager, mea- ger, anger, finger, linger, conger, longer, stronger, younger, longest, strongest, youngest. The last six of thece words are generally pronounced in Ireland, so as to let the g re- main in its nasal sound, without articulating the succeeding vowel, thus, longer (more long) is so pronounced as to sound exactly like the noun a long-er (one who longs or wishes for a thing,) the same may be observ- ed of the rest. That the pronunciation of Ireland is analogical, appears from the same pronunciation of g in string-y, spring-y, full of strings and springs ; and wronger and wrongest, for more and most wrong. But though resting the g in the nasal sound, with- out articulating the succeeding vowel, is ab- solutely necessary in verbal nouns derived from verbs ending in ing, as, singer, bringer, sliiiger, &c. pronounced sing-er, bring-er, sling-er, &c. and not sing-ger, bring-ger, sling-ger, &c. yet in longer, stronger, and younger, longest, strongest, and youngest, the g ought always to articulate the *.• thus. younger ought always to rhyme with the ter- mination monger, which has always the g hard, and articulating the vowel ; and this pronunciation is approved by Mr. Nares. Forget, target, and together, fall into this class. See No. 409. 382. G is hard before i, in gibbe, gibcat, gibber, gibberish, gibbous, giddy, gift, gig, gig, g/c, giglet (properly giggUt,) gUd, gtll (of a fi: h.) gindet, gimp, gird, girdle, girl, girth, giz-> zard, begin, give, forgive, biggin, piggin, nog- gin ; also derivatives from nouns or verba ending in hard g, as, druggist, waggish, hog- gish, doggish, sluggish, rigging, tagging, &c. 383. G before y is generally soft, as in ele- gy, apology, &c. and almost in all words from the learned languages ; but hard in words from the Saxon, which are formed from nouns or verbs ending in ^ hard, as, thaggy, J'^ggV' ^■"''gg.y' '"figgy, craggy, scraggy, quag- gy, swaggy, dreggy, spriggy, twiggy, boggy, foggy, cloggy, buggy, muggy. Gyve, from Its Celtic original, ought to have the g hard, but has decidedly adopted the soft g. GN in the same SyHahle at the Beginning of a Word. 384', TtiC g in this situation is always si- lent, as, gnaw, gnash, gnat, gnarl, gnomon, gnomcnics: pronounced naw, nash, not, narl. j nomon, nomonics. ! GX in the same Syllable at the End of a j Word. I 385. No combination of letters has more puzzled tlie critics than this. Two actresses of distingiushed merit, in Portia, in the Mer- chant of Venice, pronounced the word impugn differently, and each found her advocate in the newspapers. One critic affirmed, that ]\Iis8 Young, by preserving the sound of g, pronounced the word properly ; and the o- ther contended, that Mrs. Yates was more judicious in leaving it out. The former was charged with harshness ; the latter, with mu- tilating the word, and weakening its sound : but if analogy may decide, it is clearly in fa- vour of the latter ; for there is no axiom in our pronunciation, more indisputable than that which makes g silent before n in the same syllable. This is constantly the case in sign, and all its compounds, as resign, de- sign, consign, assign ; and in indign, cotutign, malign, benign ; all pronounced as if written sine, rezine, &c. In which words we find the vowel t long and open, to compensate, as it were, for the suppression of g, as every other word ending in gn, when the accent is on the syllable, has a diphthong pronounced like a long open vowel, as arraign, campaign, feign, reign, deign; and consequently, un- less the vowel u can produce some specia! 62 PRONUNCIATION OF THE CONSONANTS GN, GM. privilege which the other vowels have not, we must, if we pronounce according to ana- logy, make the u in this situation long, and •ound impugn, as if written impum. 3S6. The same analogy will oblige us to pronounce impregn, oppugn, expugn, proj^itgn, as if written impreiie, oppum, expune, pro- oune, not only when these verbs are in the mfinitive mood, but in the preterits, partici- ples, and verbal nouns formed from them, as impugned, impugning, and impugner, must be pronounced impuved, impunlng, and impuncr. The same may be observed of the rest. Per- haps it will gratify a curious observer of pronunciation to see the diversity and uncer- tainty of our orthoepists in their notation of the words before us : — impune, Sheridan, Scott, Nares, Murray. Barclay says the g in this were) jiid its d^ rivatives is mute, but takes no uotice of the quantity of the u. impun, Buchanan, Kenrick, Perrj. imimng, Vf. Johnston. opjyutie, Sheridan, Scott, Nares, Murray. oppun, Kenrick, Perry, Barclay. sppung, W. Jolinston. ^opune, Sheridan, Scott, Perrj-, Nares. propimg, Barclay. imprene, Nares, Murray. imprln, Sheridan, Kenrick, Perry. Barclay »xyt the g is mule, but tayi no- thing of the quantity of the » erpunCy Sheridan, Scott, Narea, urpiin. Perry, Barclay. impuner, Sheridan. istpuned, M urray. imp&nner. Perry, Barclay. jppvffner, Sheridan. projmgner, Sheridan. propiner, ScotU propilnner. Perry, Nothing is clearer than that all these words ought to follow the same fortune, and should be pronounced alike. How then shall be re- conciled Mr. Sheridan's pronouncing impugn, oppugn, expugn, and propugn, with the u long, and impregn with the e short ? Ken- rick, who has not the word propugn, is con- sistent in pronouncing the rest with the vowel short. The s;une may be observed of Scott, who adopts the long sound, but has not the word impregn, Mr. Perry gives the short sound to all but propugn, where he makes the « long, but absurdly makes the verbal noun propunner ; and W. Johnston, who has only impugn and oppugn, pronounces the vowel short, and spells them impung, and cy>- pu?ig. Barclay, under the word impung, says the g in this word and its derivatives is mute, without noticing the quantity of the vowels, but spells oppugn, oj)pun : and of impregn, only says the g is mute; but writes propugn, prapung, in the manner that W. Johnston does impugn, and oppugn: but Mr. Nares observes, that analogy Becins to re- quire a similar pronunciation in a'! these words, and that the vowel should be long, The same inconsistency in observable in Mr. Sheridan's pronunciation oi the verbal nouns, for he expunges the g in impugner, and writes it ivipu7wr, but preserves it in oppugncr, and projjugner. Mr. Scott has only the word propugner, which he veiy properly, as well as consistently, spells propuner. Mr. Perry has propunner and impunner, and Barclay impunner only. — The inconsistency here re- marked arises from not attending to the ana- I Idgy of pronunciation, which requires every verbal noun to be pronounced exactly like the verb, with the mere addition of the ter- mination : thus, siyiger is only adding er to the verb sing, without suffering the g to ar- ticulate the e, as it does m finger, and linger, 6i.c. The same may be observed of a signer, one who signs: and as a corroboration of this doctrine, we may take notice that the additional er and est, in the comparatives and superlatives of adjectives, make no al- teration in the sound of the radical word ; this is obvious in the words benigner, benign- est, &.C. except younger, longer, and stronger. See No. 381. 3S7. But in every other compound where these letters occur, the n articulates the lat- ter syllable, and g is heard distinctly in the former, as, sig-nify, nudig-nity, assig-nation, Sic, Some alfected speakers, eitiier ignorant of the rules for pronouncing English, or over- complaisant to the French, pronounce physi- \ ognomy, cognizance, and recognizance, without I the g : but this is a gross violation of the I first principles of spelling. The only words to keep these spetikers in countenance are, poignant and champignon, not long ago im- ported from France, and pronounced poiniant, champinion. The first of these words will probably be hereafter written without the g; while the latter, confined to the kitchen, may be looked upon as technical, and allow- ed an exclusive privilege. See Cognizance. 388. Bagnio, seignior, seraglio, intaglio, and oglio, pronounced ban-yo, seen-yar, serai- yo, intal-yo, and ole-yo, may be considered as foreign coxcombs, and treated with civility, by omitting the g, while they do not pervert the pronunciation of our native English ■\vords. GM in the same Syllable. 389. What has been said of gn is applica- ble to gm. We have but one word in the language where these letters end a word with the accent on it, and that is phlegm ; in this the g is always nmte, and the e, according to analogy, ought to be pronounced long, as ii the word were written Jleme : but a short pronunciation of the e has generally obtain- raoNraciATioK of the coNsoNAirra gm, gh, ght, etc. 63 ed, and we coriimonly near it flem ; it is highly probable Pope pronounced it proper- ly, where he says — '• Our Critics take a contTary extreme ; " They judge wUh furj, but tbey writ* «lth phUgm.^ Bisay tm CriticU^Ji. Perhaps it would not be difficult to reduce this word to analogy, as some speakers still pronounce the e long : but in the compounds of this word, as in those where gn occur, the vowel is shortened, and the g pronounced as in pkleg-mon, phleg-monous, phl-eg-matic, and phleg-magogues ; though Mr. Sheridan, for no reason I can conceive, sinks the g in the last word. When these letters end a syllable not under the accent, the g is silent, but the pre- ceding vowel is shortened : thus paradigm, parapegm, diaphragm, apophthegm, are pro- nounced, paradim, parapem, diaphram, apo- them, GH. 390. This combination, at the beginning of a word, drops the h, as in ghost, ghastly, ghastnets, gherkin, pronounced gost, rhym- uig with most ; gastlt/, gastness, gerkin : but when these letters come at the end of a word, they form some of the greatest anomalies in our language ; gk, at the end of words, is ge- nerally silent, and consequently the preced- ing vowel or diphthong is long, as, high, nigh, thigh, neigh, weigh,inveigh, eugh, (the obsolete way of spelling yew, a tree,) bough, dough, though, although, dough, (a cliff^) plough, fur-' lough, ilough,X2LTahiy place,) through, through- out, thorough, borough, usquebaugh, pugh / 39*1. Gh is frequently pronounced like_^ as laugh, laughter, cough, chough, dough, (an al- lowance in weight,) tlough, (the cast skin of a snake or sore,) enough, rovgh, tougn, trough. 