The Art of Writing Speaking the English Language | Page 8

known only to the creator of all things existent.
But as in botany and zoology and physiology we may observe and
classify our observations, so we may observe a language, classify our
observations, and create an empirical science of word-formation.
Possibly in time it will become a science something more than
empirical.
The laws we are able at this time to state with much definiteness are
few (doubling consonants, dropping silent e's, changing y's to i's,
accenting the penultimate and antepenultimate syllables, lengthening
and shortening vowels). In addition we may classify exceptions, for the
sole purpose of aiding the memory.
Ignorance of these principles and classifications, and knowledge of the
causes and sources of the irregularities, should be pronounced criminal
in a teacher; and failure to teach them, more than criminal in a
spelling-book. It is true that most spelling-books do give them in one
form or another, but invariably without due emphasis or special drill, a
lack which renders them worthless. Pupils and students should be
drilled upon them till they are as familiar as the multiplication table.
We know how most persons stumble over the pronunciation of names
in the Bible and in classic authors. They are equally nonplussed when
called upon to write words with which they are no more familiar. They
cannot even pronounce simple English names like Cody, which they
call "Coddy," in analogy with body, because they do not know that in a
word of two syllables a single vowel followed by a single consonant is
regularly long when accented. At the same time they will spell the
word in all kinds of queer ways, which are in analogy only with
exceptions, not with regular formations. Unless a person knows what
the regular principles are, he cannot know how a word should regularly

be spelled. A strange word is spelled quite regularly nine times out of
ten, and if one does not know exactly how to spell a word, it is much
more to his credit to spell it in a regular way than in an irregular way.
The truth is, the only possible key we can have to those thousands of
strange words and proper names which we meet only once or twice in a
lifetime, is the system of principles formulated by philologists, if for no
other reason, we should master it that we may come as near as possible
to spelling proper names correctly.
CHAPTER I.
LETTERS AND SOUNDS.
We must begin our study of the English language with the elementary
sounds and the letters which represent them.
Name the first letter of the alphabet---a. The mouth is open and the
sound may be prolonged indefinitely. It is a full, clear sound, an
unobstructed vibration of the vocal chords.
Now name the second letter of the alphabet---b. You say bee or buh.
You cannot prolong the sound. In order to give the real sound of b you
have to associate it with some other sound, as that of e or u. In other
words, b is in the nature of an obstruction of sound, or a modification
of sound, rather than a simple elementary sound in itself. There is
indeed a slight sound in the throat, but it is a closed sound and cannot
be prolonged. In the case of p, which is similar to b, there is no sound
from the throat.
So we see that there are two classes of sounds (represented by two
classes of letters), those which are full and open tones from the vocal
chords, pronounced with the mouth open, and capable of being
prolonged indefinitely; and those which are in the nature of
modifications of these open sounds, pronounced with or without the
help of the voice, and incapable of being prolonged. The first class of
sounds is called vowel sounds, the second, consonant sounds. Of the
twenty-six letters of the alphabet, a, e, i, o, and u (sometimes y and w)

represent vowel sounds and are called vowels; and the remainder
represent consonant sounds, and are called consonants.
A syllable is an elementary sound, or a combination of elementary
sounds, which can be given easy and distinct utterance at one effort.
Any vowel may form a syllable by itself, but as we have seen that a
consonant must be united with a vowel for its perfect utterance, it
follows that every syllable must contain a vowel sound, even if it also
contains consonant sounds. With that vowel sound one or more
consonants may be united; but the ways in which consonants may
combine with a vowel to form a syllable are limited. In general we may
place any consonant before and any consonant after the vowel in the
same syllable: but y for instance, can be given a consonant sound only
at the beginning of a