SCIENTIFIC SPELLING 37i 



in our spelling — for, if such digraphs are stressed, the accent 

 should be marked upon their first vowel if this is short or 

 irregular, but not if it is long. We thus have ail, aisle, aye 

 (ever), dye, say, said, grease, great, breathe, breath, read, read 

 (p.p.), ear, earth, tear, tear (verb), steer, stead, steak, receive, believe, 

 ceil, yield, pierce, vein, their, obey, people, leopard, jeopardy, pie, piece, 

 denied, niece; know, now, bozv, bozv (obeisance), bough, roe, row, 

 row (noise) soul, sought, thou, boat, board, broad, though, through, 

 youth, young, could, route, flood, door, beauty, adieu (where a 

 whole polygraph is irregular the accent should be marked on 

 the last letter concerned). 



It also indicates the presence of orthoepic or degraded values. 

 The accepted spelling generally expresses the long idiomatic 

 values either by digraphs or by e mute, at least in monosyllables 

 and their derivatives, except in a few words such as mild, mind, 

 pint, sign, most, old, wont. Except in these, therefore, the accent 

 in monosyllables will denote orthoepic or degraded values. 

 Before s, n, and often /, marked a generally indicates the long 

 orthoepic value (at least in Standard English), as in pass, cast, 

 answer, dance, calm, half, enchantment; otherwise it indicates 

 degraded values, because there is no digraph or e mute to 

 suggest long idiomatic values. The short o is also often 

 lengthened, especially before s, as in loss, lost, off; but as this 

 pronunciation is very variable, I do not mark it. 



Before single r, followed by a consonant, or final, a and o 

 generally have orthoepic values, and e, i, u degenerate to the 

 ur sound. I mark therefore only the exceptions as commonly 

 pronounced, such as starry, glory, story. Ore, and oar and their 

 rhymes are so variously pronounced that they also need not 

 be marked. 



We may also excuse the mark where the quality of the 

 vowels is fixed ; that is, on au and aw ; oi and oy ; oo, long and 

 short ; * before gh ; a, e, o, u before final -Hon and -sion ; and in 

 the twelve common constructive words to, you, your, who, whom, 

 whose, our, they, their, are, we're, have — especially the first, as in 

 this article. The object of such omissions is to save trouble 

 in writing and the excessive use of the marks in print ; and 

 if all the omissions just suggested are allowed there would be 

 many fewer accents than have been employed here, where, 

 of course, they are required for an exemplar. A still greater 

 simplification would consist in using the marks only for the 



