1809.] On the Pronunciation of the Londoners and Provincialist. 1713 
plain why Professor Robison has neg-, 
lected to notice it? Why Sir Christo- 
pher Wren’s testimony, respecting the 
failure of the pillars, and especially the 
angular pillars, of the crosses in the Go- 
thic cathedrals, and the futility of the 
immense weight of the towers themselves, 
as substitutes fur abutment, is of so lit- 
tle worth? and why, from high autho- 
rity, 1¢ has been lately cbiected to, and 
recominended to mathematicians for re- 
consideration, 
Permit me to recommend those who 
are desirous of obtaining a just know- 
ledge of the principles of equilibration, 
to refer to the paper of Dr. David Gre- 
gory, as a fountain-head, and not to suifer 
themselves to adopt a theory which de- 
pends on what has been called “ certain 
and peculiar modifications,” by which it 
-is to be understood, as a land-surveyor 
‘ 
Jects of the different provinces. 
would say, “ that it is true by coaxing ;” 
and permit me also to call the attention 
of those, who are desirous of determin- 
ing a really true theory for the construc- 
tion of abutment-piers, to refer, parti- 
cularly, to the 5th Corollary of the 2d 
Proposition of the same paper. 
Laprcrpa. 
—— 
Lo the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 
SIR, 
SHOULD have no objections to 
make to your correspondent’s ani- 
madversions upon the affected pronun- 
ciation of the Londoners, if he did not 
seem to recommend in the place of it 
the dialect of the North. ¢* The inha- 
bitants of the more northern counties,” 
he says, * pronounce the words above- 
mentioned properly.” 
words are butter, come, duck; which are 
proneunced ii the North, beoter, coome, 
dogck, only giving the ov rather @ shorter 
sound than usual. When I say. they 
are so pronounced, I mean by the gene- 
rality of people: the lowest vulgar are 
by me, and I conceive by your corre- 
spondent R. J. excluded from considera: 
ton. Tam afraid that the observation, 
that men of a liberal education have no 
dialect, is not so generally true as’ might 
be wished: it can be said of those only, 
who, before it was too late to diréct the 
organs of enunciation, have taken pains 
with themselves in this respect, and 
avoided the disgusting parts of the dia- 
In the 
great schools, this matter is too much 
neglected for every young man to come 
gut of them with a pure pronunciation: 
and, in addition to this, the masters them- 
+ Montuty Mac. No, 189, 
Some of those 
selves are often men whose dialect is 
offensive. It were much to be wished, 
that some certain: rules would be laid © 
down for pronouncing the language; but ° 
that after many attempts, this seems yet to 
bea desideratum. Walker’s Pronouncing 
Dictionary, is an excellent work, but 
perhaps it will be of service only to such 
men as I have alluded to before:*the 
provipcialist will mis-pronounce even 
his leading sounds. Those who endea- 
vour to preserve the natural sound of 
the vowels, except in some very arbitrary 
freaks of custom, will, I think, be tole- 
rably secure against contracting bad dia-° 
lects. To men of education, who have 
made propriety of speech any part of 
their study, it seems to me, that the. 
pronunciation of London, with all its 
faults, must be more tolerable than the 
broad uncouthness of the north: the ’ 
mouthing of Lancashire, Cheshire, Dere - 
byshire, Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire, 
and some other counties; the sing-song - 
of Wilts and Dorset ; the curious twang 
of Devonshire and Cornwall; and the 
lazy loutishness of Zomerzetshire and Glou- 
cestershire. The Londoners seem to me 
to offend chiefly in clipping the vowels | 
wanda, the latter of which they almost 
deprive of ‘its true English sound, heard 
in father, path, band, &c. and convert it 
into e: James, with them, is Jeames, the 
conjunction and they almost call end; but 
in the North it is nearly ond. Though £ 
hate affectation-as muchas any man, LT 
cannot consent to substitute uncouth: 
ness, and what seems vulgarity, in its 
stead. I cannot therefore perceive any 
sweetness in the shugger of Nottingham-= 
lam, Cheshire, &c. the froy of York-= 
shire, Staffordshire, &c. nor maw wauf, 
as J once heard a Yorkshire merchant 
pronounce my wife. In tact, thereseems 
to be a determination in the South (pro- 
nounced Sooth in the North) to go as far 
as may be from the awkward mouthings 
of the northern and midland counties 3 
and as ELorace says,’ 
¢* Dum vitant vitia in contraria currunt.”” 
There is a strange perverseness in the 
northern and north-western pronuncias 
tion. Though they call pie, poy, mind, 
moind, &e. they say aysters, or eysters, 
for oysters. . Rejice, in Cheshire, and 
with a most curious twang, for rejoice. 
Good, they pronounce gudd, foot, futt z 
and, on the contrary, but, boot, muchy 
mooch, judge, joodge, there, theere, and 
the verb tear, teer, &c. ad infinitum, 
These faults of the arcane 2 
~ both 
