The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1898-11-14

NUMBER 8.
THE PRONUNCIATION OF ENGLISH
BY j. H. PAUL, M. A.,
Lately President of Utah Agricultural College.

nunciation is given by no one excepting
a few elocutionists. 1 used to teach this
intermediate "a in half, mass. ETC.. to
my classes, but had 10 success in getting
any of the pupils to adopt it. Walker
dictionary marks all these words the
same as man, ran, add, etc., and it
seems to me that this pronunciation is
likely to prevail from universal usage
and from the lack of any argument
among authorities or peoples as TO what
this sound really is.
Westerns commonly say Toosday for
Tuesday, noos for news, doc for due, ETC.;
English and Scotch people commonly say
Chewsday for Tuesday, jooty for duty,
etc, but pronounce new correctly. BY
remembering to give the sound of be-
fore the US, it is easy to pronounce these
words Alright; thus, nyews, dyew. etc,
is the correct pronunciation of news, dew,
etc. 1t is an error to pronounce roof,
root. hoof, wool, etc, with the sound of
90 as in foot. These words have the
sound of 90 in moon. 1t is a frequent and
vulgar error to corrupt the sound Of a
in add, at etc, into ed ct, etc.
The Scotch say maircy for mercy, airth
for earth. etc. The westerner says
murcy for mercy. urth for earth. The
correct sound in these cases, according
10 the dictionaries. lies between these two
extremes; though 1 have never heard the
speaker that could steer between these
extremes.
In the words north, forth, etc., is the
o long as in old, or short as in odd? or is
it the same sound as III fall? My judg-
ment is that it is the sound of long o.
the sound. we give IN naming that letter,
shortened and somewhat modified by the
following T; and that the recommendations
nawth and MOTH leaving out the r, are
relics of barbarism.
The foregoing discussion relates to the
correct sounds of the letters, to the gen
eral sounds given in the body of speech,
and is quite a different thing from simple
errors in pronunciation. These occur in
! discriminatory among all people, owing to
the arbitrary character of English spell
ing and the senseless differences in the
pronunciation of words spelled alike
| Thus person is not necessarily to be
| blamed because he msDronOunces ally,
almond, alternate, area, bifurcate, bla-aIt,
| brigantine, caIliope, cOgnac, combatant,
complex, coincidence, cOnstrue, curator,
decorous, distich, donative, enervate, ETC.,
for their pronunciation is arbitrary. But
the westerner who says engine for
engine, genuine, with long i, for genuine,
should be corrected; the lawyer who says
nayshunal fbr national Tayshunal for
rational, should be help up TO public scOrn
and ridicuie; the person who, in imitation
of the English lower classes. would say
! lydy for lady, mile for mail, bye for boy,
almost deserves to be transported; but the
school teacher who would attempt to
corrupt the speech of our children in the
west. in that very particular in which
/ it is really the best today in all the
world, namely, in the pronunciation of
| the +, should, L venture to maintain, be
imprisoned L have heard of teacher in
this city, a few years since, who actually
| attempted to introduce that New England
abomination which makes our noble to
consist of somethi between "ah' and
nothing; and she punished the children
with that vulgar tongue of hers because
! they still chung to the r.
1 adapt here a quotation from Ayres'
| Orthoepist:
The dictionaries say that the penulti-
mate in such words as declamatory,
/ migratory, inventory, matrimony, terri
/ tory, etc, should be pronounced like short
u; that is, obscure. like o in major, actor,
| factor. etc. Is this true? IL would be
| in harmony with the spirit of the language
| to say inventory, making the long as IN
protOzOic. 1t is safe to assert that it
! is only those specially schooled to slur this
| O, who pronounce it according TO the die
| tonary marking.
Ayres is right and the dictionaries
wrong. The sound of long o is perhaps
the most beautiful sound in our language;
as witness it's melody in the words
Ontario, golden. oriole; and the attempt
to spoil such words as Gladstone, hearth
stone, oratory, testimony, etc., by calling
them Gladstun, hearthstun, orat'r'y
testlmunny, ETC., is to me evidence of an
attempt to destroy one of the most
natural of the beauties OF cur mother
tongue, or il shows a Difference to a
slovenly English experimentation, com
mon beyond the seas, which is unworthy
of true Americans.