Shortening

“ The artificial lengthening and shortening of syllables, then, is constantly and naturally practised in the reading of verse which has a strong lyrical swing such as guides the reader into a sense of its structure. ”

“ But not only do we abuse accent by shortening long syllables and lengthening short ones; we perpetually commit a far worse fault, by requiring the removal of the accent from its natural place to an unnatural one, in order to make our line scan. ”

“ When heavy consonants bring the stress on to the penultima, the i is shortened, as in 'clandestĭn (e) ', 'intestĭn (e) ', and so in like disyllables, as 'doctrĭn (e) '. The modern words 'morphin (e) ' and 'strychnin (e) ', coined, the one from Morpheus and the other from the Greek name of the plant known to botanists as Withania somnifera, correctly follow 'doctrine' in shortening the i, though another pronunciation is sometimes heard. ”

“ Price's Baking Powder 1 teaspoon salt 1 tablespoon sugar 3⁄4 cup milk 2 eggs 2 tablespoons shortening
Sift together flour, baking powder, salt and sugar; add milk, well-beaten eggs and melted shortening; mix well. Bake in greased shallow pan in moderate oven about 25 minutes.
GRIDDLE CAKES AND WAFFLES
Eggs add to the richness of griddle cakes, but are not essential. The batter must be thin and the cake not too large when baked. An iron frying pan may be used instead of griddle. In any case grease only enough to keep the cakes from sticking and have very hot before baking. ”

“ To the ordinary man, of average intelligence and middle-class position, slang comes from every direction, from above, from below, and from all sides, as well as from the centre. What comes from some directions he will know for slang, what comes from others he may not. He may be expected to recognize words from below. Some of these are shortenings, by the lower classes, of words whose full form conveys no clear meaning, and is therefore useless, to them. ”

“ Such forms seem to make an irresistible appeal to the American; he is constantly experimenting with new ones. “There is a much greater percentage of humorous shortenings among verbs,” says Miss Wittmann, “than among other parts of speech. ”

“ A syllable is called short, when the accent lies on the consonant, so that the vowel is quickly joined to the succeeding letter: as "Crack, little, devil."
The pronunciation of a long syllable commonly occupies double the time of a short one: thus, "Pâte," and "Broke," must be pronounced as slowly again as "Pàt," and "Knôck."
We have remarked a curious tendency in the more youthful students of Grammar to regard the quantity of words (in their lessons) more as being "small" or "great" than as coming under the head of "long" or "short." ”

“ As words increase in syllables, the more easily is their accent known. Nouns sometimes acquire a syllable by becoming plural; adjectives increase a syllable by being compared; and verbs by altering their tense, or becoming participles: adjectives becomes adverbs, by adding ly to them; and preposititions precede nouns or verbs without altering the accent of the word to which they are prefixed: so that when once the accent of dissyllables is known, those polysyllables, whose terminations are perfectly English, have likewise their accent invariably settled. ”

“ The raison d'être of such signs is not far to seek. The proper shorthand signs for many common words were so clumsy or ambiguous that this method was resorted to in order to provide them with clearer and easier outlines. For the purpose of verbatim reporting the student is recommended to omit as a rule all vowels, and decipher his writing with the aid of the context. But, when vowels are omitted, hundreds of pairs of words having the same consonant skeleton (such as minister and monastery, frontier and furniture, libel and label) are written exactly alike. ”

“ Thus in di-ameter, di-urnal, etc. the first syllable is equivalent to the verb to die. A corrupt, foreign manner of pronouncing these words may sometimes mince the i into e, as if the words were written de-ametur, de-urnal, etc. but this is disgusting to every just English ear, and contrary to the whole current of analogy. Besides, the vowel that ends and the vowel that begins a syllable are, by pronouncing the i long, kept more distinct, and not suffered to coalesce, as they are apt to do if i has its slender sound. ”

