4. That of the e in bed-as heifer, nonpareil, pronounced heffer, nonparell.

It may be seen that leisure and inveigle occur in two of the preceding lists, and either and neither in three of them, accompanied by a note of interrogation. This means that the present writer will not take upon himself to determine between the different pronunciations.

EO has five sounds

1. That of the ee in feet, as in people.

2. That of the e in bed; as leopard, jeopardy, feoffee, feoffer, and feoffment, which are sounded as if written feffee, feffer, feffment.

3. That of the o in note; as in

yeoman.

4. That of the oo in cool, as in galleon, a Spanish ship, which is pronounced galloon.

5. When unaccented and at the end of syllables, it is sounded as the u in but-as truncheon, courageous, pronounced trunshun, cou-rage-us.

In spelling, the old orthographies feod, feodal, and feodatory, are superseded by feud, feudal, and feudatory.

In the word Georgic, the e is silent. It has the effect, however, of making the g sounded as dzh. Hence the word is sounded jorgic (jorgic or dzhordzhic).

EU is a very regular combination, and is always sounded like ew.

IA. In carriage, marriage, parliament, and miniature, the i is silent.

Diamond, accurately pronounced, is a trisyllable. Generally, however, it is sounded dimond.

IE. 1. Sounded as the e in glebe, in grieve, thieve, &c. This is its usual sound.

2. Sounded as the i in pine, in die, pie, lie, tie, hie.

3. Sounded as the e in bed, in friend.

In orient the i and e belong to different syllables. In Spaniard and spaniel, the sound is either spa-ni-el, or span-yel, Span-i-ard, or Span-yard. In twentieth, thirtieth, &c. the i should be sounded as a separate vowel, forming a syllable by itself.

IO. This either forms two separate syllables as in vi-o-lent,

vi-o-let, &c., or else the i is sounded as y (million—millyon);

Except in marchioness and cushion, where the i is silent.

OA is sounded as the o in note; as oat, coal, loaf. Except in the words broad, abroad, groat, which are sounded brawd, abrawd, grawt.

OE is sounded like the o in note, in doe, foe, and hoe. Like the u in but, in does, from do. cool, in shoe and canoe.

toe, sloe, throe,

Like the oo in

OI. Except in a few imperfectly-naturalised words, oi has but one power, i. e. its power in voice, oil, &c.

The word choir is often sounded as quire. In this case it is better to spell according to the pronunciation. This is generally done; since quire and quirister are both recognised forms of orthography.

In tortoise the oi is sounded as the u in but.

Avoirdupoise and connoisseur are sounded averdupoise and

connesseur.

OU has seven different sounds. Its first and most usual one is really a sound of a; since it is that of a diphthong formed by the a in father, and the w in wall.

This is heard in abound, about, account, acoustics, aground, aloud, amount, around, arouse, astound, avouch, bough, bounce, bound, bounteous, bounty, bout, carouse, chouse, cloud, clout, compound, couch, couchant, crouch, deflour, devour, devout, doubt, doubtful, doughty, douse, drought, encounter, espouse, expound, flout, flounder, foul, founder, foundling, fountain, frousy, gout, ground, grouse, grout, hound, hour, house, impound, loud, lounge, louse, lout, mound, mountain, mountebank, mouse, mouth, noun, ounce, our, out, outer, outermost, paramount, plough, pouch, pounce, pound, pour (?), pout, profound, pronoun, pronounce, propound, proud, rebound, recount, redoubt, redoubted, redound, rencounter, round, roundelay, rouse, rout, scoundrel, scout, shout, shroud, slouch, spouse, spout, sprout, stout, surround, south, thou, thousand, touse, trounce, trousers, trout, wound (did wind), slough (a miry place), vouch, vouchsafe, without, scaramouch.

2. The sound of the u in but. This is heard in adjourn, journey, journal, country, cousin, couple, accouple, double, trouble,

courteous, courtesy, courage, encourage, joust, housewife, flourish, nourish, enough, chough, rough, tough, slough (a cast skin), scourge, southerly, southern, southernwood, southward, touch, touchy, young, younker and youngster; but southern, southerly, and southward are sometimes pronounced regularly like south. This, however, is far from the prevailing pronunciation.

3. This is the sound of the oo in cool, and the words in which it occurs are chiefly of French origin-croup, group, amour, paramour, cartouch, gout (taste), ragout, rendezvous, rouge, soup, sous, surtout, through, toupee or toupet, you, your, youth, tour, contour, tournay, tournament, pour (?) and route, accoutre, agouti, uncouth, wound, routine.

