The Democratic banner. (Mt. Vernon, Ohio) 1898-192?, 1914-02-20
ALL IN THE ACCENT
Words on Which Common Usage
and Dictionaries Disagree.
LINCOLN AND LIEN AND LION.

Blind Mans Criticism Of irving.
There are many words so habltually
mispronounced that the correct accent
q. e., the accent favored by the die.
tionariesD would appear wrong If any
body used it in current conversation.
This, of course, means that common
usages have overriden the dictionary
and established new standard which
the dictionary of the future will have
to respect, just as those Of today
respect the pronunciation of 'llen"
that they rejected in the past. Such
words are cocaine and ptamaine, which
the dictionary of the present recog-
nlzes as trisyllables, thus: cocaine,
pto-ma-ine.
Anyone familiar with French--a Ian
guage that may be said to possess no
accented syllables-will understand
Taine's complaint about London res
taurants that whenever he ordered
potatoes the waiter invariably served
him with buttered toast.
And of course 1t was another French
man who made a jest Of matrimony
by pronouncing it ma-trim-ony.
Mark Lemon records story about
Lord Chancellor Eldon and Sir Arthur
Pigott. The first always pronounced
the word "lien" in two syllables, as IL
1t was spelled lien; the latter pro-
nounced it in one syllable, lean, just
as 1t would be pronounced in ordinary
conversation. On this difference Jekyll
wrote an epigram:
Sir Arthur, Sir Arthur, why. what do you
mean
| BY saying the chancellors lion is lean?
| Do you think that his Kitchens so bad as
all that,
That nothing within it will ever get fat?
Lord Eldon's pronunciation Of this
legal term was not unknown at one
time in America. Witness an anecdote
about Lincoln. He once appeared in
the supreme court in case involving
lien upon Il piece Of property.
The presiding judge was noted alike
for obstinacy and pedantry. Lincoln,
referring to the lien, pronounced ii
'lean." This visibly affected his
honor.
Lien, Mr.. Lincoln" he gently re.
J monstrated.
"Very WELL" said Lincoln. But d
little later he forgot himself and out
came the pronunciation "lean."
| Once more he was corrected by the
| judge.
"As you please" retOrted Lincoln
somewhat nettled.
mot as l please came from the
bench. THAT is the pronunciation
favored by Webster and by Worcester
1t so obtains at Westminster hall and
also at our own supreme court in
Washington
Lincoln had now recovered his con
stituional good humor Bowing tC
| the court he said: "Certainly, yOur
honor, certainly. ] only desire to say
that If my client had known there was
a lion on his farm for so long a time
| am sure he would not have stayed
there even long enough to bring this
suit. and | should not have had the
pleasure of appearing before this hon
orable court
OF Henry Irving we are told that tC
heroic perseverance and hard study be
added almost childlike eagerness ID
adopt any suggested improvement in
his manner of delivery. A blind mar
once offered an Illuminating criticism
ON his Shylock. The sensitive ear OF
the sightless auditor detected a fault
in Irving's opening line:
Three thousand ducats-well
81 hear no sound of the usurer In
that was the blind mans subse-
quent comment to Irving himself. "It
is said with the reflective air of man
to whom money means very little"
The justice of the criticism was
acknowledged by Irving. He revised
his reading. not only of the first line,
but of several others in which he now
saw that he had not been enough of
the moneylender.
George Eliot in "Middlemarch' sup
plies classic instance of the value
of the accent. When Lyndgate, sore
distressed at the failure of all his pro-
fesslOnal and financial plans, comes to
his wife for sympathy, she meets him
with the query
"What can l dO?'
Whereon the author comments:
'That little speech of four words, like
so many others in all languages, is ca
pable Of expressing all states of mind
from helpless dimness to exhaustive
argumentative perception, from the
completest self deyoting fellowship tU
the most neutral aloofness. Rosa
mund's thin utterance threw into the
words What can l doY as much
neutrality as they could hold. They
fell like mortal chill on Lyndgate's
reused tenderness"
One of Du Mauriers best cartoons in
Punch shows deferential man Of in
quirlng mind propounding this question
to a professional beauty:
"Aint you tired of hearing people
say THAT is the beautiful Miss Bel
size?"