The Arkansaw traveler., 1886-02-13
RsoLlsrs PRONUNCIATION.

lLondoa Correspeadenea New yerk Werid,l
 sn the obituary notices which the deatA of the duke of SoWessea called fosth, . curious diversity In the spelling ot the family name was noticeable. The old duke, a plain, rough-tongued, unossentA' tious man, spelled 1t Seymour the new duke, who himself Is seventy-6ve years old, writes it St. MAur. And as the old brothers disagreed on this point %, the nephews of tho present duke differ, tor there is among them Lord Algernon St Maur and a Lord E iward Seymour. When members of the family are ,hem- selves of t~o opinions 1t would be temer- ity indeed for plebeian outsider to att tempt to determine the right of the thing Apparently the original na nc was Nor man, and the family haEks back to . William de St. MauF, who held lands in Mon mouth under Henry Ill. But three generations sf.crward, in the time of E l. ward ILL, the head of the house wrote himself-n, indeed, he knew how to write at ail-Roger Seymour. This name they bore with them when, in Tudor times, they emerged from obscurity by lucky chance, gained court favor, fattened themselves on church laRds, and finally. from the pinnacle ofth .ord protectosship gained the right to sniff at all the other families of England, barring only the Towards. Indeed, 1 am not sure that this excep ion ought to be m sde, for al- though the dukes of Norfolk (I4S3) ante dated the dukes of Somerses oy some sixty -four years, 1t is well known that Howard is a corruption of the excessively commonplace Saxon name Hogward, while now that Seymour is spelled St. Maur, there can be no manner of doubt about its Norman blue -bloodedness. Of course, 1t is true that vulgar tongues cor. rupted the name for something over i've centuries; but, thank heaven, 1t has been restored now, and we can all breathe easier.
 The name will continue, however. to be pronounced Seymour, just as Ss John is called Sinja and Ss Lsger is spoken Slllinger. Alas we d,d not all know this last until lately-at least the report. CTS in the Commons gallery didn't-and when the aristocratic marquis of Hartiog- ton spoke of the correspondents who had been killed in the Soudan, one of whom was named St Leger, the papers next morning all had it Sillinger. But not that we know what fashion demands in the matter of orthoepy it shall never hap pen sgan.
 Sometime am going to make whole book about the funny things in English pronunciation. Everybody knows about Majoribanks being Marshbanks, and Cholmondeley being Chumley, and Lev ison-Gower being Lewson-Gore. These are stock samples familiar to all. Most people know, too, that the N form an names of Belvoir and Beauchamps are pro- nounced Beaver and Beechsm, while the equally Norman name ol Grosvenor re- taiRs its French sound. But these are only sign posts on the road to general knowledge of the subject. When you get to know why Boug hton is pronounced Bawton, while Hough.on has the long O, why Wemys should be Weems, and Kuollys should be Knowles, you will be getting on in the m astery of the subject. But there are no rules. Some words ike PAll Mall which is pronounced Pell Nell retain the sound Rt foreign origin after they have lost it's form. But, then, the word mall, meaning path, is pronounced nal, and as they both came from the old French game of paille maills, it may be seen that the Englishman disdsins mere laws of analogy. He says Ramsted when he refers to Rothamsted, but he pro nounces Southampton out fully and clear ly. h London, too, he has a dialect oi his own. He says clark, but the rest oi England says clerk. He turns all his long as into long is, saying dyly pyper instead ot daily paper, but tho country people de not But, then, he says Here ford, while the natives of tha, shire call 1t Hartford.