392. Gh is sometimes changed into ck, as hough, though, lough, pronounced hock, shock, lock : sometimes we hear only the g sounded, as in burgh, burgher, and burghership. GHT. 393. Gh, in this termination, is always silent, as fight, night, bought, fought, &c. The only exception is draught ; which, in poetry, is most frequently rhymed with caught, taught, &c. but in prose, is so uni versally pronounced as if written draft, that the poetical sound of it grows uncouth, and is becoming obsolete. Draughts, the game, is also pronounced drafts. Drought (dryness) ij vulgarly pronounced droivth: it is even written 80 by Milton; but in this he is not to be imitated, having mistaken the analogy of this word, as well as that oi height, which he spells heighth, and which is frequently so pronounced by the vulgar. See the words Height and Drought. H. 391-. Tliis letter is no more than breathing forcibly before the succeeding vowel is pro- nounced. At the beginning of words, it is always sounded, except in heir, heiress, horu est, honesty, honour, honourable, herb, herbage, hospital, hostler, hour, humble, humour, hti- morous, humorsome. Ben Jonson leaves out the h in host, and classes it in this respect with honest. 395. H is always silent after r, as rhetoric, rhapsody, rheum, rheumatism, rhinoceros, rhovih, rhubarb, myrrh, catarrh, and their compounds. 396. i7 final, preceded by a vowel, is always silent, as, ah ! hah ! oh I foh ! sirrah, hallelur J ah, Messiah. 397. This letter is often sunk after w, par- ticularly in the Capital, where we do not find the least distinction of sound between while and wile, whet and wet, where and wear. Trifling as this difference may appear at first sight, it tends greatly to weaken and impo- verish the pronunciation, as well as sometimes to confound words of a very different mean- ing. The Saxons, as Dr. Lowth observes, placed the k before the w, as, hvMit: and this is certainly its true place : for, in the pronun- ciation of all words beginning with wh, we ought to breathe forcibly before we pronounce the w, a^ if the words were written hoo-at, hoo-ile, Sec. and then we shall avoid that fee- ble, cockney pronunciation, which is so disa- greeable to a correct ear. J. 399. J is pronounced exactly like soft g, and is perfectly uniform in its sound, except in the word kaUeluJah, where it is pronomiced like y. K. 399. K has exactly the sound of hard c: it is always silent before n in the same sylla- ble, as hiee, kneel, knack, knight, know, knuc- kle, knab, knag, knap, knare, knave, knit, knock knot, knoll. 400. It has been a custom within these twenty years to omit the k at the end of -words when preceded by c. This has intre- duced a novelty into the language, which is that of ending a word with an unusual letter, and is not only a blemish in the face of it, but may possibly produce some irregularity in future formatives ; for mimicking must be written with the k, though to mimic is with- out it. If we use colic as a verb, which is not nncoinmon, v/e must write colicking and co/icked ; and though physicking and physic^ ed are not the most elegant words, they are rot quite out of the line of formation. This 54 PRONUNCIATION OF THE CONSONANT L. omission of k is, however, too general to l»c counteracted, evan by the authority of John son : but it is to be hoped it will be confined to words from the learned languages : and in- deed, as there is not the same ^•ilnity of ap pearing learned in the Saxon, as in the La- tin and Greek, there is no great fear tha thick and stick will lose their k, though thej never had it in the original. L. 401. Ben Jonson says L melteth in die sounding, and is therefore called a liquid. This, however, cannot be the reason that r is called a liquid ; for no two letters can, in this respect, be more opposite. See No. 21. L is mute in almond, calf, half, caive, halve, chaldron, falcon, folk, j/oit, (better written j/e/i, with the / sounded) fusil, halser, malmiey, talmon, salve, talbot (a species of dog). See Salve. 402. L is mute also between a and k ia the same syllable, as balk, chalk, talk, stalk, walk. 403. L IS silent likev/ise between a and ;; in the same syllable, as alnu, balm, calm, palm psalm, qualm, shalm ; but when the m is de tached from the / by commencing anotbe syllable, the / becomes audible. Thus, thou g\ tKe / is mute in psalm, palm, it is always he;irfl in psal-mist, psal-mody, and pal-mistry ; bui in balmy, and palviy, where the y is an ucl jective termination of our own, no alteration ii made in the sound of the substantive which sinks the /. (386.) Calvwr and calmest ought to have the^ mute, as they are only degrees of comparison ; and palmer and palmerworm (except in the language of scripture, where the / in palmerworm ought to be heard) are only a sort of verbal nouns, which never al- ter the sound of the original word, and there- fore ought to have the / mute. But though I is sometimes mute in the noun salve, and ii; the verb to salve, it is always heard in lalve: (a kind of plate). See Sai.ve. 404. L ought always to be suppressed :r, the auxiliary verbs would, coiUd, should : it ii sometimes suppressed in fault ; but this sup- pression is become vulgar, (see the word). Id soldier, likewise, the / is sometimes suppres; sed, and the word pronounced so-jer ; but' this is far from being the most correct pro- nunciation : / ought always to be heard in this word, and its compounds soldierly, soldiership). &C. 403. L, preceded by a mute, and followed by e, in a final syllable, has an imperfect lound, which does not do much honour to our language. The /, in this situation, is nei- ther sounded like el nor le, but the e final is suppressed, and the preceding mufe articu- lates the I, without either a preceding or a succeeding vowel ; so that tliis sound may he called a monster in Grammar — a sylLible without a vowel ! This will easily be per- ceived m the words aNe, table, circle, &c. which are pronounced as if written abl, tabl^ circl. Sec. and in those still more Gothick and uncouth abbreviated participial terminations, peopled, bridled, saddled, trifles, gaffies, &c. pronounced pee-pFd, bri-dTd, sad^'d, irTfiz, gaf-flz, &c. (359) ii72). 406. This letter has not only, like/ and s, the privilege of doubling itself at the end of a word, but it has an exclusive privilege of being double where they remain single ; though by what right cannot well be conceiv- ed. Thus, according to the general rule, when a verb ends in a single consonant, pre- ceded by a single vowel, and the accent is on the last syllable, the consonant is doubled when a participial termination is added, as a- bet, abetting, beg, begging, begin, beginning, &c. but when the accent is not on the last sylla- ble of the verb, the consonant remains single, as suffered, suffering, benefiting, &c. but the / is doubled, whether the accent be on the last syllable or not, as duelling, levelling, victual- ling, travelling, traveller, &c. This gross ir- regularity, however, would not have been ta- ken notice of in this place, if it had not sug. gested an absurdity in pronunciation, occa- sioned by the omission of U Though the latter I is useless in traveller, victualler, &c. it is not so in controller : for as // is a mark of the deep broad sound of « in ball, tall, all, &c. (84) so the same letters are the sign of the long open sound of o in boll (a round stalk of a plant), to joU, noil, (the head,) knoll, (a little hill,) poll, clodpoU, roll, scroll, droll, troll, stroll, toll : for which reason, leaving out one I in bethral, catcal, jniscal, overfal, forestal, reinstal, downfal, withal, control, and unrol, as we find them in Johnson's Dictionary, is an omission of the utmost importance to the sound of the words ; for as the pronunciation sometimes alters the spelling, so the spelling sometimes alters the pronunciation.* Ac- cordingly we find some speakers, chiefly the natives of Ireland, inclined to give the a its middle sound, to words commencing with al, followed by another consonant, because they do not see the U in the all with which these words are compounded . thus we sometimes hear Almighty, albeit, so pronounced as to make their first syllable rhyme with the first of al-ly, vaUey, and extol is pronounced by the Scotch so as to rhyme with coal ; and with just as much reason as we pronounce control in the same manner. For though compounds may, in some cases, be allowed Thi» omiMioo of th» letter L, I »«e, hai been recnSed In the last sutrto eOltlon of Johnion's Dictionary i and It would have \ivm wi-U U the Editors had •cknovlodged their obliKalloiu, and cxtcudol tbcil ^&ondaUor.