CHAPTER VIII.
THE PRINCIPLES OF ORTHOEPY.
[§ 240]. The present chapter is one, not upon the details of the pronunciation of the English language, but upon the principles of orthoepy. For the details of pronunciation the reader is referred to Nares' Orthoepy, and to the common pronouncing dictionaries, with the preliminary recommendation to use them with caution. Orthoepy, a word derived from the Greek orthon (upright), and epos (a word), signifies the right utterance of words. Orthoepy differs from orthography by determining how words are spoken, whereas orthography decides how they are spelt. The one is a question of speech, the other a question of spelling. Orthography presupposes orthoepy.
[§ 241]. Of pronunciation there are two kinds, the colloquial and the rhetorical. In common conversation we pronounce the i in wind, like the i in bit; in rehearsing, or in declamation, however, we pronounce it like the i in bite; that is, we give it a diphthongal sound. In reading the Scriptures we say blesséd; in current speech we say blest. It is the same with many words occurring in poetry.
[§ 242]. Errors in pronunciation are capable of being classified. In the first place, they may be arranged according to their situation. The man who pronounces the verb to survéy, as if it was súrvey (that is, with the accent on the wrong syllable), errs in respect to the accentuation of the word; the situation, or seat of his error, being the accent. To say orātor instead of orător is to err in respect to the quantity of the word, the seat of the error being in the quantity; and to pronounce the a in father, as it is pronounced in Yorkshire, or the s in sound, as it is pronounced in Devonshire (that is, as z), is to err in
the matter of the articulate sounds. To mispronounce a word because it is misspelt[[34]] is only indirectly an error of orthoepy. It is an error, not so much of orthoepy, as of orthography; and to give a wrong inflection to a word is not bad pronunciation but bad grammar. For practical purposes, however, many words that are really points of grammar and of orthography, may be dealt with as points of orthoepy.
That the preceding classification is natural I am induced to believe by the following circumstances. Errors in the way of articulation generally arise from a source different from those of accent and of quantity. Errors in accent and quantity are generally referable to insufficient grammatical or etymological knowledge, whilst the errors of articulation betray a provincial dialect.
The misdivision of syllables, an orthoepical error of a fourth kind, has in the English, and perhaps in other languages, given rise to a peculiar class of words. There have been those who have written a nambassador for an ambassador, misdividing the syllables, and misdistributing the sound of the letter n. The double form (a and an) of the English indefinite article, encourages this misdivision. Now, in certain words an error of this kind has had a permanent influence. The English word nag is, in Danish, ög; the n, in English, having originally belonged to the indefinite an, which preceded it. The words, instead of being divided thus, an ag, were divided thus, a nag, and the fault became perpetuated. That the Danish is the true form we collect, firstly, from the ease with which the English form is accounted for, and, secondly, from the old Saxon form ehu, Latin equus. In adder we have the process reversed. The true form is nadder, old English; natter, German. Here the n is taken from the substantive and added to the article. In newt and eft we have each form. The list of words of this sort can be increased.
[§ 243]. In the second place, faults of pronunciation may be arranged according to their cause.