Orthoclase

“ But, after all, efforts to bring about in this way accord between form and [Pg 265] sound can affect only a very limited class of words. The gap between orthography and orthoepy is, with us, too wide and impassable for the latter ever to close up. The most we can do is in process of time to revive the pronunciation of a few letters that are now silent, or to substitute a few forms etymologically correct for the corruptions by which they have been supplanted. ”

“ Indeed, it is not a little strange that the English language, which is one of the most advanced in grammatical simplicity, is one of the most belated in orthographic simplicity. In no other modern language is the system of spelling—if system that can be called which has no rule or reason—more arbitrary and more chaotic than in English; and no other peculiarity of our language does more to retard its diffusion than its wantonly foolish orthography. ”

“ Words to be spelled according to this model should be mixed,—those in which the suffix to be added begins with a vowel mixed with those in which the suffix begins with a consonant. Exceptions ought to be thrown into the mixture, and when a pupil comes to an exception, he can proceed according to the model, concluding with, “but this word is an exception to the rule”.
Fifty words are here given to illustrate this rule, but pupils who want to do thorough work should spell several such fifties. ”

“ Orthography is vitiated among such as learn first to speak, and then to write, by imperfect notions of the relation between letters and vocal utterance; but to those students every character is of equal importance; for letters are to them not symbols of names, but of things; when they write they do not represent a sound, but delineate a form. ”

“ The truth is, in those good old days men paid but little attention either to pronunciation or to spelling. It is a fact not so widely known as it deserves to be, that English orthography two centuries ago was just emerging from a state of confusion and chaos; and law and order were then for the first time beginning to appear. The result is the conventional spelling which only since the eighteenth century has been stereotyped in the form now so familiar to all educated people. And not even yet, as we know, has English orthography had its perfect work. ”

“ Others, less absurdly indeed, but with equal unlikelihood of success, have endeavoured to proportion the number of letters to that of sounds, that every sound may have its own character, and every character a single sound. Such would be the orthography of a new language to be formed by a synod of grammarians upon principles of science. But who can hope to prevail on nations to change their practice, and make all their old books useless? or what advantage would a new orthography procure equivalent to the confusion and perplexity of such an alteration?"--Johnson's Grammar before Quarto Dict., p. ”

“ After the Scholar has made himself perfect in the Shake and the Divisions, the Master should let him read and pronounce the Words, free from those gross and ridiculous Errors of Orthography, by which many deprive one Word of its double Consonant, and add one to another, in which it is single. ”

“ Thus have I laboured by settling the orthography, displaying the analogy, regulating the structures, and ascertaining the signification of English words, to perform all the parts of a faithful lexicographer: but I have not always executed my own scheme, or satisfied my own expectations. The work, whatever proofs of diligence and attention it may exhibit, is yet capable of many improvements: the orthography which I recommend is still controvertible, the etymology which I adopt is uncertain, and perhaps frequently erroneous ”

“ Assuredly English orthography is no criterion of received pronunciation, either in America or in England. It requires only a moment’s reflection to be convinced how misleading and deceptive is our orthography as a guide to orthoëpy. Foreigners who undertake to learn our tongue are naturally more forcibly impressed with the utter untrustworthiness of this guide. The status of our orthography has been correctly described by a prominent historian of our noble speech. ”

“ The sound of o when long is in orthography represented by o, which letter when representing a long vowel generally denotes this sound; Ex.: stor large, Blod blood, god good, Sko shoe, Bro bridge (as for o with sound of long å see § 19) .
22. The short sound of o is represented in orthography by o in the following cases: 1) in words formed by inflection, derivation or composition from a root word or form with long o; Ex.: nordisk Northern (from nor (d) , Gods goods (from god good) , (but godt neuter of god, pron. gåt) ”

“ When another vowel (except e or i) immediately precedes the final e, the final e is usually dropped before a consonant: e.g., argue, argument; awe, awful; true, truly, etc. There are, however, many exceptions to this rule: e.g., eye, eyesight, etc.
When the termination begins with a vowel, the final e is omitted: e.g., sale, salable; bride, bridal; force, forcible. Exceptions: mileage, etc.
9. When words end in ce or ge the final e is retained before added terminations beginning with a or o: e.g., change, changeable; courage, courageous. ”

“ What word is there of five letters, that, by taking two away, leaves but one? Stone.
What word of one syllable, if you take two letters from it, remains a word of two syllables? Plague; ague.
Why is the letter E a gloomy and discontented vowel? Because, though never out of health and pocket, it never appears in spirits.
Why are the fourteenth and fifteenth letters of the alphabet of more importance than the others? Because we cannot get ON well without them. ”

“ The attention of the men of our race has been more than distracted from any consideration of the subject by the character of our orthography. Their minds have been thrown into a state of bewilderment. As a single illustration, take the representation of the sound usually termed “long i.” This third so-called vowel of our alphabet is not really a vowel, but a diphthong. Its sound is most commonly represented by the single letter itself, seen, for instance, in such a word as mind. ”

“ A Figure, in grammar, is an intentional deviation from the ordinary spelling, formation, construction, or application, of words. There are, accordingly, figures of Orthography, figures of Etymology, figures of Syntax, and figures of Rhetoric. When figures are judiciously employed, they both strengthen and adorn expression. They occur more frequently in poetry than in prose; and several of them are merely poetic licenses.
SECTION I.—FIGURES OF ORTHOGRAPHY. A Figure of Orthography is an intentional deviation from the ordinary or true spelling of a word. ”

