The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1898-04-16
EXERCISE IN ELOCUTION.
Read This and See How Many
Words You Can Pronounce.
From the Washington star.


1t is lamentable that the subject of pro-
nunciation should, at times, become pro-
vocative of irascible behaviour. Often
what should be ioust in occult orthoepy
degenerates into maniacal alteration amid
Il Tartarean seismic avalanche of words
Not long since robust, disputative col
legian. his clothes of the latest Pail Mall
cut. his bifucated necktie adorned with a
solitaire and an onyx ring, his boutonniere
silly flower, and Il pair Of castanets, his
hair dressed with oleomargarine and per
tumed with ambergris, his upper lip innO-
cent of hirsute ornament, his cheek chal
cedonic, aye, adamantine; his look trucu-
lent, saturnine and demoniacal, indicatory
of wassalls and orgies, informed a senile,
hyhocpondri cal attorney from Waterloo
that he did not pronounce according to
the standard dictionary.
.'For observed the young man, with
an air Of research, Sin your Tuesday ad-
dress you said that the sight of cerements,
or of lethargic cadaver, Or of a swarthy
native of Natal, afflicted with locomotor
ataxia, paresis diphtheria, or the epizootic
disease, sufficed to inundate your eyes;
that a salamander treated for obesity with
hydrangea tea and anchOvy sauce would
not be combative; that during discourse
to Il concourse of youths, eleven sacrile-
gIous dwarfS made grimaces at an aged
man sitting on three-legged stool; that
one of these supple fellows, carrying under
his arm Il copy of 1.-The Arundel Motto
and works on palmistry, zoology and gene
alogy being rebuked, looked rather con-
trite, but he Immediately frescoed a coad-
tutor Elizabethan collar with apricot
marmalade; that you once read of lugu-
brious man, albeit of great acumen and
discernment, sick with varioloid and pur-
ulent eczema, for which he permitted a
jocund gynecologist, after incising his Jug
ular vein with scapel of stalactite, to
inject iodine and fetid sirup with
syringe Of decorative design, NAL prac-
tice suit being the result; that during a
drought Il viragO, or Il pythoness, is conf
batible with only ephemeral success. By
the way, have you dictionary?''
Dictionary" replied the lawyer,
''pugh it is granary from which the
pronunciation fend fills his commissariat
with philologic romances and vaSaries that
grow into fetichism, which finds expires
sion in Il supercilious ostentation of erudite
yaculty.
Nothing daunted, the young man con-
tinued You said. according to prece-
dent it was obligatory upon the aspirant to.
plait his hair as his nomad parents had
done, and precedent to going up to the
hymeneal altar, where the archiepiscopal
functionary was waiting, indulged in full
some praise of himself, hoping thereby to
induce comely girl and notable house
wife to join him. But she, being averse
to undergoing an ordeal so irrefragably
embarrassing, speremptorily demanded his
removal His features, for a minute,
became immobile with surprise, after the
subsistence of which he exclaimed, 4 have
had a presentment of this If, on inqui-
ry, | find that that aeronaunt, or any other
interloper, or even any ally, or accessory,
has been writing distichs to you, [ will
make him grovel abjectly in the dust, and
force him to jump off an Alpine glacier.
This is verbatim quotation. You some
times consult dictionary? p
Young man, retorted the lawyer, his
aquiline nose quivering with derisive puis-
sance, ''to illustrate the inconsistency of Il
dictionary, see how demagogy is pro
nounced, then turn to pedagogy.
Pardon me, was speaking of you,
said the torturer, with cherubic smile,
''In your peroration this occurs : Amin
cognito Communist, being commandant on
the frontier, in one of his hunting expedi
tions came upon an Indian, who, to the
accompaniment of the soughing wind, was
softly playing minuet on fageolet, for
the purpose of quieting wounded hydro
phobic Bengal tiger, penned up in hovel.
The officers companion, Malay, from
Singapore, acting as seneschal or pursui-
want, suggested houghing the animal or
giving it some cocaine, morphine and sa
line yeast Accordingly this nauseous
dose was administered. The rampant
beast thereupon coming in contact with a
dilapidated divan filled with dynamite,
bade adieu to things sublunary and pre-
ceeded to grace the empyreal regions.
You look into Il dictionary once in