£ to ttM moii CociK* and wtverai oshois. FKO>iU:, tutorage, tutelage, tutelar, tutelary, &c. tumult, tumour, &c. which he spells tshoon, tshoon- able, &c. tshoo-tur, tshoo-triss, tshoo-tur-idzh, tshoo-tel-idzh, tshoo-tel-er, tshoo-tel-er-y, &c. tshoo-niult, tshoo-mur, &c. Though it is evi- dent, from the foregoing observations, that as the M is under the accent, the preceding / is preserved pure, and that the words ought to be pronounced as if written tcwtor, tew- mour, &c. and neither tshootur, tshoovudt, tshoomour, as Mr. Sheridan writes them, nor tootor, toomult, toomour, as they are often pro- nounced by vulgar speakers. See Supek- ABLE. 4C3. Here, then, the line is drawn ny ana- logy. Whenever t comes before these vow- els, and the accent immediately follows it, the t preserves its simple sound, as in Miltiades, elephantiasis, satiety, &c. but when the accent precedes the t, it then goes into sh, tch, or tsh, as, natshure, or natchure, na-shion, vir- tshue or virtchue, patient, &c. or nashion, pa- shent, &c. 464. In similar circumstances, the same may be observed of d, as, arduous, hideous, &c. (293) (294) (376). Nor is this tendency oi t before long « found only when the accent immediately precedes ; for we hear the same aspiration of this letter in spiritual, spirituous, signature, ligature, forfeitta-e, as if written spiritshual, spiritshuous, signatshure, ligatshure,forfeitshure, &c. where the accent is two syllables before these letters ; and the only termination which seems to refuse this tendency of the t to aspiration, is that in tude, as, latitude, longitude, multitude, &c. 464. This pronunciation of / extends tc every word where the diphthong or diph- thongal sound commences with » or e, except in the terminations of verbs and adjectives, which preserve the simple in the augment, without sufiering the t to go into the hisskig sound, as, / pity, thou pitiest, he jnties, or pitied: mightier, worthier, twentieth, thirtieth, &c. This is agreeable to the general, rule, which forbids the adjectives or verbal termi- nations to alter the sound of the primitive verb or noun. See No. 381. But in the words bestial, celestial, frontier, admixtion, &c. where the s, x, or n, precedes the t, this let- ter is pronounced like tch or tsh, instead of sh, (291,) as, bcs-tchial, celes-tshial,fron-tcheer, adviLi-tchion, &c. as also when the t is fol- lowed by eou, whatever letter precede, as, righteous, piteous, plenteous, &c, pronounced righ-tcheous, pit-cheous, plen-tcheous, &c. The same may be observed of t when succeeded by uou, as, unctuous, presumptuous, &c. pro- nounced ung-tchuous, presump-tchuoiu, &C. See the words. TH. 465. This lisping sound, a» it may be call- S2 rKONUKCIATION OF THE CONSONANTS TH, T, ETC. ed, 5s almost peculiar to the English. (41) (.")C) (469.) The Greek was certainly not the sound we give it : like its principal let- ter, it has a sharp and a flat sound ; but these are so little subject to rule, that a catalogue will, perhaps, be the best guide. 466. 7%, at the beginning of words, h sharp, as in thank, think, &c. except in the following words : This, that, than, the, thee, their, them, then, thence, there, these, they, thine, thither, those, thou, though, thus, thy, and their compounds. 467. T7i, at the end of words, is sharp, as, death, breath. Sec. except in beneath, booth, with ; and the verbs to wreath, to loath, to uncloath, to seath, to smooth, to sooth, to mouth : all which ought to be written with the e fi- nal ; not only to distinguish some of them from the nouns, but to show that //: is aoffc ; for though th, when final, is sometimes pro- nounced soft, as in to loath, to mouth, &:c. yet the at the end of words is never pro- nounced hard. There is as obvious an ana- logy for this sound of the th in these verbs, as for the z sound of s in verbs ending in se, (,437) ; and why we should write some verbs with e, and others without it, is inconceiva- ble. The best wav to show the absurdity of our orthography m this particular, will be to draw out the nouns and verbs as they stand in Johnson's IHctionary. Af!;ptrtives and Nouns. Verbs, breath, to breathe. wreath, to vsrenth, to inwrecithe. loath, to loathe. cloth to cloathe, to uncloath. bath, to bathe. tmooth to smooth. mimth, to mouth. sviath, to swathe. to sheath. sheath,. to sheathe. sooth, to sooth. Surely nothing can be more evident than the analogy of the language in this case. Is it not absurd to hesitate a moment at writing all the verbs with the e final ? This is a de- [)firture from our great lexicographer, which he himself would approve, as nothing but in- advertency could have led liim into this un- meaning irregularity. — It may not tTodigiouj things.* And Milton, in the same manner, the verb to commerce : — ■ ^ And looln commercinff with the sl-icnv ** Thj rapt aoui Kitting in thin* ejn' 499. Sor,iething verj- analogous to this we find in the nouns we verbalize, by changing the t sharp of the noun into the * flat, or s of the verb, (437,) as a use, and to t:se ; where we may remark, that when the word in both parts of speech is a monosyllable, and so not under the laws of accent, the verb, however, daims the privilege of lengthening the sound nouns have often the accent on the latter, yet verbs have it seldom on the former sylla- ble ; those nouns which, in the common or- der of language, must have preceded the verbs, often transmit this accent to the verbs they form, and inversely : thus the noun wa- ter must have preceded the verb to water, as the verb to correspond must have preceded the noun correspondent ; and to pursue must claim priority to pursuit. So tnat we maj conclude, whenever verbs deviate from this rule, it is seldom by chance, and generally in those words only where a superior law oi ac- cent takes place. Accent on Triiyllahlet. 501. As words increase in syllables, tfie more easily is their accent known. Nouns sometimes acquire a syllable by becoming plural ; adjectives increase a syllable by bo- mg compared; and verbs by altering their tense, or becoming participles ; adjectives be- come adverbs, by adding ly to them ; and prepositions precede nouns or verbs vrithout altering tlie accent of the word to which they are prefixed : so that when once the ac- cent of dissyllables is known, those polysylla- bles, whose terminations are perfectly Eng- lish, have likewise their accent invariably set- tled. Thus lion becomes lioness ; poet, poe- tess ; polite becomes politer, or politely, or even politelier ; mischief, mischievous ; happy \ happiness ; nay, lioness becomes lioties^csi ACCENT ON P0LLY3YLLABLES. mischief, mUchievousness ; and service, service- able, terviceableness, serviceaAly, and unser- mceahly, without disturbing the accent, either on account of the prepositive un, or the sub- junctives able, ably, and ableness. 502. Hence we may perceive the glaring absurdity which prevails even in the first cir- cles; that of pronouncing the plural o( prin- cess, and even the singular, with the accent on the second syllable, like success and suc- cesses ; for we might just as well say, dutch- ess, and dutchetses, as, princess and princesses ; nor would a correct ear be less hurt with the latter than the former. 503. So few verbs of three syllables follow the analogy observable in those of two, that of protracting the accent to the last syllable, that this economy seems peculiar to dissylla- bles : many verbs, indeed, of three syllables, are compounded of a preposition of two syl- lables; and then, according to the primary law of formation, and not the secondarj' of distinction, we may esteem them radical, and not distinctive : such are contradict, intercede, supercede, contraband, circumscribe, super- scribe, &c. while the generality of words end- ing in the verbal terminations ise and iV, re- tain the accent of the simple, as, criticise, ty- rannise, modernise, d-c. and the whole tribe of trisyllable verbs in ate, very few excepted, refuse the accent on tlie last syllable: but words of three syllables often take their ac- cent from the learned languages from which they are derived ; and this makes it necessa- ry to inquire how far English accent is regu- lated by that of the Greek and Latin. Of the Influence of the Greek and Latin Ac- cent on the Accent of English Polysyllables, (a) As our language borrows so largely from the learned languages, it is not wonder- ful that its pronunciation should be in some measure influenced by them. The rule for placing the Greek accent was, indeed, essen- tially different from that of the Latin ; but words from the Greek, coming to us through the Latin, are often so much latinized as to lose their original accent, and to fall into that of the Latin ; and it is the Latin accent I which we must chiefly regard, as that which influences our own. (J) The first general rule that may be laid down is, that when words come to us whole from the Greek or Latin, the same accent ought to be preserved as in the original ; thus horizon, sonorous, decorum, dictator, gladiator, mediator, delator, spectator, adulator, &c. pre- serve the penultimate accent of the original ; and yet the antepenultimate tendency of our language has placed the accent on the first syllable of orator, senator, auditor, minister, cicatrix, plethora, &c. in opposition to the Latin pronunciation of these words, and would have infallibly done the same by oM). men, bitumen, and acumen, if the learned had not stepped in to rescue these classical words from the invasion of the Gothic accent, and to preserve the stress inviolably on the se- cond syllable : nor has even the interposition of two consonants been always able to keep the accent from mounting up to the antepe- nultimate syllable, as we may see in minister, sinister, character, magistrate, &c. and this may be said to be the favourite accent of our language. See Miscellany. (c) But notwithstanding this prevalence of the antepenultimate accent, the general rule still holds good ; and more particularly in words a little removed from common usage, such as terms in the arts and sciences : these are generally of Greek original ; but coming to us through the Latin, most commonly contract the Latin accent, when adopted in- to our language. This will appear plainly by the following lists : and first, let us select some where the Greek and Latin accents coincide. plethora, «-A.»)