Tafel.] 3Qg [October. 



syllables, as there are intermediate sounds between them and the 

 original or primitive vowel-sound. 



[Rem. 1. — Concerning the long sound of a in fast, Fliigel makes 

 the following remarks in the introduction to his English-German 

 Dictionary : 



" This sound is no new discovery but something long known and 

 confirmed by practice. William Mitford in his Essay upon the Har- 

 mony of Languages (London, 1774) says : ' No English voice fails to 

 express, no English ear to perceive the difference between the sound 

 of a in passing and passive ; no colloquial familiarity or hurry can 

 substitute one sound for the other.' — Fulton and Knight, only, pre- 

 vious to Worcester, mark this sound as not being so short as a in fat ^ 

 as Walker and Jameson, nor so broad as the Italian a in far, as 

 Perry, Stephen Jones, Nares and others describe it. Walker (Prin- 

 ciples of English Pronunciation, § 79), indeed, disapproves of every 

 middle sound as tending to render the pronunciation of the language 

 obscure and indefinite, but the best usage decides the question by 

 making it a medium between the almost vulgar a in father, and the 

 affected a in fat (although this pronunciation is still often heard in 

 good society, particularly among people of the so-called Old School)." 

 Smart also regards it as an intermediate sound between a in hat and 

 a in father. 



From this exhibition we see that the majority of the orthoepists 

 are in favor of regarding this sound as a medium between a in fat 

 and a in father, and, indeed, one which is longer than the sound of 

 a in fat. However, from the manner in which it is usually pro- 

 nounced in this country, I can see no other distinction between it 

 and a in fat, than that the former is the corresponding long sound 

 of the latter, pronounced with a different intonation of the voice, 

 which makes it appear as if it differed from it in the quality of the 

 sound. Sproat (Endeavor towards a Universal Alphabet) is of the 

 same opinion. He says : " The difference in length has been mis- 

 taken, I believe, by many orthoepists, as it has been by myself, for 

 a difference in sound. The a in fat, pan, and carry is short; in fast, 

 jKinf, it is the same sound lengthened. There are a few, however, in 

 this country, and I suppose more in England, who do pronounce 

 grasp, fast, &c., a shade broader, approaching a in father.'^ The 

 identity Of these two sounds is proved clearly, if we pronounce the 

 former of these words half-way, and then pass over into the latter, viz., 

 fd-ast. 



Rem. 2. —Concerning the long sound of o in off, Worcester says, 

 in the Introduction to his Critical Dictionary, § 21 : ^' There is a 



