EYE.
€71. Thi* triphthong is only found In the wordeye, which is always pronounced like the letter I.
IA.
272. This diphthong, in the terminations tan , ial,lard, and iate, forms butone syllable, though thei in this situation,, having the squeezed .sound ofee, perfectly similar to y, gives the syllable adouble sound, very distinguishable in its naturefrom a syllable formed without the i: thus Chris-tian, filial, poniard, conciliate, sound as if writtenCrist-yan, Jil-yal, pon-yard, coacil-yale, and havein the last syllable an evident mixture of thesound ol y consonant, 113.
273. In diamond these vowels arc properly nodiphthong; and in prose the word ought to havethree distinct syllables; but we frequently hearit so pronounced as to drop the a entirely,and asif written d'tm'md. This, however, is a corruptionthat ought to be avoided.
2f4. In carriage, marriage, parliament, and mi-niature, me a is dropped, and the i lias its shortsound, as if written carridge, tnarridge, par lime nt ,miniture, 00.
IE.
2T5. The regular sound of this diphthong is thatof ee, as in grieve, thieve, fiend, lief, chief, ker-chief, handkerchief, auctionier, grenadier , &c. asif written greeve, theeve,feend , &c.
270. It has the sound of long i in die, hie, lie,pie, tie, vie, as if written dy, hy, &c.
277. The short sound of e is heard in friend,tierce, and the long sound of the same letter intier, frieze.
278. In variegate the best pronunciation is tosound both vowels distinctly like e, as if writtenvary-e-gate.
279. In the numeral terminations in ieth, astwentieth, thirtieth, 6 lc. the vowels ought also tobe kept distinct; the first like open e, as heardin the y in twenty, thirty, &c. and the second likeshort e, heard in breath, death, &c.
280. In fiery, too, the vowels are heard dis-tinctly.
281. I 11 orient and spaniel, where these letterscome after a liquid, they are pronounced dis-tinctly ; and great care should be taken not tolet the last word degenerate into spattncl, 113.
282. When these letters meet, in consequenceof forming the plurals of nouns, they retain eithertite long or short sound they had in the singular,without increasing the number of syllables : thusa Jiy makes flies, a lie makes lies, company makescompanies, and dignity , dignities. The same maybe observed of the third persons and past parti-ciples of verbs, as I Jiy, he Jlies, 1 deny, he denies,he denied, 1 sully, he sullied, See. which may bepronounced as if written denize, denide, sutlid,
&C. 104 - . 4 . * *1
283. When ie is in a termination without theaccent, it is pronounced like c, only, in the samesituation ; thus brusier, grasier, and glaster, havethe last syllable sounded as it written brazhui,grazhur, and glazhur, or rather as braze-yur,graze-yur, &c. 08, 418.
JEU.
264. These vowels occur in adieu, lieu, purlieu,where they have the sound of long u, as if writ :ten adeu, leu, purleu.
285. I 11 one word, lieutenant, these letters arepronounced like short e, as if written lev-tenant,—liee the word.
1EW-
2 S6. These letters occur only m the word view,where they sound like eev> rhyming with few,
new.
10 .
287. When the accent is upon the first of thesevowels they form two distinct syllables, as violent,violet ; the last of which is sometimes corruptlypronounced vi-let.
8*4. In marchioness the i is entirely sunk, and
the unaccented o pronounced, as it usually is leithis situation, like short w, as if written mar-shutiess, 352.
280. In cushion the 0 is sunk, and the word pro-nounced cushin. —See the word.
290. In the very numerous termination tonthese vowels are pronounced in one syllable likeshort u 5 hut when they are preceded by a liquid,as in million, minion, clarion, &c. 113, the twovowels, though they make butone syllable, areheard distinctly : the same may be observedwhen they are preceded by any of the other con-sonants, except s and t, ns champion, scorpion,&c. where the vowels are heard separately : butthe terminations tion and sion are pronounced iuone syllable, like the verb shun.
201. The only exception to this rule is whenthe t is preceded by s ; in this case the t goesinto tch, and tiie i is in a small degree audiblelike short e. This may be heard in question,mixtion, digestion, combustion, and what is an in-stance of the same kind in Christian, as if writ-ten qucs-chun. mix-chun, &c. quest-yun, mixt-yun.&c. 404, 272.
10 U.
202. This triphthong, when preceded by a liquid, or any mute but a dental, is heard distinct-ly in two syllables, as in bilious, various,glorious,abstemious, ingenious, copious ; but when preced-ed by the dentals t, soft c, and s, these vowelscoalesce into one syllable, pronounced like.vAu.srthus precious, factious, noxious, anxious, arcsounded as if written presh-us, fac-shus, nock-shits, atig-shus, 459.
203. The same tendency of these vowels to co-alesce sifter a dental, and draw it to aspiration,makes us hear tedious, odious, and insidious, pro-nounced as if written te-je-us, o-jee-us, and in-sid-je-vs ; for, md is but flat t, it is no wonder it should besubject to the same aspiration, when the.same vow-els follow: nay, it may be affirmed, that so agree-able is this sound of the d to the analogy of Eng lish pronunciation, that, unless we are upon ourguard, the organs naturally slide into it. It isnot, however, pretended that this is the politestpronunciation ; for the sake of analogy it wereto be wished it were : but an ignorance of thereal powers of the letters, joined w’th a laudabledesire of keeping as near as possible to the or-thography, is apt to prevent the d from going intoj, and to make us hear o-de-us, te-de-ous, &c.On the other hand, the vulgar, who in this caseare right hv instinct, not only indul ge the aspi-ration of the d, which the language is so proneto, but are apt to unite the succeeding syllablestoo closely, and to say o-jus and tc-jus, insteadof o-je-us and te-je-us, or rather ode-yus unit tede-yns
294. If the y be distinctly pronounced, it suffi-ciently expresses the aspiration of the d, and is,in my opinion, the preferable mode of delineat.ing the sound, as it keeps the iwo last syllablesfrom uniting too closely. Where analogy, there-fore, is so clear, and custom so dubious, we oughtnot to hesitate a moment at pronouncing odious,tedious, perfidious, f astidious, insidious, invidious,compendious, melodious, commodious, prefudious,,and studious, as if written o-je-ous, te-je-ous, &c.or rather ode-yus, tcdc-yus, &c. ; nor should weforget lhat7«df«M comes under the same analogy,ami ought, though contrary to respectable usage,to be pronounced as if written Ind-yan, and near-ly as Jn-je-an, 37ti.
0.4.
205. This diphthong is regularly pronounced asthe long open sound of 0 , as in boat, coat , oat,coal, loaf, &c. The only exceptions are, broad,abroad, groat, which sound as if written brand,abrawd, grawt. Oatmeal is sometimes pronouncedot-meal, but seems to be recovering the long soundof 0 , as in oat .
OE.
20C. Whether it be proper to retain the 0 inthis diphthong, or to banish it from our carto-graphy, us Dr. Johnson advises, certain it is t'nain words from the learned languages it is alway