^*{«. metabHsis, fttraliafit. emphisis, tftfarsf. antispdsii, itrirrctfit, antithesis, airUifit. antiphrlisis, inri^^attu protisis, wgirarif, metathesis, furihrih epenthHsis, In'v^mf. aphaerlsis, ipai^tntt (d) Another list will show us where tli: accents of these languages difler : antanaclasis, iii. riacal, paradisiacal, aphrodisiac al, and ht/po~ chondriacal ; all which have the accent on the antepenultimate j, and that long and open, as in idle, title, &c. 507. Nothing can be more uniform than the position of the accent in words of these terminations ; and, with very few exceptions, the quantity of the accented vowel is as regu- lar as the accent; for when these termina- tions are preceded by a single consonant, e- very accented vowel is long, except »/ which, in this situation, is as uniformly short : thus occasion, adhesion, erosion, and confusion, have the a, e, o, and u, long; while vision and de- cision, have the t short. The same may be observed of probation, concretion, devotion, ab- lution, and exhilntion. The exceptions are, impetuous, especial, perpetual, discretion, and battalion, which lest ought to bo spelt with double /, as in the French, from which it ia derived, and then it would follow the general rule. National and rational form two more exceptions ; and these are almost the only ir- regularities to which these numerous classes of words are subject. 508. Nearly the same uniformity, both of accent and quantity, we find in words ending in ic. The accent immediately precedes this termination, and every vowel under this ac- cent, but «, is short: thus Satanic, paUietic, elliptic, hamumic, «&c. have the accent on the penultimate, and the vowel short : while tu- nic, runic, and cubic, have the accented vowel long. 509. The same may be observed of worda ending in ical, as, fanatical, poetical, levitical, canonical, &c. which have the accent on tlie antepenultimate syllable, and the vowels e, i, and o, short ; hut cubicnl and musical, with the accent on the same syllable, have the « long. 510. The only exceptions to this rule are, arsenic, choleric, cphemeric, turmeric, empiric, rhetoric, bishopric, (better written bishoprick. See No. 400.) luiuiiic, arithmetic, splenetic, heretic, politic, and, perhaps, phlegmatic ; which, though more frequently heard with the accent on the antepenultimate syllable, ought; if possible, to be reduced to r^;ularity Words ending in scetice have uniformly tlie accent on the penultimate syllable, as quies- cence, reminiscence, &c. concupiscence, whicli has the accent on the antepenultimate, is the only exception. 511. In the same manner, ii' we take a view of the words ending in itr/, we find the accent invariably placed on the preceding syllable, as in diversity, congruitj/, &c. On a closer inspection we find every vowel in this ante- penultimate syllable, when no consonant in- tervenes, pronounced long, as deity, piety, &c A nearer inspection shows us, tliat, if a con< TEKMINATIOHAI. ACCEHT. 71 •onanA precede this termination, the preced- ing accented vowel ii short, except it be u, as severity, curiosttt/, impunity, &c. we find too, that even u contracts itself before two conso-i nant<, a$ in cttrvity, taciturnity, &c. and that scarcity and rarity (^ignifj-ing uncommonness; for rarity, thinness, has the a short) are the' only exceptions to this rule throughout the language. The same observations are appli- cable to words ending in ify, as justify, clari- fy, &c. The only words where the antepe- nultimate accent, in words of this termina- tion, does not shorten the vowel, are glorify and notify. The y in these words is always long, like the first sound of t / and both ac- cent and quantity are the same when these words take the additional syllable able, asjtis- tiJiabU, rarefirible, &c. (183.; 612. To these may be added the numerous class of words ending in arotis, erout, and o roiis, as barbarous, vociferous, and kumorovs : all which have the accent on the antepenul- mate syllable, except canorous and sonorous; which some unlucky scholar happening to pronounce with the accent on the penulti- mate syllable, in order to show their deriva- tion from the Latin adjectives, canonu and ^onorus, they stand like strangers amidst a crowd of similar words, and are sure to be- tray a mere English scholar into a wrong pronunciation. To polysyllables in these terminations might be added those in ative, atory, dive, &c. Words ending in ative can never have the ac- cent on the penultimate syllable, if there is a higher syllable to place it on, except in the word creative ; and when this is the case, as it is seldom otherwise, the accent seems to rest on the root of the word ; or on that syl- lable which has the accent on the noun, ad- jective, or verb, with which the word in ative corresponds : thus copulative, estimative, al- terative, &c. follow the verbs to copulate, to estimate, to alter, &c. When derivation does not operate to fix the accent, a double con- sonant will attract it to the antepenultimate syllable, as appellative ; and two consonants have sometimes this power, in opposition to derivation, as adversative and argumentatice, from adverse and argument. Indicative and interrogative are likewise exceptions, as they do not follow the verbs to indicate and inter- rogate : but as they are grammatical terms, they seem to have taken their accent from the liecondary accent we sometimes give to the Latin words indicativus and interrogative, (see the word Academy.) Words ending in ary, ery, or ory, have generally the accent on the root of the word ; which, if it consists of three syllables, must necessarily be accented on the first, as contrary, treachery, factory, fee. if of four or five, the accent is generally on that syllable which has the accent on the related or kindred words; thus expostuJatan) has the accent on the same radical syllable a.s expostulate ; and congratulatory, as congratu- late : interrogatory and derogatory are excep- tions here, as in the termination ative; and if pacificatory, sacrificatory,* significatory, ve- sicatory, &c. have not the accent on the firs: syllable, it seems to arise firom the aversion we seem to have at placing even the secon- dary accent on the antepenultimate a, (which we should be very apt to do if the principal accent were on the first syllable,) and the dif- ficulty there would be in pronouncing such long words with so many unaccented syllables at the end, if we were to lay the accent on the first. Words ending in ctive have the ac- cent regularly on the penultimate syllable, eicept adjective, which, like indicative, being a grammatical word, seems to have taken its accent from the secondary stress of the La- tin adjectivus, (see Academy,) and every word ending in tive, preceded by a consonant, has the accent on the penultunate syllable like- wise, except substantive ; and, perhaps, for the reason just given. After all, it must be owned, that words ending in ative and atory are the most irregular and desultory of any in the language j as they are generally accent- ed very far from the end, they are the most dif- ficult to pronounce ; and therefore, whenever usage will permit, we should incline the stress as much as possible to the latter syllable: thus refractory ought never to have the ac- cent on the first syllable; but refectory, with the accent on the first, is a school term, and like sxJ)stanfive, adjective, indicative, and interro- gative, must be left in quiet possession of their Latin secondary accent. Enclitical Accent. 513. I have ventured to give the name of enclitical to the accent of certain words, whose terminations are formed of such words as seem to lose their own accent, and throw it back on the last syllable of the word with which they coalesce, such as theology, ortho- graphy. Sic The readiness with which the&e words take the antepenultimate accent, the agreeable flow of sound to the ear, and the unity it preserves in the sense, are sufficient proofs of the propriety of placing the accent on this syllable, if custom were ambiguous. I do not remember to have heard the accent disputed in any word ending in ology ; but orthography is not unfrequently pronounced vrith the accent on the first syllable, like or- thodoxy. The temptation we are under to discover our knowledge of the component * TbeM words ou?ht aertjilnl; to De Hccented alike , and acccTTi In^lj we find Di. Johiuon, Mr. Shertdan, Mr. BarcIn.T, and Ml. Smith, place the accent on the sccoihI sjrllable ; but though Feonlng accents ti^^jic^itttTy iB the lame manner, he places tl^e accent on thi oniewnultimat* ^patiJUaUfry ; and Keiulck likewise accenu the a». contt syllable of tigytifitatory^ bat the fit^t of paciflcatcn-y ; the othat rnborfisti wtio ban not got tbea* wonU hare aTotdei time InxmElat 72 ENCLITICAL ACCENT. p;irt8 of words, is very apt to draw us into ihis pronunciation ; but as those words which are derived from the Greek, and are com- pounded of xiycf, have universally given in- to this enclitical accentuation, no good rea- son appears for preventing a similar pronun- ciation in those compounded of yj aipar, as by placing the accent on the antepenultimate syllable, the word is much more fluent and agreeable to the ear. It is certain, however, that at first sight the most plausible reason- uig in the world seems to lie against this ac- centuation. When we place the accent on the first syllable, say our opponents, we give a kind of subordinate stress to the third syl- lable, graph ; by which means the word is di- vided into its primitives »j^i)f and y^iipu, and those distinct ideas it contains are preserved, which must necessarily be confounded by the contrary mode; and that pronunciation of compounds, say they, must certainly be the best which best preserves the import of the simples. 