!9
Irregular and Unaccented Sounds.
178. But- the strangest deviation of this letterfrom its regular sound is in the words busy, busi-ness, and bury. We laugh at the Scotch tor pro-nouncing these words as if written betrsy, Imvsi-ness, and be wry ; but we ought rather to blush forourselves in departing so wantonly from thegeneral rule as to pronounce them bitty, bizness,and berry.
179. There is an incorrect pronunciation of thisletter when it ends a syllable not under the ac-cent, which prevails not only among the vulgar,but is sometimes found in better company; andthat is, giving the n an obscure sound, which con-founds it with vowels of a very different kind:thus we not (infrequently hear singular, regular ,and particular, pronounced as if written sing-c-lar,rtg-e-lar, and par-tick-c lar ; but nothing tendsmore to tarnish and vulgarize the pronunciationthan this short and obscure sound of the unac-cented It may, indeed, be observed, thatthere is scarcely any thing more distinguishes aperson of mean and good education than the pro-nunciation of the unaccented vowels, 547, 558.When vowels are under the accent, the prince,and the lowest of the people in the metropolis,with very few exceptions, pronounce them in thesame manner; but the unaccented vowels in themouth of the former have a distinct, open, andspeciiic sound, while the latter olten totally sinkthem, or change them into some other sound.Those, therefore, who wish to pronounce ele-gantly, roust he particularly attentive to the un-accented vowels; as a neat pronunciation of theseforms one of the greatest beauties of speaking.
Y final.
180. I' dual, either in a word or syllable, is a 'pure vowel, gncl has exactly the same sound as i \would have in the same situation. For this rea-son, printers, who have been the great correctorsof our orthography, have substituted the i in itsstead, on account of the too great frequency ofthis letter in the English language. That y finalis a vowel is universally acknowledged ; norneed we any other proof of it than its long sound,when followed by e mute, as in thyme , rhyme, &c.or ending a syllable with the accent upon it, nsbuying, cyder, &c.: this may be called its lirstVowel sound.
181. The second sound of the vowel y is its shortsound, heard in system, syntax, &c.
Irregular and Unaccented Sounds.
18*1. The unaccented sound of this letter at theend of a syllable, like that of i in the same situa-tion, is always like the first sound of e: thus va-nity, pleurisy, &c. if sound alone -were con-sulted, might be written vanitee , pleurisee, See,
183. The exception to this rule is, when f pre-cedes the y in a final syllable, the y is then pro-nounced as long and open as if the accent were0,1 >t: thus justify , qualify, &c. have the lastsyllable sounded like that in defy. This longsound continues when the y is changed into i, injustifiable, qualifiable, &c. The same may be ob-served of multiply and multipliable, &c,; occupyand or.cupiable, &c. 512.
184. There is an irregular sound of this letterwhen the accent is on it in panegyrick, when it is“* inently pronounced like the second sound of* > which would be more correct if its true soundT£ erc preserved, and it were to rhyme with“ yrrhick; or as Swift does with Satirick:
On me when dunces are satirick,I take it for a panegyrick
Thus we see the same irregularity attends tlletter before double r, or before single r , followby a vowel, ar, we find attends the vowel i in tsame situation. So the word .S’yrbur oughtPreserve the y like i pure, and the word Syrshould sound the y like e short, though the liH often heard improperly like the last.
. 185. But the most uncertain sound of this letis when it ends a syllable immediately precedithe accent. In this case it is subject to the savariety as the letter i in the same situation, abathing but a catalogue will give us any ideatfte analogy of the language in this point.
186. The y is long in chylaceous, but shortenedby the secondary accent in chylif'action and chy-iff active, 530 : though, without the least reasonfrom analogy, Mr. Sheridan lias marked themboth long.
IS7. Words composed of hydro, from the GreekSSm, water , have the y before the accent gene-rally long, as hydrography, hydfographer, hydro-metry, hydropick ; all which have tin*, y long in.Mr. Sheridan but hydrography, which must be amistake of the press; and this long sound of ycontinues in hydrostatick, in spiteof the shorteningpower of the secondary accent, 530. The samesound of y prevails in hydraulicks and hydatides.Hygrometer and hygrometry seem to follow thesame analogy, as well *as hyperbola and hyperbole ;which are generally heard with the y long;though Keurick lias marked the latter short.Hypostasis and hypotenuse ought to have the ylong likewise. In hypothesis the ?/ is more fre-quently short than long ; and in hypothetical it i«more frequently long than short; but hypocrisyhas the first y always short. Myrabolan and myropoli.st may have the y either long ov short.Mythology has the first y generally short, and my-thological, from the shortening power of the se-condary accent, 530, almost always. Phytlvorous,phytography, phytoiogy, have the first y ahvavslong. In phylactery the first y is generally short,and in physician always. Pylorus has the y longin Mr.'Sheridan, but, l think, improperly. Inpyramidal he marks the y long, though, in myopinion, it is generally heard short, as in pyramid*h\ pyrites, with tiie accent on the second sylla-ble, he marks the y short, much more correctlythan Kenrick, who places the accent on the firstsyllable, and marks the y long (see the word.)Synodick, synodical, synonima, and synopsis, havethe y always short: synechdoche ought likewiseto have the same letter short, as we find it inPerry’s and Kenrick’s Dictionaries; though inSheridan’s we find it long. Typography and typo-grapher ought to have lire first y long, as we find,it in Sheridan, Scott, Buchanan, W. Johnston,
1 Kenrick, and Perry, though frequently heardshort; and, though tyrannical has the y markedshort by Mr. Perry, it ought rather to have thelong sound, ns we see it marked by Mr. Sheridan,Mr. Scott, Buchanan, W. Johnston, and Kenrick.
J8S. From the view that has been taken of thesound of the % and y immediately before the ac-cent, it may justly be called the most uncertainpart ot pronunciation. Scarcely any reason canhe given why custom prefers one sound to theother in some words; and why, in others, we mayUse either one or the other’indiscriminately. Itis strongly to be presumed that the i and y, inthis situation, particularly the last, were generallypronounced long by our ancestors, but that customhas gradually inclined to the shorter sound, asmore readily pronounced, and as more like thesound of these letters when they end a syllableafter the accent; and perhaps we should con-tribute to the regularity of the language, if, whenwe are in doubt, we should rather incline to theshort than the long sound of these letters.
W final*
189. That tv final is a vowel is not disputed, 9;when it is in this situation it is equivalent to oo •as may be perceived in the sound of vote, tow-el,&c. where it forms a real diphthong, composedof the a in tca-ter, and the oo in woo and coo. Itis often joined to o at the end ot a syllable, with-out affecting the sound of that vowel; and in thissituation it may be called servile, as in bow, toshoot with ; croiv, low (not high,) &c.
diphthongs.
190. A diphthong is a double vowel, or theunion or mixture of two vowels pronounced to-gether, so as only to make one syllable ; as theLatin at or a, o e or a, the Greek o, the English «i, au, Sc c.
191. This is the general definition of a diph-thong; but if we examine it closely we shall findin it a want of precision and accuracy *. It *
* We see how many disputes the simple andambiguous nature of vowels created among