“ These always double the l in the derivative, whether the last syllable of the root be accented or not. The verb ‘to expél,’ will, by the above rule, naturally make its past tense, ‘expelled;’ but why should ‘trável’ give ‘traveller,’ or ‘équal,’ ‘equalled?’ These, though universally adopted, are clearly against the principle. Two other words are also exceptions, ‘worship,’ and ‘bias.’ These make ‘worshipped,’ and ‘biassed,’ with double consonants. The Americans refuse to admit these exceptions, and they write ‘traveler,’ ‘equaled,’ ‘worshiped,’ and ‘biased,’ with single consonants. ”

“ High shrill voices, choppy pronunciation, a nervous speaking manner will render unattractive matter of a high mental quality. Mothers should begin early and work late on this important matter of cultivating the voices of their children. Voice quality and enunciation, it should be realized, are more important than pronunciation. It is not a vital question whether a man pronounce the word “exquisite” with the accent on the first or the second syllable, but “childern” is a vulgarism, though one hears it often. ”

“ Swift, and old Sir Roger L’Estrange, and Arbuthnot, were all fond of vulgar or Slang language; indeed, we may see from a Slang word used by the latter how curious [37] is the gradual adoption of vulgar terms in our standard dictionaries. The worthy doctor, in order to annihilate (or, as we should say, with a fitting respect to the subject under consideration, to “smash”) an opponent, thought proper on an occasion to use the word “cabbage,” not in the ancient sense of a flatulent vegetable of the kitchen-garden, but in the at once Slang sense of purloining or cribbing. ”

“ The a in the numerous termination ate, when the accent is on it, is pronounced somewhat differently in different words. If the word be a substantive, or an adjective, the a seems to be shorter than when it is a verb: thus a good ear will discover a difference in the quantity of this letter, in delicate, and dedicate; in climate, primate, and ultimate; and the vowels to calculate, to regulate, and to speculate, where we find the nouns and adjectives have the a considerably shorter than the verbs. ”

“ We are going to the zoological gardens; pronounce zoological in five syllables, and place the accent on log in logical. Sound log like lodge, and the first two o's in distinct syllables. Never make zool one syllable.
115. He always preaches extempore; pronounce [107] extempore in four syllables, with the accent on tem, and never in three, making pore to rhyme with sore.
116. Naught and aught; never spell these words nought and ought. There is no such word as nought, and ought is a verb. ”

“ This word, with learned, cursed, and winged, are the only participial adjectives which are constantly pronounced in in two syllables, where the participles are pronounced in one: thus a learned man, a cursed thing, a winged horse, preserve the ed in a distinct syllable; while the same words, when verbs, as he learned to write, he cursed the day, they winged their flight, are heard in one syllable, as if written learnd, curst, and wingd; the d in cursed changing to t, from its following the sharp consonant s. ”

“ The pronoun used in the conjugation with tense signs may also be prefixed to a simple adjective, and the pronoun used in the conjugation without tense sign is suffixed to this, and the participial ending is then added. This is treated as a verb with the substantive verb understood. But sometimes the verb “to be” in the form without tense signs is added, and then the whole form contains the pronoun three times, without gaining thereby any additional meaning. ”

“ To speak in a metaphor, words like sang and fell are comparatively independent. Be this as it may, the German grammarians call the tenses formed by a change of vowel the strong tenses, the strong verbs, the strong conjugation, or the strong order; and those formed by the addition of d or t, the weak tenses, the weak verbs, the weak conjugation, or the weak order. Bound, spoke, gave, lay, &c., are strong; moved, favoured, instructed, &c., are weak. For the proof that the division of verbs into weak and strong is a natural division, see the Chapter on Conjugation. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But if we dwell on both equally, and with a tripping voice, saying to ourselves here are two short syllables, the query might well be asked of us–"in relation to what are they short?" Shortness is but the negation of length. To say, then, that two syllables, placed independently of any other syllable, are short, is merely to say that they have no positive length, or enunciation–in other words, that they are no syllables–that they do not exist at all. ”

