PART II. DICTIONARY WORK. PRONUNCIATION. PRONUNCIATION does not receive the attention which its importance demands. Where one mistake in grammar occurs, ten occur in pronunciation. Very few persons can read a page of plain English without making numerous errors in pronunciation. Indeed it is a rare thing to listen to a speaker who does not make several mistakes in an address of one hour. Persons who would be deeply mortified to make a mistake in grammar or spelling, go on mispronouncing ordinary words without any apparent shame. Correct pronunciation is of more importance than correct spelling. One offends the eye, the other the Bad spelling offends the eye that sees the wrong spelling; bad pronunciation offends the ear of an entire audience. Again, pronunciation is in constant use; spelling is occasionally used. An untiring effort should, therefore, be made to break up incorrect pronunciation. ear. CAUSES OF INCORRECT PRONUNCIATION. The causes of incorrect pronunciation are three: Carelessness, Laziness, Ignorance, and the greatest of these three is Ignorance. Carelessness. Many persons are careless in their pronunciation. They go treading the road their fathers have trod. They say idea, grâss, root, côst, etc., without one thought as to the correctness of the pronunciation. Laziness. Many persons are simply too confirmed lazy to consult the dictionary. For months they have been halting between two opinions, not sure that either is correct. Every time the word is met it is shunned or half pronounced. Yet there is the dictionary, and these lazy people have not the energy to walk to the desk. Ignorance.-Ignorance is a prolific cause of incorrect pronunciation. Many persons do not know what the correct pronunciation of a word is. They can not distinguish between sounds. Once a Boston lady came in a reading circle of which I was a member. I was much amused at her peculiar pronunciation. She said to the manager of the circle: "What is the difference in pronunciation between far fä, and for fä?" She pronounced them both alike, leaving off an r on both. I laughed at her and thought she was silly. The next day I was leading the reading and pronounced bird, burd, and the "Boston girls" laughed at me. It was purely ignorance on my part. I did not know there was ny difference in sound between fir and fur, earn and urn. Some persons make no distinction between a in fame and â in care and fair. Others pronounce caret â and short ǎ just alike. Should hey realize that caret â is diphthongal the difficulty would be renoved. In the old English fair was spelled with two syllables, fa-ir, and pronounced as marked, long a, and tilde I, or short u. These sounds were finally coalesced but still retain the diphthongal sound. Long ū suffers shamefully. We say tootor, for tūtor; dooty, for dūty; nooze, for news,-nūz; constitootion, institoote, etc. Tooter is a fellow that blows a horn. If n-e-w-s spells nooze, why does not p-e-w-s spell pooze? Broad a is greatly neglected either through nicety or ignorance. Brod for brôad; coll for call. We have no more naughty boys but tie them up to (k)notty boys; no more daughters, but we reduce them to dotters. Let us have a race of broad a's. Much of this is affectation. Some go to the other extreme, and give broad a in many words where Italian a is needed. The writer once heard a normal girl say, "I laughed and I laughed, and I nearly died a 'lâughin.'” To destroy these unpleasant pronunciations let pupils be thoroughly drilled upon the elementary sounds. The teacher will find that the above table contains all the diacritical marks. Drill pupils thoroughly upon these sounds. Pronounce the word, then give the sound. Teach carefully all the sounds not in the table. Teach by imitation the consonants. Show the class how to produce the sound of b, c, t, etc. Follow up the alphabet, and give every consonant sound. Teach the names of the diacritical marks. It is not enough to drill upon the tables. The class must be made to see the difference between sounds. 1. ã, ă, and â. Pupils must see the difference between these sounds. Spell many words phonically, as follows: Pronounce bat slowly, b-a-t. Drop b, ǎt. Drop t, ǎ. Drill on the following: Mate, mặt, câre, fair, fāme, măp, dare, dãy, răt, päy-er, pân, făn. 2. ô, Ŏ. Alternate sounds as follows: Bot, bought, cost, cause, farm, for. 3. ô and ä. Fär, fôr, ôr, äre, fôrm, färm. 4. Ŏ, a. Cot, caught, not, naught, knotty, naughty, dotter, daugh, ter, Ŏn, awe. 5. ū and u (00) rue, pūre, rule, use, dūty, ruby, new (nů, rude. 6. oo and oo, moon, look, book, roof. EXERCISES IN PHONICS. The teacher will do well at this time to refer to the chapter on elementary sounds, prepared by Prof. Warren McBroom. Spell several words by sounds. When pupils can give the elementary sounds readily, begin work on diacritical marking. Pronounce ten or fifteen common words and request the pupils to mark them correctly. Mark vowels and consonants. 1. Bắt. 2. Căn. 3. air. 4. tue. 5. game. 6. Form. 8. nět. 10. Çite. This will be sufficient for one lesson. Next lesson give attention to silent letters. Mark words diacritically and cross out all silent letters. After a few lessons similar to the above have been given, it will be well to have a lesson in written phonic spelling. PHONIC SPELLING. Write no representative sounds. To illustrate: Should the pupil make rue ru it would be incorrect, for u represents oo. So write oo, roo. The teacher will now be prepared to show the class the importance of Dictionary Work. Write the word bat on the board and ask, "How many pronunciations can you give this word?" Some will guess one number, some another. Put the matter to test. Write the word several times, asking the class to pronounce as you mark. Bāt, băt, bắt, bạt, bắt, bật, bạt. The class will see at once that the word has as many pronunciations as the letter a has sounds, which is seven. Ask how many pronunciations can be given to the word me. Mark the word five times. Continue as follows: "How many sounds has cat?" Some will say seven, others eight. Put it to test: Hard C-Cat, căt, cät, cat, cat, cât, cat: Çat, çat, çat, çat, çat, çat, çat = 7 14 The class will then see that the word has been written 14 times, and that every word has a different pronunciation; hence the word cat can have 14 pronunciations. For amusement, to incite interest and to show the wonders of English pronunciations, introduce words of two and more syllables. Take the word fatal. Some will say that you can give it 7 sounds, some 14, still others will say 28. Try it. 1. Fātāl, fatăl fätäl, fātal, fātal, fātâl, fātal=7 with long a in first syl2. ǎ in the first syllable will give 7 more. [lable. You will see then that we have 49 words all differently pronounced, all accented on the first syllable; change the accent to the last syllable and we have 49 more, which added to the first list we have 49+ 49 = = 98, the number of pronunciations that can actually be given to the word fatal. While curiosity is on tip-toe derive a rule by which the number of pronunciations in any word may be found. RULE. Multiply all the vowel sounds together, multiply this result by the number of sounds any consonant may have, and this by the |