Phillipsburg herald. [volume] (Phillipsburg, Kan.) 1882-1905, 1901-07-13
Pronunciation.

EAOkASAACA0IsOHs
Persons who make any pretenSe to
superior breeding or good schooling
would consider it objectionable to be
Indifferent to good spelling, for this is
one of the very rudiments of common
education; but comparatively few of
the same class are really particular
about correct pronunciation, for this,
strange to say, is a somewhat neglect
ed branch of study. Yet of the two,
pronunciation is more important than
spelling, for all talk, while few write.
Ones speech is heard a Thousand
times where his writing is seen once.
Even those who publish their thoughts
in printed form have a censor between
them and the public in the person of
the almost infallible proofreader. But
the spoken word must stand or fall as
originally uttered. In correctness of
pronunciation, as in soundness of syn
tax, the authors acquaintance with
the language is denoted.
The discussion started by Superin-
tendent Greenwood as to the narrow
ing effect of school teaching might be
amplified by some illustrations in pro-
nunciation. Very few teachers are as
sure as they should be in this rudi-
mentary branch Although they
should aim to be as nearly infallible
as possible, thus setting reliable ex-
amples for the pupils under their
direction, they frequently use erron-
eous accents and vowel sounds even
with the commonest words of the
language. Their mistakes are, per-
haps, fewer than those of others of
equal advantages, but they are more
noticeable from the fact that instruct
ors are looked upon as authorities and
exemplars.
A surprisingly large number of well
educated people mispronounce such
words as sacrifice, disdain, obligatory,
Squalor, alternate, hynreneal, despic-
able, butterine, oieomargarine, adj
dress, eneryate, expert, desist, anna
teur, vaudeville, acoustics, patron and
pretty, not to mention many others
equally common in the average vocab-
ulary. Still more use the short ''a''
instead of the intermediate, or italian
s'a'' in such words as ask, bath, laugh
and bask, and pronounce syrup, squir-
rel and stirrup, girl, bird, virtue, first,
mercy and their class as though the
accented vowel in each case were ''u. y
But still more err in failing to give
the correct sound of ''u'' in such ex-
amples as duke, new, flew, dew, pluto
GRAFT and lucid, pronouncing these
words as though they were spelled
s'dook, . ''noo," ssf1oo," ssdoo,' . ssploo-
tocrat" and ssloocid.' There are some
who regard the recommendations inyolv-
ed in these several classes as over nice
or affected, yet there is only one form
in each case authorized by the lexieo-
graphers, and, after all, pronuncia-
tions that become second nature and
which are given without pedanic nice
ty or self-consciousness, never seem
affected.
The representatives of respective
professions and callings are not nearly
so accurate as they should be in the
recommendations of the special terms
with which they deal. Physicians
and their medicinal dispensers, the
pharmacists, are much given to the
long instead of the short sound Of ssi''
in pronouncing oxide, peroxide, chlor-
ide, morphine, iodine, etc, although
they rarely nowadays make the mis-
take Of putting a long vowel in strych-
nine, Many OF them give tie shozt