DIFFERENT SOUNDS OF THE LETTER V.

comparing tlie conjunction or with the same let-ters in torrid,[florid, Stc. ; for though the r is notdoubled to the eye in florid, yet, as the accent ison it, it is as effectually doubled to the ear as ifwritten florrid; so if a consonaul of another kindsucceed the r in this situation, we find the o asJong as in a monosyllable : thus the o in orchardis as long as in the conjunction or, and that informal as in the word for: but the o in orifice andforage, where the r is followed by a vowel, the ois as short as if the r were double, and the wordswritten orrifice and forruge .—See No. Si.

1(>9. There is a sixth sound of o exactly corre-sponding to the 11 in bull, full, pull, &c. which,from its existing only in the following words, maybe called its irregular sound. These words are,woman,bosom, worsted, u'olf, and the proper names,Wolscy , Worcester , and Wolverhampton.

Irregular and unaccented Sounds.

170. What was observed of the a, when fol-lowed by a liquid and a mute, may be observed ofthe o with equal justness. This letter, like a, hasa tendency to lengthen, when followed by a li-quid and another consonant, or by s, ss, or s anda mute. But this length of o, in this situation,seems every day growing more and more vulgar :and, as it would be gross to a degree to sound thea in castle, mask, and plant, like the a in palm,psalm, See. so it would be equally exceptionableto pronounce the o in moss, dross, and frost, as ifwritten maivse, drawse, and frowst, 78, 70. Theo in the compounds of solve, as dissolve, absolve,resolve , seem the only words where a somewhatlonger sound of the o is agreeable to polite pro-nunciation : on the contrary, when the o ends asyllable, immediately before or after the accent,as in po-lite, im-po-tent, &c. there is an elegancein giving it the open sound nearly as long as inpo-lar and po-tent, &c. See Domcstick, Collect, andCommand, ll may likewise be observed, that theo, like the e, 102, is suppressed in a final unac-cented syllable when preceded by c or k, andfollowed by n, as bacon, beacon, deacon, beckon,reckon, pronounced bak'n , beak'n, deak'n, beck'/i,reck’n ; and when c is preceded by another con-sonant, as falcon, pronounced fank'n. The o islikewise mute in the same situation, when pre-ceded by d in pardon, pronounced pard’n, butnot in guerdon .• it is mute when preceded by pi.i weapon, capon, &c. pronounced weap'n, cap’n,&c. ; and when preceded by s in reason, season,treason, oraisoii, benison, denison, unison, foison,poison, prison, damson, crimson, udeowson, pro-nounced reaz'n, treaz'n, &c. ; ami mason, bason,garrison, lesson, capnristm. comparison, disinheri-son, parson, ami person, pronounced mas'n, bas'n,&c. Unison, diapason, and curgason, seem, par-ticularly in solemn speaking, to preserve thesound «Y o like u, as if written unisun, diapazun,&c. The same letter is suppressed in a linal un-accented syllable beginning with t, as Seton, cot-ton, button, mutton, glutton, pronounced as ifwritten Set'll, cott'n, Stc. When x precedes the t,the o is pronounced distinctly, as in Sexton.When l is the preceding letter, the o is generallysuppressed as in the proper names Stilton cheese,Wilton carpets, and Melton Mowbray, &c. Accu-rate speakers sometimes struggle to preserve it inthe name of our great epic poet, Milton ; but theformer examples snfliciently show the tendencyof the language; and this tendency cannot beeasily counteracted. This letter is likewise sup-pressed in the last syllable ot blazon , pronouncedbluz’n ; but is always to be preserved in the samesyllable of horizon. This suppression of the omust not be ranked among those careless abbre-viations found only among the vulgar, but mustbe considered as one of those devious tendenciesto brevity, which has worn itself a currency inthe language, and has at last become a part of it.To pronounce the o in those cases where it is sup-pressed, would give a singularity to the speakerbordering nearly on the pedanlick ; and the atteii-tion given to this singularity by the hearer wouldnecessarily diminish his attention to the subject,and consequently deprive the speaker of some-thing much more desirable.

If.