5 1 4. Nothing can be more specious than this reasoning, till we look a little higher than language, and consider its object ; we shall then discover, that in uniting two words un- der one accent, so as to form one compound term, we do but imitate the superior opera- tions of the mind, which, in order to collect and convey knowledge, unite several simple ideas into one complex one. " The end of language," says Mr. Locke, " is by short sounds to signify, with ease and despatch, general conceptions, wherein not only abun- dance of particulars are contained, but also a great variety of independent ideas are col- lected into one complex one, and that which holds these different parts together in the u- nity of one complex ideti, is the word we an- nex to it. For," as Mr. Locke continues, " men, in framing ideas, seek more the con- venience of language and quick despatch by short and comprehensive signs, than the true and precise nature of things ; and therefore, he who has made a complex idea of a body with life, sense, and motion, with a faculty of rea- son joined to it, need but use the short mo- nosyllable, man, to express all particulars that correspond to that complex idea." So it may be subjoined, that, in framing words for the purpose of immediate communication, the end of this communication is best an- swered by such a pronunciation as unites simples into one compound, and at the same time renders the compound as much a sim- ple as possible: but it is evident that this is done by no mode of accentuation, so well as that which places the acoant on the antepen- ultimate syllable of the words theology, ortho- graphy; and therefore that this accentuation, without insisting on its superior harmony, must best answer the great end of language. (328.) 515. This tendency in our language to sim* plify compounds, is sufficiently evident in that numerous catalogue of words, where we find the long vowel of the simple changed into a short one in the compound, and by this means losing much of its original import to the ear thus, breakfast, shepherd, vineyard, meadow, shadow, zealous, hearken, valley, cleanse, clean- ly, (neat,) forehead, wilderness, betvUder, kind- red, hinder, knowledge, darling, fearful, pea- sant, pleasure, whitster ; whitleather, seam' stress, stealth, wealth, health, wisdom, wizard, parentage, lineage, children, pasty, gosling, coU Her, holiday, Christmas, j\Iichaelmas, windlas, cripple, hinder, stripling, starling, housewife, husband, primer, peascod, fieldfare, birth from bear, dearth from dear, weary from wear, and many others, entirely lose the sound of the simple in their compound or derivative. 516. The long t in white, when a simple, ia almost universally changed into a short one in proper names, as, Whitchurch, Whitfield, Whitbread, Whitlock, Whitdker, &c. for com- pendiousness and despatch being next in im» portance to perspicuity, when there is no dan- ger of mistake, it is no wonder that the or- gans should fall into the shortest and easiest sounds. 517 It must, however, De observed, that this tendency to unite simples into a com- pound, by placing an accent exactly where the two words coalesce, is still subservient to the laws of harmony. The Greek word Sa»tp- plied to demonstration, lamentation, provoca- tion, navigator, propagator, alligator, and every similar word in the language. But, as wt have observed. No. 526, the consonants t, d, c, and t, after the secondary accent, are ex- actly under the same predicament as after the primary ; that is, if they are followed by a diphthong or diphthongal vowel, these con- sonants are pronounced like sh, tsh, zh, or J, as, sententiosity, partiality, &c. (526.) QUANTITY. 529. In treating this part of pronunciation, it will not be necessary to enter into the na- tiire of that quantity which constitutes poe- try ; the quantity here considered will be that which relates to words taken singly ; and this is nothing more than the length or shortness of the vowels, either as they stand alone, or as they are differently combined with vowels or consonants. (63.1 530. Quantity, in this point of Tiew, hai. already been fully considered under ever} vowel and diphthpng in the language. Wh^i remains to be said on this subject is, the quasi tity of vowels under the secondary accent QUANTITT. 75 We have seen that vowels, under the princi- 1 cal part of the word : thus retrograde, retro- pal accent, before the diphthongs ia, ie, eou,\gression, retrospect, and retrospective, cornmo tou, are all long except i. (507.) That all vowels are long before the terminations itt/ and ety, as, deity, piety, &c. (511,) that if one or more consonants precede these termina- tions, every preceding accented vowel, excejit the a in scarcity and rarity, signifying unconi- inonness, is short but u: and that the same analogy of quantity is found before the ter- minations ic and ical, and the numerous en- clitical terminations we have just been point- ing out. Here we find custom conformable to analogy ; and that the rules for the accent and quantity of these words admit of scarce- ly any exceptions. In other parts of the lan- guage, where custom is more capricious, we can still discover general rules; and there are but verj' few words in which the quanti- ty of the vowel under the principal accent is not ascertained. Those who have but a com- mon share of education, and are conversant with the pronunciation of the capital, are sel- dom at a loss for the quantity of the vowel under that accent which may be called prin- cipal ; but the secondary accent in the longer polysyllables does not seem to decide the quantity of the vowels so invariably. ? 78 BTLLABICATION. horal. hSra, Tariz, varii. rSpid, rXpWui. rSvisb, rSpio. thoral. thora. I' syrinx. sSpid, t&pXdus. cSrinth, cMntkus. floral. Jtoralis. syrmx. vSpid, %.-&pid\is. 8pic, gplcHs, nasal, nasHs. natal. ndlalis. t«pid. Upulus. tdnick. tinlcus. fatal, fatdlit. vital. vitdlis. nltid. nlildus. cSnick, e^nlcu*. fragrance, frdgro. naval, ndvdlis. second. sicHndus. tSpick, t^Xcus, licence, Rcentia. rival, rivdlis. dScade, dicHs. tr6pick, tripXcuu credence credentia. oval. ovdlis. method. mXthidus. cynick, cpntcus. female. faemina. idol. Idolum. pSlace, p&latium. statick, stStlcus. edile. adtiit. grecism, graclsmui. Smice, Smlctus. crttick. crXtXcus. feline. fetlnut. pagan pdgdnus. cbSlice, cSlix. m^tal. mitallum. rasure, rdsura. omen. omen. m&lice, mdlUia. rfbel. r»ello. fibre. ' \fibra, ; ,flbra. siren, siren. Snise, Unlsum, mSdel, mi6dvdus. siphon. Islphon. Image, imago. c&mel. c&melus. metre, C mitrum, rSfuge, r?fugium. chapel, cdpella. colon, Xcolon. Sdage, Uddgium. nSvel, nivellut. nature, natura. Sloe, me. dgil. sfgillum. placate. placatui. demojj. deemon. gricile, grUcUis. Ttgil, vigXJia. primate, prlmatui. halo, halo. dScUe, McUu. st«ril. stgrilis. climate, cllma. solo. solo. figile, Sgtlu. rigour. rigHr. librate, llbrdtut. tyro. tiro. fragile. ftSgtlis. valour. vlilor. vibrate, ^'vlbro, ivlbro. tolar, lixar, Solaris, laxdruu febrile. 'ffbrilis, \Jeb^lis. c51our, rglict, cUor. rilictus. piiyate, prlvattu. cober, sobrius. glSbule, gt&bulus. prSphet, pripheta. cerate, ceratu*. ^S*ft ^'tlgris, Ittgris. mScule, m&cula. tSnor. ttnor. finite, flnUus. plStane, pl&tHniis. dSlour, dUSr. levite. levJta, ether, eether. bisil, blbtlicum. hSnour, h^inor. natiTe, natlvus. oker, ix^^a. cSvil, cdinllor. aloes. Sloes. motiye, motlvus. mimer. fnlmus. d5vU, dlSboluu c8raet, c^imeta. ▼otiTe, voth'us. caper. cdppdret. fitom, Ht^mus. pianetf pldneta. Tocal, vocalu. viper. vlpera. sSphism, sTiphUma, tSnet, thiio. prSdal, preeda. pretor, prcetOT. minum. vilniiu tapet, ttipes. regal. regalis. Umous, tlmosus. &lum, ilUmen. habit. h&bitus. legal. legalis. spinous, sptnosus. ?bon. ibinus. c81umn. e'iilumna. flavour. Jldviis. vinous vlnosus. pIStin, pimna. dragon. drSco. feces, feeceu crebrous. ereber. rSbin, r&blcula. canon. cSnon. manes, manes. fetus, foftui. c&min, cUminum. cBvem, cUvema, Iris, Iris. secret. secretus. latin. l/dtlnus. tSvern, t&vema. crisis, ] crisis. edict. edlctum. civin. eiivea. sSturn, stitumus. fibre. Xfibra. s&vin. sibina. vicar. vXcdrius. gratis. gratis. rSpine, rSplna. Bch51ar, tch'ilarit. egress, egretsus. fiigrant, frdgran$. pStine, p&tlna. slaver. tillva. _ ^ regressvs. cSgent, cogent. trtbunc, trlbUnus, prSper, priprlus. regress, 1 rfgressut. moment, momentum. stliture, stitHra, zSphIr, tXphpriit, figress, hxgris, Itigris. ponent. ponens. refuse, rSfUsus. liquor. Itquor. reflux, ' ■ refluxu*, ', ' rMuxus. pSlate, pdldtum. vigour. vigor. rebus. rebus. sSnate, sindtus. piacit. pl&cXtum. bolus, bolus, i^M.. digest, subT dtgestus. Sgate, achates. tacit. tScXtus, precept. preeceptUTH, ..-„^_ ^trophiBum, l triphaum. tribute, tributio. adit. HdXtus. plenist. pCeniiS. nvyuj. minute. mtnUtui. vSmit, vhmo. papist. papa. chely. chele. statute, stUtHtus, mSrit, mSritum. climax, climax. spiny, spina. value. valor. talent, tHlentum. reflex. ^reflexus, IrSJlexus. chary. cdrus. statue, stiiia. patent, sub, p&teo. query. qucere. mSnarcb, m^archa. mSdest, mMestus. prefix, prarfixum. gjory. gloria. stSmach, stimachus. fSrest, firestum. phenix. phoenix. story. hlsiiria. epSch, ep&cha. n?phew, nipos. matrix. matrix. pSlish, pilltuu sinew, sXnuo. fSmish, Jimes. money. minela. Word 1 in which the name yowel b short pCrish, pSrio. Etiidy, sludium. m both language* >— parish, par'6chia. mSgick, mSgicus. 