These remarks do not apply to the commercial towns; for people who are conversant with a variety of company lose most of their singularities, and hence well bred people resemble each other in all countries. But the peculiar traits of national character are found in the internal parts of a country, among that class of people who do not travel, nor are tempted by an intercourse with foreigners, to quit their own habits.[50]
Such are the causes of the local peculiarities in pronunciation, which prevail among the country people in New England, and which, to foreigners, are the objects of ridicule. The great error in their manner of speaking proceeds immediately from not opening the mouth sufficiently. Hence words are drawled out in a careless lazy manner, or the sound finds a passage thro the nose.
Nothing can be so disagreeable as that drawling, whining cant that distinguishes a certain class of people; and too much pains cannot be taken to reform the practice.
Great efforts should be made by teachers of schools, to make their pupils open the teeth, and give a full clear sound to every syllable. The beauty of speaking consists in giving each letter and syllable its due proportion of sound, with a prompt articulation.
Thus in order to pronounce cow, power, or gown with propriety, the pupil should be taught, after placing the organs in the position required by the first consonant, to open his mouth wide, before he begins the sound of ow: Otherwise in passing from that position to the aperture necessary to pronounce ow, he will inevitably articulate ee, keow.
A similar method is recommended to those polite speakers who are so fond of imitating the English stage pronunciation as to embrace every singularity, however disagreeable. I refer to the very modern pronunciation of kind, sky, guide, &c. in which we hear the short e before i, keind, or kyind, skey, &c. This is the same barbarous dialect, as the keow and veow of the eastern country people. Yet, strange as it may seem, it is the elegant pronunciation of the fashionable people both in England and America. Even Sheridan, who has laid it down as a rule that i is a dipthong, composed of aw and ee, has prefixed a y short to its sound in several words; as kyind, skyi, gyide, &c. We may with equal propriety prefix e to the dipthong ow, or to o in poll, or to oo in fool, or to any other vowel. It is presumed that the bare mention of such barbarisms will be sufficient to restrain their progress, both in New England and on the British theater.
Some of the southern people, particularly in Virginia, almost omit the sound of r as in ware, there. In the best English pronunciation, the sound of r is much softer than in some of the neighboring languages, particularly the Irish and Spanish; and probably much softer than in the ancient Greek. But there seems to be no good reason for omitting the sound altogether; nor can the omission be defended on the ground, either of good practice or of rules. It seems to be a habit contracted by carelessness.
It is a custom very prevalent in the middle states, even among some well bred people, to pronounce off, soft, drop, crop, with the sound of a, aff, saft, drap, crap. This seems to be a foreign and local dialect; and cannot be advocated by any person who understands correct English. [L]
In the middle states also, many people pronounce a t at the end of once and twice, oncet and twicet. This gross impropriety would not be mentioned, but for its prevalence among a class of very well educated people; particularly in Philadelphia and Baltimore.