130. The sound of short a before r in cărry, bărrel črrogant ǎrrow, &c., must not be confounded with the sound which the vowel has in farmer, hardly, largely, an archy, &c. See ¶ 107.

131. Do not give the sound of ah to the ar in star, mar, large, parlor, &c. Remember that r is always sounded. Do not say swoms for swarms, scusly for scarcely. Do not give to the a in such words as epistolary, temporary, the sound of long a instead of short a obscured.

132. Bad readers sometimes prolong the termination aw, perverting it into awr. Thus they will say lawr, flawr, sawr, &c. They will also take an unwarrantable liberty with the ay in always, per verting it into alwuz. Avoid such blunders.

2. E, ea, ear, ee, el, en, ence, ent, ess, er, ew, &c.

133. The sound of long e in deceit, conceit, &c., should not be perverted into long a. Do not say yallow for yellow, cullar for cellar, forgit for forget, yit for yet, git for get, instid for instead, bruthrun for brethren, kittle for kěttle, childern for children, kinderd for kindred, hunderd for hundred, baird for bēard, fèrful for fearful, heerd for heard (pronounced herd), ben for been (pronounced bin), &c.

134. We have seen, from 33, that the sound of e in terminations in el and en is sometimes dropped. Be careful to distinguish between the words in which it is dropped and those in which it is retained. When in doubt, consult the dictionary. Do not sound e before n or 7 in heaven, seventh, drivel, driven, and a large class of verbs and participles. Practise the Exercises on the eighteenth elementary sound, page 38.

135. In unaccented terminations in ence, ens, ess, est, ent and ents, let the sound of short e (as in pet) be rendered as distinctly as it can be without stiffness and transposition of the accent. Say diffidence, slovens, goodness, highest, banishment, incidents, &c. Practise the Exercises upon the sixth elementary sound, page 35.

136. The sounds of er and ern, in unaccented syllables, are liable to be slighted or mispronounced. Give to the Italicized letters of the following words the sound of er in her, neatly and easily, and without changing the poise of the accent: several, poverty, govern, mightier, government, soberness, funeral, power, generally, taverns, western, en'ergy, waver, rover, interview. Avoid the barbarism of saying sarch for search, withud for withered, chambuz for chambers, dif'rent for different, ye-uz for years, flow-uz for flowers, ferce for fierce (the ie like long ē), noo, doo, for new, dew.

3. I, ible, ie, il, ilit, ing, ire, ir, &c.

137. The short sound of i in pin must not be perverted (r dropped in such words as since, sit, tulip, disciples, spirit, satiu, curious, mountain, captain, &c.; which words are sometimes erroneously pronounced, sence, set, tulup, de-sciples, sperit, sat'n, cur'ous, mount'n, cap'n, &c.

138. In such words as convertible, admissibility, &c., the i here Italicized may be slightly obscured. In evil, devil, devilish, the Italicized i is dropped. Do not drop it in civil, cavil, pencil, anvil, fossil, tonsil, &c.

139. The termination ing, occurring in unaccented syllables, is very often shōrn of its true sound and converted into simple in. A bad reader is at once detected by this fault. He should be exercised in the examples under the sixteenth elementary sound on page 38; and taught to find out the difference between robin and robbing.

140. Do not give to the termination ire a sound as if it were in two syllables, by pronouncing such words as mire, hire, &c., thus : mi-er, hi-er, &c. Give to the r in these words a pure untrilled sound, and its true liquid " quality.

141. Avoid such perversions of the sound of ir in first, girl, thirst, &c., as would degrade these words into fust, gal, thust, &c. The sound should correspond with that of er in her. See 109. Do not fuse the two sounds ie into i in such words as society, variety, &c.