8cid, icidus. Words in which th e same vowel is J one in tragick, BSbine, IrSgtcus. s&blni. pIScid, rigid, plScldus. rtgtdus. English, and short in Latin : — fSmine, f&wes. c&lid. c&lldus. tumid, tumXdus, silence, silenlium. ISgick, [6gica. v&lid. vSlldus. coma, ctima. moiiade, mSnas. c61ick, c'Ulcus. gSlid, gnXdus. quota, ijuita. trochee. tr'icheeiu. chrunick. chr'inicus. 51i(l, llidus. trJDod, trXvvs. satire. sStprd. lyrJck, Ipricus. sSIid, silidus. sequence, siquentia. vacate. vico. r&bid, r&btdus. timid. tXmidus. cadence. cMens. cavate. c&vo. SYLLABICATION. JSdTe, dStXvui. rigor, rigor. •rlumph, triumphuM. !chor, Jx^t focal, ficut. ichor, i^liar. local, {6cali*. sapor, jfl;^. gregal, grigaliu tepor, s. This, it is imagined, will be found to be true in all languages as well as our own ; and sudi alteration seems founded in the na- ture of man and of society. The next ob- ject to understanding a language being des- patch, it is no wonder that short sounds have been encroaching on us, and depriving us of the tune of our words for the sake of gaining time. This is apparent in the abbreviation of simples when compounded, as in knoiv- ledge, shepherd, &c. (518,) but as it is the business of art to correct and regulate the eccentricities of nature and the excesses of custom, it should be the care of every philo- sophic grammarian to keep his eye upon the original genius and general scope of his lan- guage, and to suffer custom to depart as lit- tle from them as possible. But although no inconsistency or want of analogy can alte/ any pronunciation which is once acknow- ledged and settled, yet, when a pronunciation is wavering, consistency, analogy, and gene- ral principles, ought to decide against a great majority of mere fashion and caprice. Thus have I endeavoured to give a distinct view of the correspondence between the ac- cent and quantity of the learned languages and oiu" own ; and to rescue a plain English, man (who, as Ben Jonson says of Shake- speare, has little Latin and less Greek) from the supercilious criticism of those Greeklings and Latinitasters, who are often remarkably ignorant of their own language, and yet fre- quently decide upon its accent and quantity, because they have a smattering of Greek and Latin. If the question turns upon the ac- cent of an English word, the Latin word it is derived from is immediately produced, and sentence passed without appeal ; and yet if the Englishman were to ask the rule on which this decision is founded, the scholar would in all probability, be at a loss to tell him. Has every English word, he might say, the same accent as the Latin word, from which it is derived? This the scholar could not answer in the affirmative, as the least recol- lection would tell him that parsimonj/, acri- mony, &c. cannot be accented after the Latin parsimonia, acrimonia, &c. as the Latin is never accented higher than the antepenulti- mate. But perhaps the English word is a- dopted whole from the Latin. Here is un- doubtedly a fair pretence for pronouncing it with the Latin accent ; and yet we see how many exceptions there are to this rule. (See No. 503, b.) Or perhaps the Latin word. * AJUoquJ, pro tisii. abusut et tnTfteratuj error nobis ob(ruder«t«r. OUm enJm pro miiLatJone aonorum mutabantur et UUers : ct O qura- do cuTuuetudo aliquld mutaMi-t^ Mnribendi quoque modus statljn ,^- nlianir. Undp quum apud Eniiium et Plautura fSont et S#rvw dioo< iftur et »crtbtfretur, po«tcA multli aariutn d4.*licUSp o TocaJi reject*, quod Tnetuft llliut Ttdcretur Mniu u llttera lubitituta eat, ct kono ex. coram loco JfuitCrt S«rvu«prolntum ctlrjiptum ait. A- presumed, that the broad soun.-i;. of newels ,ct^SiS2^^"*^'** ^"^ '*""'■ '''°™°" "'*'""""" QXTANTITY OP THE UNACCENTED VOWELS 81 Choagh anglicised, retains the same number I and those of proboscis, proceed, and proetd- of syllables. This, indeed, may be said to be I ure, have no such difference, seems too evi- a general rule for preserving the Latin accent, dent to need proof. but so general as to be neglected in a thou- sand instances. (See No. 303, /, g, h, i, k.) But if the scholar, as is often the case, hud- dles quantity and accent together, and infers the English quantity from the Latin ; the English scholar needs only to refer him to the selections here given, (No. 544, 543,) to show the inanity of such a plea. Upon the whole, therefore, I flatter myself that men of learn- ing will be gratified to see the subject in a clearer point of view than any in which it has ever been exhibited ; and the plain English scholar will be indebted to me for giving him as clear and distinct an idea of the connec- tion between the Greek and Latin accent and quantity, and the accent and quantity of bis native tongue, as if he had Homer and Horace by heart ; and for placing him out of the reach of those pert minor critics, who are constantly insulting him with their knowledge of the dead languages. Of the Quantity of the Unaccented Vowelt not in the same Syllable with Consonants, 547. Accented syllables, as we have be- fore observed, (179) are so strongly marked as to be easily comprehended when they are once settled by custom or analogy ; but those immediately before or after the accent are in a state of uncertainty, which some of our fcest judges find themselves unable to remove. Some grammarians have called all the open vowels before or after the accent short, though the ear so evidently dictates the contrary in the u in utility, the o in obedience, &c. Some have saved themselves the trouble of farther search by comprehending these vowels under the epithet obscure : nay, so unfixed do the sound of these vowels seem, that Dr. Ken- rick, whose Rhetorical Dictionary shows he was possessed of very great philologicsd abili- ties, seems as much at a loss about them as the meanest grammarian in the kingdom : for when he comes to mark the sound of the vowel o in the first syllable of a series of words with the accent on the second, he. makes the o in promulge, propel, and prolLi. long, as they ought to be ; and the same let- ter in proboscis, proceed, and procedure, short. Dominion, domestic, donation, and domain, are marked as if pronounced dom-inion, dovi-es- tie, don-ation, and dom-ain, with the o short; while the first of docility, potential, and mo- notony, have the o marked long, as in donor, potent, and modish ; though it is certain to a demonstration, that the etymology, accent, and letters, being the same, the same sound must be produced, unless where custom has precisely marked a difference; and that the -...;a-^ *c. no, u he a,ar. of *e -«nu^ ailS/en -^ir";i^; erst syllables oi promulge, propel, and prolix, \ l^o^,''^^'^.^:^^;-^:,^'"'" «-»-" ^ pin-ion. 550. But it may be demanded, what rea- son is there in the nature of the thing for dividing the word in this manner, rather than into op-in-ion, where a consonant ends every syllable? In this, as in many other cases of delicacy, we may be allowed to prove what is right, by first proving what is wrong. E- very ear would be hurt, if the first syllable of opinion and opulence were pronounced ex- actly alike, op-in-ion vrould be as different from o-pin-ion, as o^u^-lence from op^i-lence, and consequently a different syllabication ought to be adopted* but as opulence is rightly divided into op-u4ence, opinion must be divided into o-pin^ion; that is, the o must be necessarily separated from the p, as in o- pen ; for, as was before observed, every vowel pronounced alone has its open sound, as no- thing but its junction with a consonant can shut it, and consequently unaccented vowels not necessarily joined to a consonant are al- ways open : therefore, without violating the fundamental laws of pronunciation, ojnnion must necessarily be divided into o-i-in-ion, and not cp-tM-tan, and the o pronounced as • I am avart tfiat thlj Ingroloni writer swms to avoid IhU tnoon •Utenc; \)j premUing, In hU Rhetorical Gnuninar, page -w, that ho ha« Himeumm marked the e in wordi beginning with a preposition with the oratoriaj, and sometlmei with the colloquial pronunciation i **"■" ' tomjnvnioate^ ice. tlw oratorial sound i« given aj m while the oolinquia] »ound changes the « the fint lylUble into Ut a« «f the words were written citmrnmrM, cunvntmiealtf ^^, »^. the distinction In Out* examples does not touch the point : here then b a change only of on* short tmmd for another, and not any promia. cunus use of a long and short, or open jnd shut sound of iht sa ne let ter. Dr. Kenrici hlmaeH when he marks the o In proboMcU prvtetj * he does i ' 82 QUANTITY OP THE UNACCENTED VOWELS. in the word open, and not as in opulence : \ to the latter vowel in syllabication, when hy which was the thing to be proved. vestigating the unknown lound of a word, 551. If these reasons be valid with respect i has its foundation in reason and good sense : to the vowel in question, they have the same j that the only reason why vowels are short force with respect to every other vowel, not i and shut, is their junction with a consonant shut by a consonant, throughout the Ian guage. That the vowels in this situation are actually open, we may easily perceive by ob- serving that vowel, which, from its diphthon- gal and semi-con8onant sound, is less liable to suffer by obscure pronunciation than any o- ther. The letter «, in this situation, always preserves itself full and open, as we may ob- serve in tdUUty, lucubration, &c. The o, the most open of all the simple vowels, has the same tendency in obedience, opake, position, &c. the e in the first syllable of event, in the