“ But greater efforts are made by the most recent orthoepists, we may believe, to determine the accepted usage in polite society. Yet, after all, the personal equation enters as an important factor into the compilation of every pronouncing dictionary. The author or authors who compile the dictionary naturally follow their own preferences and prejudices in the matter of pronunciation; and their results, even at best, repose on very restricted and imperfect observation. An orthoepist ought not to be cocksure and dogmatic. ”

“ There are, moreover, [233] cases in which there is no indication in writing of single sounds, and even syllables, which are actually pronounced; and there is at least one case of a word being written as if it began with a vowel, while it really begins with a consonant.
One of the chief reasons for this state of affairs is the attempt which has been made to represent an exceedingly numerous and varied series of sounds with a meagre alphabet of eighteen letters. The system of orthography developed, though highly ingenious, has proved entirely inadequate to its purpose. ”

“ No regard need be paid to orthographic or correct spelling, only such words as may be considered indispensably necessary to give the sound of the word, must be expressed. As in all phonographic systems, each word expressed by consonants, must be guessed by supplying vowels, or from its position in the context. The reader, after a little practice, will find no difficulty in making out the words expressed by their consonants, as bsk, bbl, bkm, drk, meaning bask or busk, became or become, dark or dirk. ”

“ In monosyllables and words not accented on the last syllable, an added termination does not double the final consonant when it is preceded by a diphthong or by two vowels: e.g., profit, profited; cancel, canceled; benefit, benefited; equal, equality, novel, novelist, and all the derivatives of parallel.
6. Words which end in any double letters retain the double with a termination not beginning with the same letter. This rule also holds for derivatives formed by means of prefixes: e.g., agreeing, calling, recall. ”

“ This book is prepared for teachers and pupils who use the Illinois State Course of Study. The outline in Orthography for the Seventh and Eighth Years is the basis of all that is included herein. Three fifths or more of this work is word analysis which, valuable as it is, teachers as a rule are unable to teach without the aid of a text, never having learned much of it themselves. What, for example, can the average teacher unaided do toward writing a list of words to be analyzed which contain the root ann, meaning year? ”

“ Yet against the levelling tendency of an orthography which does not protect pronunciation, it is possible that the earlier sound of a in these words may not be able to hold out forever.
So much for the first vowel of the alphabet. We are as badly off, though in a different way, when we come to the second. It emphasizes the degeneracy which has overtaken our whole orthographic and orthoepic system that the name we now give to the first vowel was originally and still is scientifically the long sound of the second. ”

“ For the scientific philologist, no less than for the practical teacher, a return to the phonetic spelling of our English language is of the highest importance. What the philologist wishes to know is not how words are spelt, but how they are pronounced, and this end can be obtained only by means of an alphabet in which all the chief sounds of the language are represented, and each character represents but one sound. ”

“ Thus, the pronoun “I” is expressed by the picture of an eye; the verb “can” by the picture of a can; “sail” by the picture of a boat or ship’s sail; “round” by a circle, and the word “globe” by a student’s globe.
In this first stage of phonetism we find that pictures of objects do not represent these special objects as in the purely ideographic stage, but the sound. Again, that writing had reached the point where signs and symbols stand for entire words.
For a monosyllabic language this might suffice. The necessities of a polysyllabic language, however, suggested a further advance. ”

“ Where there is no traditional orthography, as when Old English (Anglo-Saxon) was first written down in Latin letters, spelling was necessarily phonetic; but where there is a large literature and a class of professional scribes, the influence of the traditional orthography becomes stronger, till at last the invention of printing and the diffusion of one standard dialect over a large area occupied originally by a variety of other dialects make changes of spelling as inconvenient as they were once easy and natural. ”

“ Further, all the vowel sounds that usually occur in speech seem to be uttered with equal ease, in whatever situation they occur, as the same organs are employed for all. In forming the common articulations of speech, as different organs are employed, a degree of difficulty is sometimes felt in making a transition from one articulation to another. {26}Thus a difficulty will occasionally occur in pronouncing certain words, where the general analogy of inflection or of collocation has brought together articulations which do not easily coalesce. ”

“ The circumflex (~) is placed on a syllable formed by the combination of two, the first of which had an acute and the second a grave; hence only on the last, or next to the last syllable, and only on a long vowel or a diphthong. When the last syllable has a short vowel, such a penult, if accented, takes the circumflex.
3. BREATHINGS, VOWELS, DIPHTHONGS, ETC.
§ 7. A vowel beginning a word takes either the rough breathing, ( ̔) , which is pronounced like h, or else, to show the absence of that, the smooth breathing, ( ̓) , which has no appreciable sound. ”

“ The best evidence of the obsolescence of any word is that it should still be frequently heard in some proverb or phrase, but never out of it. The homophonic condition is like that of aural and oral, of which it is impossible to make practical use.14 We speak of an aural surgeon and of oral teaching, but out of such combinations the words have no sense. It happens that oral teaching must be aural on the pupil's side, but that only adds to the confusion. ”

“ But as the laws of metre are included in the idea of grammar, I have thought proper to insert them.
PROSODY comprises orthoepy, or the rules of pronunciation; and orthometry, or the laws of versification.
Pronunciation is just, when every letter has its proper sound, and every syllable has its proper accent, or, which in English versification is the same, its proper quantity.
The sounds of the letters have been already explained; and rules for the accent or quantity are not easily to be given, being subject to innumerable exceptions. ”