The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1894-01-19
DO YOU SPEAK ENGLIsHp
You Should Not Be Too Sure That You
Do.
From the New York Advertiser.

From the New York Advertiser.
To decide a wager dozen men, mostly
lawyers of distinction, were asked to read
aloud sentence in which the word "spon-
taneity" held an inconspicuous place.
More than half read it "spontanighity !"
The discoverer of this pernicious laxity is
young lawyer who has induced num-
Der of the younger members of the Law
yers' Club to begin the new year with
vows Of reformation in the matter of pro-
nunciation,
There is more need of reform in Eng
lish pronuncia ton than IN English spell
ing" he said yesterday. 81 do not care
to advertise myself as reform crank, but
l saw an examination. paper at the custom
house that made me tremble for the fu-
ture of the English tongue. One of the
applicants who was examined by the local
board for place in the government ser
vice, answered nearly all the questions
correctly, but it was plain that he had
learned what he knew about words by
hearing rather than by sight. His spell
ing was atrocious, but there was a horri-
BILE likeness between his misspelled words
and the slipshod pronunciation of edu-
Gated persons"
Taking a slip of paper from his vest
pocket he pointed TO the applicants spell
ing of the names of some states and cities,
thus: Michigan, Owio, Maysuri, Shecogo
(the S being partly erased for O., Buf11o,
Cincinnatta. In Washington there was
no "g," and the "d' was invariably abb
sent from the word land" For moral he
wrote "morl."
"You can see," said the amateur re-
former, that in nearly every instance
the slipshod pronunciation of intelligent
persons is reproduced Theoretically in this
spelling. This man spelled words as they
are commonly mispronounced, and it is
the best evidence in the world that re-
form is needed. Nearly everybody sounds
the "a in Chicago as though it were an %
and not even Mr.. Murat Halstead calls
the name of Cincinnati correctly. The
spelling reform that has been used for so
many years involves phonetic spelling,
but If words are commonly mispro-
nounce1 and if everybody is careless
about it, the spelling reform could not 90
very far and could not be worth much
There are several reasons why the
English language is undergoing some very
undesirable changes. We are not so de-
pendent on lectures and talks from Guilt
waited men as they used to be in New
England, and pronunciation is not assisted
by reading. The reader sees no reason to
pronounce the IA in match and watch
differently. Pronunciation is not taught
in the schools and school teachers make as
many blunders as other people. A good
many people grow careless because they
fear if they pronounce some words cor
rectly they may be accused of affectation
and be classed with those who are so pain
fully precise as to appear fnical. The ac-
curacy of these persons in saying did
you is so extreme as TO drive a man into
saying 'didje' in very defiance. Some
times, too, it is dangerous. Out in Ne
braska they call the town of Beatrice
'Be-at-tress, with strong accent on the
second syllable. The natives killed a
a young man from Boston who called il
'Be-ah-tree-che.'
yet why should so many persons say
spontanightity instead of spontaneously
Why should nearly everybody in the west
say cal-li-ope (short il for cal-li-o-pe dong
j., and apparatus or apparatus instead
of apparay -tusl Ease of expression is not
in favor Of the corruption in any of these
instances. OF course, the most common
error is in ignoring the true sound of u in
such words as tune, which most of US call
toon, and duty, which we call dooty, etc
A vast majority of US say nOozepaper
To-day and the like. Perhaps we know
that in most woods Of this class, except
where u follows r. there should be the
sound OF you, but we pay no attention to
it. IL is strange, too, that sometimes a
person who does not give ~ its first
sound in tune does give it in rule. W here
it should not be.
"A man may be excused for calling
Charlotte Russo Charley Ross and blanc
mango blue mango, for these are foreign
words, but there is no excuse for saying
ap-pricot for apricot, or address for ad-
dress accent on last syllable) or
eck-quable for ee-quable, or ERIN for
Erin, or asafdity for asafoetida, or
Madeira for Madeira, or FenZu-ee-lar for
Venezuela, or Adon-is short o. for
Ado-nis dong o., or Dian-na for Diana
tlong az, or day-po accent on the first
syllable) for day-po accent on the last) or