171. The first sound of u, heard in tube, civ end-ing an unaccented syllable, as in cu-bick, is a diph-

thongal sound, as if e were prefixed, and thesewords were spelt tetvbe and kewbic . The letter uis exactly the pronoun you .

172. The second sound of u is the short sound,which tallies exactly with the o in done, son, be c.which every ear perceives might, as well for thesound’s sake, be spelt dun, sun, See.— See all thewords where the o has this sound, No. 105.

173. The third sound of this letter, and that inwhich the English more particularly depart fromanalogy, is the « in bull,full,pull, Stc. The first,or diphthongal u in tube, seems almost as pecu-liar to the English as the long sound of the i inthine, mine, See. ; but here, as if they chose toimitate the Latin , Italian, and French u, theyleave out the e before the «, which is heard intube, mule, &c. and do not pronounce the latterpart of m quite so long as the oo in pool, nor soshort as the u in dull, but with a middle soundbetween both, which is the true short sound ofthe oo in coo and woo, as may be heard by com-paring woo and wool ; the latter of which is a per-fect rhyme to bull.

174- This middle sound of it, so unlike the gene-ral sound of that letter, exists only in the follow-ing words: bull, full, pull; words compoundedas wonderful, dreadful, Sec. bullock, bully,bullet, bulwark, fuller, fullingmiU, pulley, pullet,push, bush , bushel, pulpit, puss, bullion, butcher,cushion, cuckoo, pudding, sugar, hussar, huzza,and put when a verb : but few as they are, ex-cept full, which is a very copious termination,they are sufficient to puzzle Englishmen who re-side at any distance from the capital, and to makethe inhabitants of Scotland and Ireland (who, itis highly probable, received u much more regularpronunciation from our ancestors) not unfre-quently the jest of fools.

175. But, vague and desultory as this sound ofthe u may at first seem, on a closer view we findit chiefly confined to words which begin with themute labials, b, p, f, and end with the liquid la-bial l, or the dentals s, t, and d, as in bull, full,pull, bush , push, pudding, puss, put, Stc. What-ever, therefore, was the cause of this whimsicaldeviation, we see its primitives are confined to avery narrow compass: put has this sound only■when it is a verb; tor putty, a paste for glass, hasthe common sound of it, ami rhymes exactly withnutty (having the qualities of a nut) ; so put, thegame at cards, anil the vulgar appellation ofcountry put, follow the same analogy. All Hull'scompounds regularly follow tiieir primitive. Butthough fuller, a whitener of cloth, and Fulham, aproper name, are not compounded of full, theyare sounded ns if they were; while Putney fol-lows the general rule, and has its first syllablepronounced like the noun put. Pulpit and pulletcomply with the peculiarity on account of theirresemblance to pull, though nothing related to it;and butcher and puss adopt this sound of u for noreason but the nearness of their form to the other•words : and when to these we have added cushion ,sugar, cuckoo, hussar, and the interjection huzza,we have every word in the whole language wlieiethe u is thus pronounced.

176. Some speakers, indeed, have attempted togive bulk and punish this obtuse sound of u, butluckily have not been followed. The wordswhich have already adopted it are sufficientlynumerous ; and we cannot be too careful to checkthe growth of so unmeaning an irregularity.When this vowel is preceded by r in the samesyllable, it lias a sound somew hat longer than thismiddle sound, and exactly as if wiitien on: thusrue, true, Stc. are pronounced nearly as if writtenroo, troo, Stc, 339.

177. It must be remarked, that this sound of u,except in the word fuller, never extends to wor dsfrom the learned languages; for fulminant, fill-imitation, ebullition, repulsion, sepulchre, Stc.sound the it as in dull, gull, Sec, and the« in pusand pustule is exactly like the same letter in thus.So the pure English words, fulsome, buss, bulge,hustle, bustard, buzzard, preserve the u in itssecond sound, as in w.v, hull, and custard. It maylikewise not he unworthy of remark, that theletter u is never subject to the shortening powerof either the primary or secondary uccent; butwhen accented, is always long, unless shortenedby a double consonant.—See the word* VrutMand Mucuhnt, and Nos. 603, 0J1.