second of delegate, the first and third of e- vangeRst, in the second of gcaety, nicety, &c. the a in the first of abate, and the second o( probable, &c and the t in nuUiti;. This un- accented letter being no more than e, and this sound, when long, corresponding exactly mth its short sound, (which is not the case with any of the other vowels, 63, 66,) the difference between the long and short, or opep and shut sound of this letter, is less percepti- ble than in any other: yet wemay easilv per- ceive that a delicate pronunciation evidently leaves it open when unaccented in indivitibi' lity, P.8 this word would not be justly pro- nounced if the t in every syllable were closed bv a coraonant, as if divided into in^v-it-ily- ilii-y; the first, third, and fifth syllables vvomd, indeed, be justly pronounced accord- Ivig to this division, as these have all accen- tual force, which shuts this vowel, and joins it to the succeeding consonant; but in the second, fourth, and sixth syllables, there is no such force, and consecpiently must remain open and unconnected with the consonant : though, as was before observed, the long and fliort sound of this vowel are so near each other, that the difference is less perceived than in the rest. Every ear would be dis- pleased at such a pronunciation as is indicat- ed by ut-til4ii-^, luc'cub-bration, op-pin^on, pos-ition, ev-vent, ev-vcn-gel-liit, ab-bate, prob- bab-Me, &c. but for exactly the same reasons that the vowels out of the stress ought to be kept open in these words, the slender t must be kept open in the same situation in the word l!i-di^vii-i-bil44y, and every similar word in (he language.* 552. From all this it will necessarily fol- low, that the custom adopted by the ancients and modems of joining the single consonant • It U plain •ut Mr. ni«yb»n centliUitd the ini»co«nt«! Towd i, fflwOoc rm'.InK a lylUbV, w Jotnwi to tht fucceediin! oonumnnt, u vh» uimo i^uixl ; ftn: w» !.•» hlin «c«iiM-ry, ttnn-n\f-er-outt Perry. wtuyn-me-ry^ rtm-ne-ty. ulJer-aJ)U, ut-ier-a-itUt U ■^ — g \nfabU, rable. ,^ in age, Chdlon*. ,.»n in fat, matin. 1. 4. The long e, as in lai, h^re, in^tre, medium, 93. 8. i. The short e, as in mSt, Ut, g^t, 95 .i J in mt/re, cpitre. >« in tn«(te, ne^te. 1. L The long diphthongal i, as in pine, tl-tle, 105 . S. 1. The short simple t, as in pin, dt.tle, 107^ ^ »a« in laique, naif, ..^^ in inrt^, Utr^. I. b. The long open o, as in nA, n6te, n6-tice, 162 S. i. The long close o, as in m5ve, pr&ve, 164 > ■ S. 4. The long broad o, as in n5r, fAr, 6r; like the broad &, 167- 4. 6. The short broad «, as in nS't, h&t, g&t, 1 63...... ■ji in globe, lobe. um in mouvoir, pouvotr, .-~.,~..o in or, for, encor, H., ... in hotte, cottA 1. 6. The long diphthongal u, as in tube, c6-pid, 171..«. S. &. The short simple u, as in t&b. c&p, sCip, 1 1%,. 3. fl. The middle or obtuse u. as in b&Il, f^ll, p&Il, 173.... ■... AL The long broad t, sn<] the short 1, as in £11, 299 . M. The long broad A, aad tiie middle obtuse fi, as in thA&, pAund, 31 dou in Cioutat, ehiourme. -eu in neuf, veyf. .jm in boule,foide, pouie. ^ in eydaide, heroiqve. ' in Ao(U^ Th. The acute or sharp th, as in think., thin, 466. Tu. The grave or flat TU, as in Tuis, TUat, 41. £a 469. 560> TVfaen G is pnnted in the Roman character, it has its hard sound in get, gone, &c. as go, g^ste, geese, &c. when it has its soft sound, it is spelled in the notation by the consonant J, as g^. •I'* gi^^t Ji-*i^> Jin-ger. The same may be observed of S r the Roman character denotes its hard sound in sin, sua, &u as so, sit, sense, &c. its soft sound is spelled by %, as rose, raise, &C. rose, rage, &c> 1^ In tlw course of a critical investigation of the powers of the letters in the foregoing prin- ciples, there is scarcely a word of any diiiiculty or diversity of sound which has not been notic- ed, and the true pronunciation, with the reasons and authorities for it, pointed out ; so that if the inspector should not meet with sufl^cient information in the Dictionary under the word, let him consult the Principles under the vowel, diphthong, or tonsonant, he wishes to be explained, and it is highly probable he will meet widi the satisfaction he requires. Thus to know something more concerning the g, in the word impugn, which some speakers pronounce, and others sup- press, let him look into the Principles under tl>e ii-tter G, No. 386, and he will find additional observations to those in the Dictionary under the word. It is true that most of these doubtful, as well as other words, are referred to tlie Principles; but if this reference should by chanoe b4 omittedf it ia hoped that this Advertisement will supply the deficiency. A CRITICAL PRONOUNCING DICTIONARY, AND EXPOSITOR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. The figures after the words refer to the numbers in the Principles of Pronunciation prefixed to this Dictionary, where the different sounds of the letters ai-e exi^lained at large. Thus, 73 refers to the first sound of the letter A ; 9Sto the first sound of the letter E ; arid so of the rest. The figures over the letters refer to the vowels in the words at the top of the page; and the index *^* before these words refers to the table of simple and dipthongal sounds, where the different sounds of the vowels are exhibited at one view. Thus, *^* 559 refers to the table on the opposite leaf. A. JO" 559. Fate 7S, fir 77, fall 83, fit 81 — mi 93, mSt 95— pine 105, pin I07 — nA 162, mSvc 164, sir 167, nit 163 — thbe 171, tub 172, bill 173—511 299 — pSind 313— the English lio : for whenever the En^jlieh giTe the Italian sound, as It may be called, to the a, except in the woTKiiJ'ntfifr and mattrr, U is always in consequence of its junction with some con- sciii.\nt, which detcrminea it to that sound i as in mono- syllables terminating in r, as tar, car, far .-hut where it is not affected by a succcedltig consonant, as in the words parent, papal, natal, fatal, we then hear it pronounced as the slender English a, both in and out of composition. It will, perhaps, be objected, that the most frequert short sound of a, as heard in cat, rat, mat, carry, marry, parry, is the short sound of the Italian a in JaihtT, car, mar, par, and not the short sound of the a in care, viare, and part ; but it may be answered, that this want of cor- respondence between the name of the letter, and the most frequent short sound. Is common to the rest of the Towels : for the 0, as heard in cot, not. rot, is not the short souna of the In coat, note, wrote, but of the a hi uater, or of the diphthongs hi caught, natight, and vrovght ; and if we ought to caU the a, ah, because its short sound corres- ponds to oA, for the very same reason we ought to call the 0, au ; and a similar alteration must take place with the rest of this vowels. As therefore, fVom the variety of sounds the vowels have, it is impossible to avoid the in- convenience of sometimes sounding tl'.c letter one way In a syllable, and another wav in a word, wc must either a- dopt the simple long sound when we would pronounce the letter tlone, or invent new names for every different soiLud tn a diffferent word, in order to obviate the difficulty. It must not be dissembled, however, that the sound cf k, when terminating a syllable not under the accent. Mems more inclined to the Irish than the English a, air; that the esir is less disgusted witli the souiju of Ah-merA- eaJi than of Ay-mer-i-ca',/ : but to this it may be answer- ed, that letters not undirr the accent, in a thousand instan ces, deviate &om their true sound ; that the vowel a, Uk^ ieveral other vowels in a iiaal syllable not accented, h:-i an obscure sound, bordering on u ; but if the a, in this si- tuation, were pronounced ever so distinctly, and thatthi^ pronunciation were clearly the a in father, it would tv; tiothiuff to the purpose : when the a is pronounced nione, tt may t>e eaid not only to be a letter, but a distinct cha- racter, mi a noun substantive; and, as such, ha: *h< same force as the letters in an ats?onted syllable. The lei- ter a, tlierefore, as the first character in the alphabe'., may always be said to ha\c the ao-tnt, and ought to have the same long open sound, as is given to takt let- ter whoa accented m a syllable, and not Influenced in itji M>und by any preceding or succeeding consonant. Wo may therefore conclude, that if all vowels, when Sonounced alone, arc accented and long, if speUing be' e pronunciation of letters alone, (as it would De absurd to suppose ourselves acquainted n;th the different conso- nants that determine the sound oi the vowels before ihey are pronounced,) it follows, that in spelling, or repeating the oomponent ports of a vord, we ought to give thoK part* their slnaple and uncombinod sound : but there is no uncomblne*} sound of the vowel a, except the slender sound contended for, unless in the worda father and ma*. ier; and therefore, when we repeat letters singly, in or- der to declare the sound of a word, we must undoubtctUy (jive the first letter of the alphabet the sound we ever gi '.» It in the first sy llabls of the uumeious class U-d;/, pa-gas. via-ton, ba-ton, &c Thus, after placing every oWection In its strongest light, and deducing our ar^aients from the simplest and deaj'' est pnnciplcs, this Iiupnnant qiieJtion secmr, at hM ''.e,-id- i ed in faivour of the English ; tvl.o, irdeptudcnt of iiie ar- guments in their favour, may be presumed to have a na- tural right to detennice the narae of the letter in ques- tion, though it has been so often litigated by their formi- dable and learned, tliough junior, relationt. For though, in some ca.bite,' v. a. 545. To lessen, to dimin- kh. To Abate, i-bite,' v. n. To grow less. Abatement, i-bate^mdnt, *. The act of abating i the sum or quantity taken away by the act of abating. Abatea, &-b^t{ir, «. 