4. O, oa, oi, on, oo, or, ow, &c.

142. Do not obscure too much the long o in innocence, agony, im'potent, elaborate, composition, commemorate, memorable, efflorescent, &c. Do not give the o in to the sound of short u. Do not give to the o in testimony, matrimony, &c., the sound of long o instead of an obscure sound of short o. Do not drop the obscure sound of o in neighboring, melancholy, victory, memory, history,

&c.

143. Do not say yunder instead of yonder; bunnets instead of bonnets; stun instead of stōne; stuny instead of stōny; unly instead of ōnly; whole or hull instead of whole. But do say nuthing instead of nothing; duz (does) instead of doos; duth (doth) instead of dōth; cumbat instead of combat, nun instead of none, &c. Practise the Exercises on pages 36 and 37.

is often

144.. The diphthong oa, when it has the sound of lɔng o, mispronounced. Do not say coat instead of coat; toad instead of

toad; cloak instead of cloak; boat instead of boat; road instead of road, &c. Give to the oa in these words the full long sound which o has in go, globe, &c. Practise the Exercises on the eighth elementary sound, page 36.

145. Shun the offensive mode which bad readers have of converting the sound of oi (as in voice) into that of long i. Do not say hist for hoist, jine for join; bil for boil; pison for poison, fist for foist; mist for moist; clister for cloister; jint for joint; jist for joist.

146. Take heed of the distinction between the long and the short sounds of oo. Do not give to the oo in book, good, look, forsook, hook, brook, &c., the long sound oo has in noon, fool, pool, stool, school, &c. Do not say full-ish instead of foolish. Do not say sut for soot. Read ¶58; and practise the Exercises upon the tenth and eleventh elementary sounds, pages 36 and 37. In such words as occasion, information, caption, do not omit the obscure sound of the o; do not convert the words into occazh'n, informash'n, capsh'n. Do not say portenshus, tremendyous, grievyusly, stupendyusly, instead of portentous, tremendous, grievously, stupendously, where the ou has the sound of short u obscured.

147. The sound of or is frequently perverted by the negligent. They will say fur instead of for; hos instead of horse; mawn for morn; currect for correct; immawtal for immortal; stawm for storm; horro for horror; impawtant for important. Give to the or in these words the full sound which the letters have in nor, observing the Rule (77) in regard to the untrilled r. Do not say wuss, wust, instead of worse, worst (rhyming with nurse, nurst).

148. Do not pervert the sound of ow in unaccented syllables into er. Do not say narrer, feller, winder, morrer, piller, borrer, &c., instead of narrow, fellow, &c. Practise the Exercises on the eighth elementary sound, page 36.

ers.

5. U, ue, ui, ur, ure, &c.

149. The sounds of u are often slurred or misapplied by bad readRead what is said (paragraphs 40, 41 and 42) of the long sound of this vowel (as in mule). Do not attempt to give this long sound to the vowel (or to its equivalent ew) after r in rule, rude, fruit, grew, &c. Do not slight this long sound in such words as the following tune, nude, institute, fortune, particular, picture, leg'is lature, revenue, volume, venture, habituäl, constitute, culture, deputy,

1ssume, calculate, argument, situation, credulous, pursuits, &c.* Practice the Exercises, page 43. Avoid the barbarism of perverting into nater, culter, venter, endooring, virtoo, such words as nature, venture, enduring, virtue.

150. Do not give to the ul in awful, fearful, dreadful, beautiful, &c., the sound of u in dull instead of u in put, bull, &c. Do not pervert the sound of short u in such, just, faculty, &c., by mispro nouncing the words sech, jest, fakklety, &c.

151. Give to ur its proper sound (that of er in her) in burst, curse durst, nurseries, nurse, purse, reimburse, &c. Do not debase the sound of ur in these words by depriving the untrilled r of its due force.

6. Ck, ct, cts, d, ds, kts, lds, pts, nd, nts, mn, m, &c.

152. Heed the difference between the regular sound of d and its sound as t. Remember that in the preterites and past participles of verbs ending with an aspirate consonant sound, d takes the sound of t, as in stufft, husht, &c. Practise the Exercises in consonant combinations, page 49. Do not slur the sound of d in and.

