Part 3 (2/2)

It is the peculiar quality of s, that it may be sounded before all consonants, except x and z, in which s is coross s This s is therefore terrammarians suae potestatis litera; the reason of which the learned Dr Clarke erroneously supposed to be, that in soht be doubled at pleasure Thus we find in several languages

Se????, scatter, sdegno, sdrucciolo, sfavellare, sf???, sobare, sgranare, shake, slu, squeeze, shrew, step, strength, stramen, stripe, sventura, swell

S is mute in isle, island, demesne, viscount

T

T has its customary sound; as take, temptation

Ti before a vowel has the sound of si as salvation, except an s goes before, as question; excepting likewise derivatives frohtier

Th has two sounds; the one soft, as thus, whether; the other hard, as thing, think The sound is soft in these words, then, thence, and there, with their derivatives and compounds, and in that, these, thou, thee, thy, thine, their, they, this, those, theh, thus; and in all words between tels, as, father, whether; and between r and a vowel, as burthen

In other words it is hard, as thick, thunder, faith, faithful Where it is softened at the end of a word, an e silent must be added, as breath, breathe; cloth, clothe

V

V has a sound of near affinity to that of f, as vain, vanity

Frouished by a diacritical point

W

Of hich in diphthongs is often an undoubted vowel, sorammarians have doubted whether it ever be a consonant; and not rather as it is called a double u, or ou, as water may be resolved into ouater; but letters of the same sound are always reckoned consonants in other alphabets: and it may be observed, that w follows a voithout any hiatus or difficulty of utterance, as frosty winter

Wh has a sound accounted peculiar to the English, which the Saxons better expressed by hw, as, what, whence, whiting; in whore only, and sometimes in wholesoins no English word: it has the sound of ks, as axle, extraneous

Y

Y, when it follows a consonant, is a vohen it precedes either a vowel or a diphthong, is a consonant, as ye, young It is thought by some to be in all cases a vowel But it may be observed of y as of w, that it follows a voithout any hiatus, as rosy youth

The chief argument by which w and y appear to be always vowels is, that the sounds which they are supposed to have as consonants, cannot be uttered after a vowel, like that of all other consonants; thus we say tu, ut; do, odd; but in wed, dew; the two sounds of w have no reseinally English; it has the sound, as its name izzard or s hard expresses, of an s uttered with a closer coue, as freeze, froze

In orthography I have supposed orthoepy, or just utterance of words, to be included; orthography being only the art of expressing certain sounds by proper characters I have therefore observed in ords any of the letters are iven long tables of words pronounced otherwise than they are written, and seelish, as of all living tongues, there is a double pronunciation, one cursory and colloquial, the other regular and soleue and uncertain, being ence, unskilfulness, or affectation The soleh by no means immutable and perraphy, and less liable to capricious innovation They have however generally for to the cursory speech of those ho that the whole nation coe in one on of the lowest of the people as the eneral rule is, to consider those as the ant speakers who deviate least from the written words

There have been many scheraphy, which, like that of other nations, being for to the fancy of the earliest writers in rude ages, was at first very various and uncertain, and is yet sufficiently irregular Of these reforraphy better to the pronunciation, without considering that this is to measure by a shadow, to take that for awhile they apply it 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 le sound Such would be the orthography of a new language, to be forrammarians upon principles of science But who can hope to prevail on nations to change their practice, and e would a new orthography procure equivalent to the confusion and perplexity of such an alteration?

Soenious men, indeed, have endeavoured to deserve well of their country, by writing honor and labor for honour and labour, red for read in the preter-tense, sais for says, repete tor repeat, explane for explain, or declame for declaiood they have done little harm; both because they have innovated little, and because few have followed thee has properly no dialects; the style of writers has no professed diversity in the use of words, or of their flexions and terrees of skill or care

The oral diction is uniforland than in e of the northern counties retains enuine Teutonick race, and is uttered with a pronunciation which now seeh, but was probably used by our ancestors The northern speech is therefore not barbarous, but obsolete The speech in the western provinces seeeneral diction rather by a depraved pronunciation, than by any real difference which letters would express