The Meeker herald., 1914-11-21
ALL IN THE ACCENT
Words on Which Common Usage
and Dictionaries Disagree.
LINCOLN AND LIEN AND LION.

An Amusing Verbal Duel IN the gu.
promo Court In Which the Lean
Lawyers Wit Came Int Playa
blind Man's critieisn Of Irving.
There are many words 80 habitually
mispronounced that the correct accent
q. e., the accent favored by the die
tionaries) would appear wrong II any
body used 1t In current conversation
This, Of course. means that common
usages have overriden the dictionary
and established a 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 Ian
guage that may be said to possess no
accented syllables-will understand
Taine's complaint about London res
taurants that whenever he ordered
potato the waiter Invariably served
him with buttered toast
And of course 1t 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. n II
1t was spelled lien; the latter pro-
nounced 1t 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 chancellor's lion IL iean7
Do you think that his Kitchens 10 bad n
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
n lien upon piece Of property.
The presiding judge was noted alike
for obstinacy and pedantry. Lincoln.
referring to the lien, pronounced It
lean" This visibly affected hia
honor.
"L-en, Mr.. Lincoln he gently re-
monstrated. f.
Very WE'LL" said Lincoln. But
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.
"Not as please" came from the
bench. THAT Is the pronunciation
favored by Webster and by Worcester.
It SO obtains at Westminster hall and
also at our own supreme court In
Washington
lincoln had now recovered his con-
stitutionai good humor. Bowling to
the court. he said: Certainly. your
honor. certainly. l only desire to say
that if my client had known there was
a lion on his farm for so long time.
/ am sure he would not have stayed
there even long enough to bring this
suit, and l 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 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 Irving's opening line:
Three thousand ducats-well!
II hear no sound of the usurer in
that" was the blind mans subse-
quent comment to Irving himself. "It
In said with the reflective air Of man
to whom money means very little"
The justice Of the criticism was
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. Ja
George Eliot In "Middlemarch' sup
plies classic instance Of the value
II the accent When Lyndgate, sore
distressed ut the failure of all bis pro-
tessIonal and financial plans, comes to
his wife for sympathy. she meets him
with the query:
.What can l dor"
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 tu
the most neutral aloofness. Rosa-
mund's thin utterance threw into the
words .Wliat can l dor as much
as they could hold. They
fell like a mortal chill on Lyndgate's
reused tenderness"
One of Du Maurier's. best cartoons in