ny as
_five_ of the questionable number. Churchill's vowel sounds, he says, "may
be found in the following words: 1. B_a_te, 2. B_a_t, 3. B_a_ll; 4. B_e_t,
5. B_e_; 6. B_i_t; 7. B_o_t, 8. B_o_ne, 9. B_oo_n; 10. B_u_t, 11. B_u_ll;
12. Lovel_y_; 13. _W_ool."--_New Grammar_, p. 5. To this he adds: "Many of
the writers on orthoepy [sic--KTH], however, consider the first and fourth
of the sounds above distinguished as actually the same, the former
differing from the latter only by being lengthened in the pronunciation.
They also reckon the seventh sound, to be the third shortened; the twelfth,
the fifth shortened; and the eleventh, the ninth shortened. Some consider
the fifth and sixth as differing only in length; and most esteem the
eleventh and thirteenth as identical."--_Ib._

OBS. 3.--Now, it is plain, that these six identifications, or so many of
them as are admitted, must diminish by six, or by the less number allowed,
the thirteen vowel sounds enumerated by this author. By the best
authorities, _W_ initial, as in "_W_ool." is reckoned a _consonant_; and,
of course, its sound is supposed to differ in some degree from that of _oo_
in "B_oo_n," or that of _u_ in "B_u_ll,"--the ninth sound or the eleventh
in the foregoing series. By Walker, Murray, and other popular writers, the
sound of _y_ in "Lovel_y_" is accounted to be essentially the same as that
of _e_ in "B_e_." The twelfth and the thirteenth, then, of this list, being
removed, and three others added,--namely, the _a_ heard in _far_, the _i_
in _fine_, and the _u_ in _fuse_,--we shall have the _fourteen vowel
sounds_ which are enumerated by L. Murray and others, and adopted by the
author of the present work.

OBS. 4.--Wells says, "_A_ has _six_ sounds:--1. Long; as in _late_. 2.
Grave; as in _father_. 3. Broad; as in _fall_. 4. Short; as in _man_. 5.
The sound heard in _care, hare_. 6. Intermediate between _a_ in _man_ and
_a_ in _father_; as in _grass, pass, branch_."--_School Grammar_, 1850, p.
33. Besides these six, Worcester recognizes a seventh sound,--the "_A
obscure_; as in _liar, rival_"--_Univ. and Crit. Dict._, p. ix. Such a
multiplication of the oral elements of our first vowel.--or, indeed, any
extension of them beyond four,--appears to me to be unadvisable; because it
not only makes our alphabet the more defective, but is unnecessary, and not
sustained by our best and most popular orthoepical [sic--KTH] authorities.
The sound of _a_ in _liar_, (and in