26 THO.VOGRAPHV, 



a single sound, as ough in dough, at another entirely different sounds, as 

 ough in dough=do; rough=ruf; through— throo; plough— ploio^ &c. Then 

 again one letter represents several sounds at the same time, as X for ks 

 or gs^ or finally, it is not the representative of any sound at all, as in the 

 case of what is called the final E mute. How perplexing, discouraging, 

 and destructive to correct pronunciation this is, is shown not only in the 

 story of the poor Frenchman laboring at plough,, through, thorough, dough 

 and tough, but in the blunders by which those who ought to be able to 

 manage their mother-tongue, so often turn the sublime into the ridic- 

 ulous. 



Is there no remedy for this evil, or are we not to regard it as an evil, 

 but as a beauty of our Phonography? Are we to rest satisfied with the 

 conclusion at which the late venerable and learned Peter S. Duponceau 

 arrives,* when he says : "I am not, therefore, one of those who wish to 

 see any innovation introduced into the alphabet or orthography of the 

 English language. No, let our written language still retain its venerable 

 garb, nos anciens habits de sauvages, as M. de Voltaire would call them, 

 but still more decent than the masquerade dresses under which men of 

 more fancy than reflection, would disguise the immortal thoughts of Mil- 

 Ion and of Shakespeare, so that the eye would no longer at once recog- 

 nise them, and the straight and well trodden path by which they now, 

 without difiiculty, reach the mind, would be made crooked, difficult of 

 access, and overspread with nettles and thorns." 



With the most profound respect for such high authority, and deeply 

 sensible of the difiiculty of an enterprise the least part of which has 

 hitherto baffled the genius and resisted the energy of such men as Web- 

 ster and the lamented Grimke, and not absolutely indifferent to that 

 shower of ridicule with which the self-constituted conservators of Hhe 

 jmrity of the English language,'''' will at once visit this daring invasion 

 of their peculiar province, 1 must still dissent from this conclusion, and 

 beg leave to make some suggestions for the improvement of our English 

 Phonography. Jn this I am fortified, to say nothing of others, by Dupon- 

 ceau himself. "While I thus disclaim," says he, "every wish to innovate 

 upon our written language, I am not insensible of the importance of en- 

 deavoring to acquire as perfect and accurate a knowledge as possible, of 

 the elementary sounds of which our spoken language is composed. The 

 correct pronunciation of a language cannot be preserved, unless it is pre- 

 cisely Jixed and ascertained, and that cannot be done unless all its com- 

 ponent sounds are accurately known and clearly distinguished from each 



* In his valuable "Essay on English P/tonologif published in the "Transac- 

 tions of the Am. Piiilosophical Society," vol. 1 New Series, pp. 236-7. 



