42

PRONUNCIATION OF THE CONSONANTS M, N.

however, would not have been taken notice ofIn tins place, if it had not suggested an absurdityin pronunciation, occasioned by the omission ofl. Though tiie latter l is useless in traveller,victualler, &c. it is not so in controller: for as llis a mark of the dee)) broad sound of « in hull,toll, all, &e. Si ; so the same letters are the signof the long open sound ol o in boll (a round stalkof a plant), to jail, noli (i lie head), knoll (a littlehill), j)oll, clod-poll,roll, scroll, droll, troll, stroll,toll; lor which reason, leaving out one l inbethral, catcal, miscal, over/al, forestall reinstal ,downfal, withal, control, and unrol, ns we hud'them in Johnson's Dictionary, is an omission ofthe utmost importance to the sound of the words,;for, a." the pronunciation sometimes alters thespelling, so the spelling sometimes alters the pro-nunciation*. Accordingly we liml some speak-ers, chiefly the natives of Ireland, ‘inclined togive the a its middle sound to words commencingwith at, followed by smother consonant, becausethey do not see th c ll in the all with which thesewords are compounded : thus we sometimes hearAlmighty, albeit, so pronounced as to make theirfirst syllable rhyme with the first of al ley, val-ley ; and extol is pronounced by the Scotcki so asto rhyme with coal ; and with just as much reasonas we pronounce control in the same manner.For though compounds may, in some cases, beallowed to drop such letters of their simplesas either are not necessary to the sound, as inChristmas ; or might possibly lead to a wrongone, as in Heconcileahlc (which see); yet where,by omitting a letter, the sound may he altered,the omission is pernicious and absurd, 84-. Thesame observations might be extended to the nu-merous termination full, where, in compounds,one l is omitted, though nothing can be more cer-tain than that J'ul, with a single l, has not theoame sound as when this letter is doubled lorwho muld suppose, without being used to theabsurdity, that fulfil should stand for fullfiU?but this abbreviation is too inveterate ami exten-sive to afford any hope that the great arbiters oforthography, the printers, will ever submit tothe additional trouble of putting another l.

M.

407. M preserves its sound in every word, ex-cept comptroller; compt and accompt are nowuniversally written as they are pronounced countand account; and though m and p are preservedto the eye in the officer called a comptrolhr, theword is pronounced exactly like the noun con-troller, one who controls.

N.

408. TV has two sounds; the one simple andpure, as in man, net, &c. ; the other compoundedami mixed, as in hang, thank, &c. The lattersound is heard when it is followed by the sharpor flat guttural mutes, g hard, or k ; or its re-presentatives, c hard, qu, or x: lmt it may he ob-served, that so prone is our language to the flatmutes, that when n is followed by k , or its re-presentatives, the flat mute g seems interposedbetween them • thus thunk, banquet, anxious,are pronounced as if written, not t.han-k, ban-quet, an-xious, but, thangk, bangquet, angkshus.But this coalition of the sound of n and g, or hardC, is only when the accent is on them ; for whenthe "or hard e articulates the accented syllable, then becomes pure : thus, though congress und congre-gate are pronounced as if written cong gre-s andcoxg-gregate, yet the first syllable of congratulateand c ongressive ought to be pronounced withoutthe ringing sound of n, and exactly like the samesyllable in contrary. The same difference may-be observed in ihe words concourse and concur ;the first word, which has the accent on the firstsyllable, is pronounced as if written cong-course ;

* This omission of the letter L, I sec, has beenrectified in the last quarto edition of Johnson’sDictionary ; and it would have been well it theEditors had acknowledged their obligations, andextended their emendations to the word Codie,and several others.

and the last, which has the accent on the secondsyllable, with n pure. It must, however, becarefully 1 observed, that the secondary accenthas the same power of melting the n into thesucceeding hard g or c a«* the primary, 522 : thuscongregation and concrematlon have the livst syl-labic pronounced as if written cong.

400. It may, perhaps, be worthy of notice, thatwhen n is followed by k, the k has a finished orcomplete sound, as in link, think, &c.; hut whenn is followed by hard g, the g has an unfinishedor imperfect sound, as in hang, bang, &c. wherewe may' observe the tongue to rest upon the pa-late in the sound of g ; but when this letter is car-ried off to articulate another syllable, its soundis completed, as in anger and Bangor (the nameof a town), where the sound of g may be per-ceived to be very different from the noun hanger(a sword), and hunger (one who beats or bangs).This perfect sound ofgis heard in ail simples, asanger, angle, .finger, linger, conger, anguish, lan-guish, distinguish, extinguish, unguent: but inworths derived from verbs or adjectives, endingin ng, the g continues imperfect, as it was in thetheme. Thus a singer (one who sings), does nothni.-h the g like finger, but is merely er added tosing: the same may be observed of sing-ing,bring-ing, and hang-ing. So adjectives formed bythe addition of y have the imperfect sound of g,as in the original word: thus springy, stringy,dungy, and wingy, are only the sound of e addedto spring, string, dung, and wing ; but the compa-rative and superlative adjectives, longer, stringer,an<l younger} longtst, strongest, and youngest}have the g hard and perfectly sounded, as ifwritten long-ger, sfrongger, young-ger, &c. wheretheg is hard, as in finger, linger, &e. And it maybo looked upon as a general rule, that nouns,adjectives, or verbs, do not alter their originalsound upon taking an additional syllable. Inthese three words, therefore, the Irish pronouncemore agreeably to analogy than the Knglish ; for,if I mistake not, they do not articulate the g, 581.

410. Hitherto we have considered these lettersas they are heard under the accent; but whenthey are unaccented in the participial termina-tion ing, they are frequently a cause of embarrass-ment to speakers who desire to pronounce cor-rectly. We are told, even by teacitev* of English ,that ing, in the word singing, bringing, andswinging, must he pronounced vvilh the ringingsound, which is heard when tiie accent is on theseletters, in king, sing, and wing, and not as ifwritten without the g, as singln, brhigiti, swingin.No one can be a greater advocate titan 1 am for

»cu.im does notgreatly fail me, I can assert that our best speak-ers do not invariably pronounce the participialing, so as to rhyme with sing, king, and ring .Indeed, a very obvious exception seems to ofleiitself in those verbs that end in these letters, as arendition <>} the ringing sound in successive sylla-bles would produce a Tautophony, (see the word,)anti have a very bad effect on the car; and therefore, instead of singing, bringing, and JHnging ,.our best speakers are heard to pronounce sing-in ,bring-in, and fling-in; and for the very samereason that we exclude the ringing sound in thesewords, we ought to admit it when the verb endswith in; for if, instead of sinning pinning, andbeginning, we should pronounce sin-nin, pin-win,and begin-nin, we should fall into the same dis-gusting repelition as in the former case. Theparticipial ing, therefore, ought always to haveits ringing sound, except in those words formedfrom verbs in this termination ; for vriting, read-ing, ami speaking, are certainly preferable towritin, readin , and speakin, wherever the pronun-ciation has the least degree of precision or so-lemnity.

411. N is mute when it ends a syllable, and Ispreceded by l or m, as kiln, hymn » limn, solemn,column, autumn, condemn, contemn. In hym-ning,ami lim-ning, the n is generally pronounced, andsometimes, in very solemn speaking, in condem-ning and contem-ning; but, in both cases, con-trary to analogy, which forbids any sound in theparticiple that was not in the verb, 381.