The use of ph for f in Philip, is an orthographical expedient, founded upon etymological reasons.
The use of th for the simple sound of the first consonant in thin and thine, is an orthographical expedient. The combination must be dealt with as a single letter.
X, however, and q are not orthographical expedients. They are orthographical compendiums.
The above instances have been adduced as illustrations only. Further details will be found hereafter. For many of them we can give a reason (for instance, for the reduplication of a consonant to express the shortness of the preceding vowel), and of many of them we can give an historical account (see Chapter X.).
[§ 254]. The mischief of orthographical expedients is this:—When a sign, or letter, is used in a conventional, it precludes us from using it (at least without further explanation) in its natural sense: e.g., the double o in mood constitutes but one syllable. If in a foreign language we had, immediately succeeding each other, first the syllable mo, and next the syllable od, we should have to spell it mo-od, or möod or mo-ỏd, &c. Again, it is only by our knowledge of the language that the th in nuthook, is not pronounced like the th in burthen. In the languages of India the true sound of t + h is common. This, however, we cannot spell naturally because the combination th conveys to us another notion. Hence such combinations as thh, or t‛, &c., in writing Hindoo words.
A second mischief of orthographical conventionalities, is the wrong notions that they engender, the eye misleading the ear. That th is really t + h, no one would have believed had it not been for the spelling.
[§ 255]. The present section is the partial application of the preceding observations. It is a running commentary upon the orthographical part of Dr. Johnson's Grammar. Presuming a knowledge of the detail of the English orthography, it attempts an explanation of some of its leading characters. Many of these it possesses in common with other tongues. Several are peculiar to itself.
"A, sounded as aw, or as a modification of o."—A, as in father, and o, as in note (as may be seen in p. [150]), form the extremities of the vowel system. Notwithstanding this, the two sounds often interchange. The orthographical systems of most languages bear witness to this. In French the au in autel has the sound of o; in Danish aa=o (baade being pronounced bohde); in Swedish å has the same power. In Old English the forms hond, strond, &c., occur, instead of hand, strand, &c. In Anglo-Saxon, brád, stán, &c., correspond to the English forms broad, stone. I am not able to say whether a changes oftenest to o, or o to a. The form hond is older than the form hand. In the word salt, however, the a was pronounced as the a in fat before it was pronounced (as at present) like the o in not. If this were not the case it would never have been spelt with an a. In the words launch and haunch, by some called lanch, hanch, and by others lawnch, hawnch, we find a present tendency to interchange these sounds.
The change from a to o takes place most especially before the liquid l, wall, call, fall. When the liquid l is followed by another consonant, it (viz. l) is generally sunk in pronunciation, falcon, salmon, &c., pronounced faucon, sammon, or saumon. The reason of this lies in the following fact, viz., that syllables wherein there are, at the same time, two final consonants and a long vowel, have a tendency to become shortened by one of two processes, viz., either by ejecting one of the consonants, or by shortening the vowel. That the l in falcon is affected not by the change of a to o, but by the change of a short vowel to a long, or of a slender one to a broad one, is shown in the tendency which the common people have to say hode for hold, as well as by the Scotch form gowd for gold. This fact bears upon the difficult problem in the Greek (and in other languages), viz., whether the lengthening of the vowel in words like ὀδοὺς (compared with ὀδόντος), is the cause or the effect of the rejection of the consonant.