“ It may be observed too, that when the verb ends in a liquid, or a liquid and mute e, the participle d always preserves its pure sound; as blamed, joined, filled, barred, pronounced blam'd, join'd, fill'd, barr'd. This contraction of the participial ed, and the verbal en, (103) is so fixed an idiom of our pronunciation, that to alter it, would be to alter the sound of the whole language. ”

“ The origin of the word has often been asked for in literary journals and books, but only one man, as far as I can learn, has ever hazarded an etymology—Jonathan Bee, the vulgar chronicler of the prize-ring.40 With a recklessness peculiar to pugilism, Bee stated that Slang was derived from “the slangs or fetters worn by prisoners, having acquired that name from the manner in which they were worn, as they required a sling of string to keep them off the ground.” ”

“ I have observed that many young preachers strive hard to acquire this peculiar pronunciation, in imitation of the older ministers. What can more properly, then, be called Slang, or, indeed, the most objectionable of Slang, than this studious endeavour to pronounce the most sacred names in a uniformly vulgar and unbecoming manner. If the old-fashioned preacher whistled Cant through his nose, the modern vulgar reverend whines Slang from the more natural organ. ”

“ Words have not only degenerated in sense; their outward form has also suffered. One principle—contraction—has affected both the pronunciation and spelling of many words. It may be taken as a general rule that words, as they grow older, become softer and shorter. They seldom expand, but almost always contract. This probably originated in a loose careless way of speaking, which afterwards affected the written language. ”

“ Those who have made the progress of languages their study, will observe, it is presumed, that the broad sounds of vowels change to the slender, [12] the difficult consonants to the easier, and the long vowels to short ones. This, it is imagined, will be found to be true in all languages, as well as our own; and such alteration seems founded in the nature of man and of society. The next object to understanding a language being dispatch, it is no wonder that short sounds have been encroaching on us, and depriving us of the tune of our words for the sake of gaining time. ”

“ All at once he felt very near to her; and the feeling made him dizzy. His eyes roved once again round the place, noting the abnormal neatness and order that had struck him at first; a look of wild inquiry came into his haggard face; and even then, as the agony of surmise tightened every nerve—a sound broke plainly upon his ears. ”

“ This letter has not only, like f and s, the privilege of doubling itself at the end of a word, but it has an exclusive privilege of being double where they remain single; though by what right cannot well be conceived. Thus, according to the general rule, when a verb ends in a single consonant, preceded by a single vowel, and the accent is on the last syllable, the consonant is doubled when a participial termination is added, as abet, abetting, beg, begging, begin, beginning, etc. ”

“ Such a system of shorthand, expressing words by comprehensive symbols or word-outlines, could be the only system possible for rapid reporting of human speech. But it seems that in instances where a symbol was not forthcoming to express an unusual word, such as a proper name, it was customary, at lcast in the written notes which have survived, to express it by a group of syllabic signs. A reporter, taking down a speech, could not have waited to express the unusual word or proper name by such a slow process ”

“ The Termination of the Infinitive Mood Present Tense, of the Verb Active, in regular Verbs, is always the same as the first Person of the Indicative Mood Present Tense singular; as to love, I love.
The Termination of the second Person Singular is formed out of the first by adding st or est; as I love, thou lovest; I read, thou readest.
The Termination of the third Person singular is formed out of the first by adding th or eth; as I love, he loveth, I read, he readeth; or only by adding s; as he loves, he reads. ”

“ A verb that forms its past tense by changing the vowel of the present, and its perfect participle by adding n or en to the present, is a verb of the strong or old conjugation; as, fall, fell, fallen.
Note.—Verbs of the old conjugation are called strong because they form their past tense within themselves. Verbs of the new conjugation are called weak because they form their past tense by the aid of an additional syllable. ”