T.ifel.] ^Q2 [October. 



pronounced as if written fc-je-us, o-Jee-ns. and in-sid-je-ns 



nay, it may be affirmed, that so agreeable is this so^nd of d to the 

 analogy of English pronunciation, that, unless we are upon our guard, 

 the organs naturally slide into it. It is not, however, pretended that 

 this is the politest pronunciation j for the sake of analogy it were to 

 be wished it were : but an ignorance of the real powers of the letters, 

 joined with a laudable desire of keeping as near as possible to the 

 orthography, is apt to prevent the d from going into^ (dzh), and to 

 make us hear o-de-iis, te-dc-iis, &c. On the other hand, the vulgar, 

 who in this case are right by instinct, not only indulge in the aspi- 

 ration of the d, which the language is so prone to, but are apt to 

 unite the succeeding syllables too closely, and to say o-jus and fe-Jus, 

 instead of o-je-ns and te-Je-iis, or rather odc-T/us, and tede-^iisJ' 

 Indeed, so many different opinions prevail with regard to this assibi- 

 lation of fZ and also of t that scarcely any two orthoepists agree about 

 the pronunciation of some words. Thus, according to Worcester 

 (Dictionary of the English Language, § 24), by Walker, the pronun- 

 ciation of Educate is thus noted, ed'ju-lcat ; by Sheridan, Jones, En- 

 field, Fulton and Jameson, thus, ed' u-kCit ; and by Perry, Knowles, 

 Smart and Reid, thus, ed'u-kat; by Worcester himself, ed'yukute. 

 Nature, by Walker, thus, vd'chu?' ; by Sheridan and Jones, thus, 

 nitchur ; by Perry, Enfield, and Reid, thus, na'tur ; by Jameson, 

 Knowles, and Worcester, himself, thus, iidf'i/nr ; by Smart, thus, 

 nd'tar or nd'cTior. 



After making a careful investigation of the whole subject of the 

 modern English assibilation of t and d, I have come to the conclusion 

 that this process has not yet settled down into fixed forms; although 

 its proper limits are now much more closely defined, than they were 

 seventy years ago. For, at the time of Nares (see "Elements of 

 Orthoepy, London, 1784," page 130), it had become customary to 

 assibilate t before u not only in unaccented but also in accented sylla- 

 bles, while, at the present day, even in the mouth of the people, its 

 assibilation is now generally confined to unaccented syllables. Within 

 the limits of the unaccented syllables, however, a great vacillation is 

 observed even at the present day. In a subsequent part of my in- 

 vestigation, in treating on the pronunciation of the vowels in unac- 

 cented syllables, I propose to discuss this subject at full length. 



The modern English assibilation of s, or rather its thickening into 

 .s7i and tJi, has become more fixed. This influences not only those 

 words in the English language which are spelled with s, ws pension, 

 Ijleasure, but also those where c and t were imported into England in 



