Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1914-03-13
ALL IN TIE ACCENT
Words on Which Common usage
and Dictionaries Disagree.

| There are many words so habitually
inexperienced that the correct accent
| a. e., the accent favored by the die
.ionaries) would appear wrong IL any
body used it in current conversation
| This, of course means that common
usa ges have overriden the dictionary
and established a new standard which
! the dictionary OF the future will have
| to respect. just as those or TO-DAY
respect the pronuncia ton OF lien
that they rejected in the past Such
words are cocaine and ptomaine which
the dictionary OF the present recog-
nizes as trisylla bles. thus: coca Inc,
pto-ma-ine.
Anyone familiar with French-a Ian
| guage that may be said to possess no
| accented syIlables-will understand
| Tainc's complaint about London res
taurants that whenever he ordered
potatoes the waiter invariably served
him with buttered toast
And of course il was another French
man who made a jest of matrtmony
| by pronouncing 1t ma-trim-ony.
| Mark Lemon records story about
| Lord Chancellor Eldon and Sir Arthur
Pigott The first always pronounced
| the word lien" in two syllabies. as IL
| IL was spelled lien: the latter pro-
uounced it in one syllable. lean, just
rs it would be pronounced in ordinary
conversation. On this difference Jekyil
! wrote an epigram:
| Sir Arthur. Sir Arthur, why, what do you
| BY saying the chaneeiIors 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 a case involving
a lien upon a piece of property.
The presiding judge was noted alike
for obstinacy and pedantry. Lincoln.
referring to the lien. pronounced !.
lean" This visibly affected his
honor.
Lien. Mr.. Lincoln he gently re-
! monstrated.
Very WELL" said Lincoln. But a
| little later he forgot himself and out
came the pronunciation lean"
Once more he was corrected by the
judge.
LAS you please" retorted Lincoln.
somewhat pettled.
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
Washington"
hi
stitutional good humor. Bowling to
the court. he said: Certainly, your
honor. certainly. 1 only desire TO say
that IL my client had known there was
a lion on his farm for sc long time.
I am sure he would not have stayed
there even long enough to bring this
suit. and I should not have had the
pleasure Of appearing before this hon
orable court"
OF Henry Irving we are told that to
heroic perseverance and hard study he
added almost childlike eagerness to
adopt any suggested improvement III
his manner of delivery. A blind NAH
once offered an Illuminating criticism
on his Shylock. The sensitive ear or
the sightless auditor detected fault
in Irving's opening line:
Three thousand ducats-well.
II hear no sound Of the usurer Ia
that" was the blind mans subse
quent comment to Irving himself. 1T
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 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 | dos"
Whereop the author com ments:
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 10 exhaustive
argumentative perception. from the
completest self devoting fellowship 10
the most neutra! aloofness. Rosa
mund's thin utterance threw into the
words What can 1 do:' rs much
neutrality as they could hold. They
fell like a mortal chill on I.yndgate's
reused tenderness"
One of Du Maurier's best cartoons in
Punch shows n de:erential man OF in
quiring mind propounding this question
TO a professional beauty:
Amt you tired of hearing people
say That is the beautiful Miss Bel
size:'
Lob. no." the professional beauty "e-
plies. Il am gettin. tired of hearing
people say rs THAT the beautiful Miss