The Butler County press. [volume] (Hamilton, Ohio) 1900-1946, 1914-02-20
ALL IN THE ACCENT
Words on Which Common Usage
and Dictionaries Disagree.
LINCOLN AND LIEN AND LION.
An Amusing Verbal Duel In the Su-
preme Court ~ Which the Lean
Lawyers Wit Came into Playa
Blind Mans Criticiam Of irving.

Blind Mans Criticiam Of irving.
There are many words so habitually
mispronounced that the correct accent
| q. e., the accent favored by the die
tonaries) would appear wrong II 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 ''lien"
that they rejected in the past Such
| words are cocaine and ptomaine, which
the dictionary Of the present recog-
nizes as trisyllables, thus: co-ca-ine,
| pto-ma-ine.
| Anyone familiar with French--a lam
| 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 it was another French
man who made a jest Of matrimony
/ by pronouncing 1t ma-trim-ony.
| Mark Lemon records a story about
Lord Chancellor Eldon and Sir Arthur
Pigott The first always pronounced
the word ''lien' in two syllables, as II
1t was spelled lien; the latter pro-
nounced 1t in one syllable, lean, just
as it 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 chancellor's lion is lean?
| Do you think that his Kitchens so bad n
all that.
That nothing within 1t 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 a case involving
lien upon piece Of property.
The presiding judge was noted alike
for obstinacy and pedantry. Lincoln,
referring to the lien, pronounced 1t
'lean." This visibly affected his
honor
"Li-en, Mr. Lincoln he gently re.
monstrated.
every WE'LL" said Lincoln. But a
little later he forgot himself and out
came the pronunciation '1ean."
Once more he was corrected by the
Judge.
"As you please" retorted Lincoln,
somewhat nettled.
"Not 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-
stitutional good humor. Bowling to
the court. he said: Certainly, your
honor certainly. only desire to say
that if my client had known there was
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
vi IIGIIS 1INIuS we dIG IOlu IuuL W
heroic perseverance and hard study be
added almost childlike eagerness to
adopt any suggested improvement in
his manner of delivery. A blind man
once offered an Illuminating criticism
on his Shylock The sensitive ear Of
the sightless auditor detected fault
in Irying'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. at
Is said with the reflective air Of a 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 a classic instance Of the value
of the accent. When Lyndgate, sore
distressed at the failure of all his pro-
fessional and financial plans, comes to
his wife for sympathy, she meets him
| with the query:
"What can / 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 devoting fellowship to
the most neutral aioofness. Rosa
mund's thin utterance threw into the
words What can ! 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
| quiring mind propounding this question
| TO professional beauty:
| "Ain't you tired of hearing people
say That Is the beautiful Miss Bel
sizeY"
"Oh, no." the professional beauty re
| plies. Il am getting tired of hearing
| people say is THAT the beautiful Miss
Belsize?' William s. Walsh i'm Chi
/ cago Record-H Herald