9S. The agent or cause by which an abatement is procured. Abb, ib, «. "Rxt yam on a weaver's warp. Abbacy, &b^-»i, «. 453. tht rights, posaessioiu, or privileges of an abbot. Abbess, Ab^b^s, t. The superior of a nuimery. Abbey, or Abby, &b^b4, *. 27a A monastery of religious persons, whether men or women. Abbot, Ab^bjit, u 1 66. The chief of a convent ot men. To AsBEEVlATEt ib-br^T^Ate, v. a. 505. Te shorten, to cut short. Abbreviation, ib-bri-vA-iish&n, $. The act osi shortening. ABBBKViAroa, ib-brA-vi-iit&r, & 521. One who abridges. .\bbbevtatube, ib-bri^v^lMchire, «. 461. A ma;L ami for shortening. To Abdicate, Ab^^kite, v. a. 503. To give up right, to resign. Abdication, &b-d&.k&'sb&n, «. The act of abdi. eating, resignation. Abdicative, kb^i-ck- tlvf, ac0. 6 1 2. That which causes or ^plies an abdication. JJ^ Dr. Johi«oD places the accent on the fint syllable oi' thjs word, and Mr. Sheidan and Mr. Perry on the s©- oncL The former Is bi my opinion the moct correct. AiiDOHSN, &b-d&^m£a, s. 503. 521. A cavit; commonly called the lower venter or belly. VSDOMINAI- ib-d&mimA-nil, ?..„,.. , lu 1- f I A f <«&• Relating to Abdominous, Ib-domime-nus, 5 ^ the abdomen. To Abduce, ib-d&se,'l>. a. To draw to a different • part, to withdraw one part from another. Abducent, ib-d^Aelnt, at^f. Muscles alxlueent serve to open or pull back divcn parts of the body. :kBDUCTION, ib-d&k^h&D, ». The act of drawing apart ; taking away. Abductor, ib-dfik-tir, a. 166. The muiclea which draw back the several members. Abed, A-bId,' adv. In bed. Aeebbance, ib-^ririnse, Abereancy, 4b-ir-rin-si, the ripht way; an error. AbebbaNT, ib-^r-rint, ac^. Wandering from the right or known way. Abebbation, Ab-dr-rA^h&n, «. Tlie act of deviat- ing from the common track. AsEBBINa, iH)-ir-r\ng, part. 410. Going astray. To Abebuncate, ib-i-rin-kate, v. a. 91. To pull up by the roots. To Abet, h-biii v. a. To push forward anolbei to support hira in hlj designs by connivance encou- ragement, or help. d' A deviatiao ttoaa ABO ABR aSr 167, nt>t 163— tibo 171, tftb 172, bfll! 173— *U 299— p6ftnd 313— ear or support the consequences of a tiling it is used with the particle tMh before a person, and ci or in before a place. Abidee, &-blM&r, t. 98. The person that abides or dwdb in a place. Abiding, l-bWlng, t. 410. Continuance. Abject, Ib^jdkt, o4/* '^^^- TAean or worthless ; oontcmptiDle, or of no value. Abject, ib^j^kt, $. a man without hope ; one of the lowest condition. To Abject, Ib^jlkt, ». a. 492. Tb throw away. Abjectednem, ib-j2k-t£d-nfes, t. The state of an abject. Abjection, ib-j^k^b&n, «. Meanness of znind ; servility; baseneg, Abjectly, &b^jlkt-ld, adv. 452. in an abject maimer, meanly. AbjECTNESS, Ibfjikt-nl&s, $. .Servility, meaanesa. Ability, 4-blliA-ti, «. 482. The power to do any thine; capacity, qualification : when it has the plural numoer, oMBtia, it fhx]uently signifies the faculties, or powers of the mind. Abju&ATION, &b-j&.r&^h&n, $. He act of abjur- ing ; the oath taken for that end. To Abju&E, ib-jikref v. a. To twear not to do something ; to retract, or recant ■ poaition upon oath. To AblactaTE, ib-Ukitite, v. a. 91. To wean from the breast. Ablactation, &b-14k-ti-sh&n, «. One of the me. thodr. of grafting. AblaqueatiON, ab-li-kw4.Alshfin, «. 5S4. The practice of cpcnln* the groumi about the rttota of trees. Ablation, ltb-14Uhiin, c The act of taking away. Ablative, &b^&-t)v, at^. 158. lliat which takes away ; the sixth case of the Latin nouns. Able, a^bi, a. 405. Having strong faculiie*, or great r.rrength or knowledge, riches, or any other power of LiV.nc, body, or fortune; having power sufficient. .\BLE-BODlED, A-bl-b&didid, 0(0. 99. strong of body. To Ablegate, Sbii4-gAte, ». a. To send abroad upon Boine emiiloymen;. AbLE&ATION, ib-i^ga^h&n, t. A leading abroad. _ The earliest in- habitants of a country. Abortion, 4-b4rishin, i. The act of bringint forth untimely ; the produce of an untnneiy birth. Abortive, J-bAr'tlv, j. 1 57. That which U bom before the due time. AnoiiTIVK, i-b5ritlv, aiy. Brought forth beibra the due time of birth ; that which brings forth nothing. Abortively, i-biritiv-14, adv. Bom without the due time, immaturely, untimely. ASORTIVENESS, 4-b5r-tlv-n^s, t. The state of »- bortion. AbORTMENT, l-b^rt-mlnt, (. l^e thing brought forth out of time ; an untimely birth, i Above, 4-bfiv,';»r«p, 165. ffigher in place ; high- er in rank, power, or excellence ; beyond, more than ; I t proud for, too high for. ; Above, i-b6v,' adv. Over-head ; in the le^ont of I heaven. Above- ALL, l-bftv-ill/ In the first place; chiefly. AbOVE-BOAED, l-b&vibArd, In open oiftht; with- out artifice or trick. Above-CITEO, 4-b&v^3-tdd, cited before. ABOVE-aEOlTND, &-b&v-gr6&nd, An expression used to signify, that a man is alive ; not in the grave. Above-mintionkd, i-biiTimin-shind. See Above-eiUd. To Abound, 4-b3find,' r. n. 545. To have in great plenty ; to be in great plenty. .ijjOUT, 4-bi6t,' prtp. 54S. Round, surrounding, encircling ; near to ; concerning, with regard to, re- lating to ; engaged in, employed upon ; appendant to the person, as dothes, &c. 5 relatin« to the perron, as a servant. Abodt, S-b<§4t,' adv. Circularly ; in drcuit ; nearly j the longest way, in opposition to the short straight ^ay; to bring about, to bring to the point or slate de- sired, as, he has brought about his purpcBea; to come about, to come to some certain state or point ; to go a- bout a thing, to prepare to do it. Abracadabra, 4b>r4-ki..dilb^r&,£. A luperstitioui charm against agues. To Abrade, 4-br4de^ e. a. To lub off, to wear a. ABLENEsa, aibl- n&s, * Abihty of body, rigour, force. ! . "^y *^™ *f °*^ff P«^ ABLEPSY, ibilgp-s6, *. 482. Want of sight. | '^^^P^^i. *-br^^b&n. . ., /ii 1 .. I rubbing off. Abluent, ab.li-^nt,a4r. That which has the power Abreast, a-brist,' ad»,. 545 of cleansing. ' ^ *. The act of rubbing, a Ablution, 4b-l&^h&n, s. Tbe aet of cleansing. 3'o Abnegate, ib^ni-gate, ». a- 91. To deny. Abnegation, ib-ni-ghrnhiln, «. Denial, renun. elation. .4l£OABD, 4-b&rd/ adv. 295. In a ship. Abode, 4-b&de/ «. HaUiatioa. dwelling, {dace of re- | Side by side. To Abridge, &-brldjej v. a. To make shorter in words, keeping still tlic same substance; to contract, to dimluish, to cut short ; to deprive of. Abridged of, 44>ridjd^Y, 359. Deprived of.de. barred from. AbridgER, 4-brld-j&r, $. He that abridges, a shor. tener; a writer of compendiums or abrldgmentx. , ii.lence; sUy, continuation ma place. ; AbbxdGMENX, i-brldjeimint, j. The contraction AbODEMENT, i-b6de^m£nt, s. A secret anticipa- I o*" » larger work Into a small compass 1 a diminution in tion of something ftitiub I general. - . , , , To Abolish, 4-baiil«h. i>. a. To annul : to put an l -^aOACH, a-brAtsh/ adv. 295. In a posture to ru» endto- lodetao? °"" in a state of being dimiHrd or propagated. 3 ABS ABU I* 559. Fito 73, f&r 77, fill 83, ftt 81— mi 93, mSt 95— pine 105, plu 107— nJ) 162, move 164, AsBOAD, ^-brawd,' adv. 295. Out of th< bouse, in another country; without, not witliin. ToAbrogate, ib-rA-gAte, v. a. 91 . To take away from a law its force ; to repeal ; to annuL Abrogation, Ib-ri-ga-sh&n, *, The act of abro- gating ; the repeal of a law. Abrupt, ib-rapt/ adj. Broken, craggy ; ludden, witliout the customary or proper preparatives. Abruption, Jb-r&pishin, *. Violent and «uddcn separation. Abruptly, Jb-r6ptil^, adv. Hastily, without the due forms of preparation. Abruptness, Jb-r&pt-nJss, t. An abrupt man. ner, haste, suddenness. Abscess, ib-s^s, s. _ A morbid cavity in the body. To Abscind, 4b-slnd,' v. a. To cut off Abscission, ib-slzhi&n, *. The act of cutting off; the state of being cut off. |t:^ I have differed from Mr. Sheridan in marking the u m this word, and, 1 think, with the best usage on my side. Though double t is almost always pronounced sharp and hissing, yet when a sharp t precedes, it seems more agreeable to tne ear to pronounce the succeeding s flat. Thus, though tlie termination Uioit is always sharp, yet because the i iii tranMion is necessarily sharp, the ( goes into the flat sound, as if written tranMiion, which see. To Abscond, 4b-skind, v. a. To hide one's sel£ Absconder, ib-sk5nid&r, t. "Hie penoa that ab. sconds. Absence, ib-s^nse, t. The state of being absent, opposed to presence ; inattention, heedlessness, neglect of the present object. Absent, ^b^s^nt, adj. 492. Not present ; absent in mind, inattentive. To Absent, ib-sJnt,' v. a. To withdraw, to for- bear to come into presence. Absentee, ib-s5n-t^' s. A word used commonly with regard to Irishmen living out of their country. Absinthiated, iih-s\n'-thi-k-tM, part. Impreg- nated with wormwood. To Absist, 4b-sist,' v. n. To stand off, to leave off. To Absolve, ib-zSlv,' v. a. 448. To clear, to ac- quit of a crime in a judicial sense ; to set free from an engagement or promise ; to pronoiuicc a sin remitted, in the ecclesiastical sense. Absolute, Ib-sA-lite, at^'. 448. Complete, ap- plied as well to persons as things ; unconditional, as an absolute promise; not relative, as absolute space; not limited, as absolute power.— See Domestic AbsOIUTELY, ib^sA-l&te-li, adv. Completely, without restriction; without condition ( peremptory, positively. AbsOLUx^NESS, IbisA-l&te-nist, *. complete, ness ; freedom from dependence, or limits ; despotism. absolution, ^b-sA-la-sh&n, *. Acquittal; there- mission of sins, or of penance. Absolutory, ib»s6l-ii-t&r-r^, acfj. THat which absolves. {f5> In the first edition of this Dictionary I followed the flicentuation of Johnson and Ash in this word, and place