4. This is the sound of the o in note, as though, although, coulter, court, accourt, gourd, courtier, course, discourse, source, recourse, resource, bourne, dough, doughy, four, mould, mouldy, moult, mourn, shoulder, smoulder, soul, poultice, poult, poulterer, poultry, pour (?), troul, borough, thorough, furlough, fourteen, concourse, intercourse.

5. The sound of the aw in bawl-ought, bought, brought, sought, besought, fought, thought, methought, wrought.

Nought is placed by some writers in this class, but its more proper spelling is naught.

6. The sound of the u in full-only found in would, could, should.

7. The sound of the o in not; as in cough and trough, pronounced coff and troff, sometimes cawf and trawf.

UA—Sounded as wa; as in persuade, equal, &c. In guard, guardian, guarantee, piquant, the u is silent. Victuals, victualling, victualler, are sounded vittles, vittling, vittler. In mantuamaker the a is omitted.

UE-Sounded as we; as in consuetude. In conquer and conqueror the u is silent; in conquest pronounced-conker, conkeror, conkwest.

In a final syllable, when sounded at all, it is sounded as the ew in new, with a tendency to change into yoo and oo. Except when preceded by r, in which case it cannot be sounded yoo, and is generally sounded oo ; as in true (troo).

When u between g and e has no sound of its own, but

simply prevents the g from being sounded as j, it may be called the Protective u. Thus plage, which would most probably be sounded plaij, by being spelt plague retains the g with the sound in gun.

UI-Sounded as wi; as languid, vanquish.

In guide, disguise, guile, and beguile, the u is silent, and the i is sounded as in pine.

In build, guilt, guinea, and guitar, the u is also silent, but the i is sounded as in pin. The same is the case with conduit, pronounced cundit (or condit), and also with biscuit and circuit.

In bruise, cruise, fruit, bruit, recruit, the ui is sounded as oo. In juice, sluice, suit, and pursuit, it is sometimes sounded as oo (i. e. as the o in prove), sometimes as the ew in new.

In Guildhall the u is silent. The i, however, is variously pronounced; sometimes as the i in pine, sometimes as the i in pin.

UO-Sounded as wo; as in quote, quotient.

§ 287. Vowels followed by a Semi-vowel.—AW—always sounded as the aw in bawl.

EW-almost always sounded as in new. In sew and shew it is pronounced as o in note. In Shrewsbury and strew it is often so sounded. Sewer, a drain, is frequently pronounced shore.

OW. This combination has three sounds-1, that of the ou in house; as in prowl (?), cow, drown, &c. 2. That of the o in note; as in prowl (?), blow, slow, willow, &c. 3. That of the o in not; as in the single word knowledge, when sounded knolledge, a pronunciation which is quite as common, though not so grammatical, as that whereby the word is sounded kno-ledge.

AY is sounded as the a in fate; as say, lay, pay, &c. EY-Found almost exclusively at the end of words. When accented, it is sounded like the a in fate; as survéy, they, obey. Except key and ley; here it is sounded as the e in glebe.

When unaccented, it is sounded as in key and ley; as galley, valley, barley. Except survey when used as a substantive, and consequently accented on the first syllable.

OY-Always sounded as the oi in oil, of which it is only another form. Chiefly reserved for the end of words-alloy, destroy.

UY.—Except as protective, to g or after q, this combination is found in one word only, viz. buy. Here it is sounded as the i in pine. When protective to g it is silent, as in plaguy. After q it sounds as w-soliloquy, colloquy, &c.

§ 288. Combinations of three Vowels.-AYE-Found only in two words, but with a different sound in each.

1. In the parliamentary expression, The ayes have it.—Here it is sounded as the i in pine.

2. In the almost antiquated expression for aye, meaning for ever. Here the sound is essentially the same as the last, only broader, and exactly that of the a in father, followed by the y in yet; a sound which the i in fine only approaches.

EAU-Found in words of French origin only; in all which, except in the word beauty, which is sounded bewty, it has the power of the o in note.

EOU. When preceded by the sound of t, d, or s, eou has the same effect as iou, i. e. it has a tendency to convert them into tsh, dzh, or sh, as piteous, hideous, which are often sounded pitcheous, hidzheous (hijous), &c.

When the preceding consonant cannot be so changed, but will admit of being followed by the sound of y, e becomes so sounded; as in cutaneous and spontaneous, pronounced cutanyous and sponta-nyous.

Lastly, when y would not be pronounceable, the e is sounded, and forms a separate syllable; as in vit-re-ous.

EYE-Found only in the word eye; where it is sounded as the i in pine.

EWE-Found only in the word ewe, which is sounded

as yoo.

IOU Sounded as eou.

IEU-In words of French origin only; as adieu, lieu, purlieu, where it is sounded as the ew in new. In lieutenant the first four letters are pronounced lef.

IEW-Found in one word only, view; where it is sounded like the ew in new.

VOL. II.

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