158 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



We spell s-l-o-u-g-h, and call it " sluff " if we refer to an abscess, 

 but " sloo " if we refer to a swamp, over which the wind may be said 

 to s-o-u-g-h — " soff." Kemove but the initial " s," and we no longer have 

 a swamp, but a lake — l-o-u-g-h, pronounced " loch." Change but the 

 " o " to " a," and we have l-a-u-g-h — " laff," but c — aru-g-h-t — 

 " cawt," or dr — a-u-g-h-t — " draft." Or, again we have t-o-u-g-h — 

 "tuff," b-o^u-g-h — "bow," t-h-r-o-u-g-h — "throo" (butth-o-r — o-u-g-h, 

 "thurrow"), c-o-u-g-h, " cawff," d-o-u-g-h, "doe," and p-l-o-u-g-h, 

 " plow." 



" Coughing in the chill wind soughing through tough boughs, 

 which overhang the sloughy dough-like slough that joins the dismal 

 lough, the lonely peasant sat beside his plough/' would make good 

 verbal gymnastics for the ambitious foreigner. 



The sound of " e-i " is one thing in freight and weight, and another 

 in sleight and height; and in "either" it is either eyther or eether, 

 while to the Irishman it is nayther. 



B-o-w is the " bow " to shoot with, or the " bow " of a boat. A 

 man may glow with pride, or glower in wrath. We " mdw " the hay, 

 but put it into the " mow." We all agree to say " moon " on the one 

 hand, and " b5ok " on the other (except in England where they say 

 "book"), but some of us say "root," "roof" and "hoof," while 

 others say " root," " roof " and " hoof." We all of us put a " foot " 

 into a " boot "' just as surely as we put a " toe " into a " shoe." 



Is it any wonder that our English word system seems to a foreigner 

 a museum of unlabeled curiosities ? 



Our pronunciation and accent, peculiar in themselves, varying, 

 moreover, to distraction over the English-speaking world, are just as 

 serious stumbling-blocks to others, as, say, French and German accent 

 and pronunciation are to us. The six sounds of " a," the four sounds 

 of " e," the two of " i," the five of " " and the four of " u " give us 

 those delicate assonances, and that fine shading of sound in words that 

 makes for variety, interest and charm; but the complexity with which 

 those twenty-one unmarked vowels invest the correct pronunciation 

 of our English language is absolutely maddening to foreigners, es- 

 pecially since no one can possibly predict from the pronunciation of 

 the vowels in one word their pronunciation in any other word having 

 essentially the same spelling, and no one can possibly say what ex- 

 traordinarily diverse combinations of vowels and consonants in English 

 may not be pronounced exactly alike. 



The very names, moreover, that we give to our vowels, and which 

 are their principal and most frequently recurring sounds in our words, 

 are, with the exception of " 0," peculiar to English alone among the 

 European family of languages, as applied to the letters in question. 

 The so-called " continental " sounds of a, e, i, 0, u, as in singing do, 

 re, mi, fa, are practically universal, except in the English-speaking 