153. The sounds of ct, cts, ds, kts, lds, nts and pts, must not be slurred. Say hands, not hans; thousands, not thousans; attacked (attakt), not attakted; acts (akts), not aks; expects (expekts), not expeks; perfectly (perfektly), not perfekly; insects, not inseks; sects not seks; folds, not fōls; precepts, not preceps, &c. Do not say ast for asked (askt); attemps, for attempts; haunce for haunts; torrence for torrents, &c. Do not say chimbly for chimney.

154. Do not pervert the sound of m in words or syllables ending with lm, rm or sm, making those terminations sound as if preceded by short u. Do not say elum, helum, filum, chasum, alarum, prisum, spasum, realum, criticisum, harum, &c., for elm, helm, film, chasm, alarm, prism, spasm, realm, criticism, harm, &c.

7. R, rial, rian, re, shr, sph, ss, st, &c.

155. Ris properly one of the most active letters in the alphabet. It is never idle, never out of service, never a mere supernumerary in a word; and yet there is no letter more slighted or ill-used by bad

* The mark of obscure u, which Worcester gives to the u in particular, deputy, calculate, voluble, argument, situation, credulous, &c., is calculates to mislead. The notation given by Walker and Webster to these words, under which the u has the long diphthongal sound of u in cube, is far pref erable.

readers. It is slurred, perverted, or dropped altogether, in the most unscrupulous manner. Sometimes it is trilled when it ought not to be, and sometimes untrilled when it ought to be. See the Rule on this subject, ¶ 77. Sometimes it is erroneously sounded in a word to which it does not belong, and we hear drawlers say lawr, larf, idear, sawr, droring, instead of law, laugh, ideä, saw, drawing.

156. We have already alluded, under the faults in vowel articulation, to some of the offences against r. Do not say hashly for harshly, refaum for reform; pahticular, considubly, nothern, ala'ming, paht, stah, Caholine, haht, discovud, ahm'd, suffud, pahdon, tendully, toluble, rahly, &c., instead of particular, considerably, northern, alarm, part, star, Caroline, heart, discovered, armed, suffered, pardon, tenderly, tolerable, rarely, &c. Do not, in aiming to give distinctness to the sound of r, trill it where it ought not to be. Do not omit the r in February.

157. In words ending with rial, rian, rior, rious, &c., remember that r does not blend with the vowel succeeding it; hence do not try to make a single syllable of these terminations, but say memo-ri-al, libra-ri-an, supe-ri-or, impe-ri-ous, &c. In a class of words ending with re, such as centre, sceptre, massacre, theatre, &c., the r is sounded after the vowel that follows it. Some of these words are spelled by Webster as pronounced, thus: center, scepter,

&c.

158. The thirty-third elementary sound (sh) should not be deprived of its aspirate quality before r. We hear bad readers say srug, sriek, srill, sroud, srink, srimp, &c., instead of shrug, shriek, shrill, shroud, shrink, shrimp, &c. Practise the Exercises under this sound, page 42.

159. The sph of sphere, spherical, sphinx, &c., should not be deprived of its aspirate sound. Read the Exercises under the twentythird elementary sound, page 40, and do not say spere instead of sfere. Do not convert the ss of across into the st of acrost. Do not slur the sts of mists, &c., and the str of stream, &c. Do not say beass for beasts, feass for feasts, hoce for hosts, servance for servants, tinse for tints, persiss for persists.

8. T, th, ward, ways, wh.

160. Do not drop the t in softly, perfectly, &c. We drop the in soften, but not in softly. Let the exercises on th aspirate and th vocal (page 40) be practised till the reader is in no danger of mispronouncing such words as with, beneath, paths, truths, youths, &c. Do not say munce for months; close for clothes; drawt for draught (draft)