ance or
carelessness might perhaps, with the help of our orthoepists, convert the
former word into _mate_ and the latter into _sheep_; and, as this would
breed confusion in the language, the avoiding of the similarity may perhaps
be a sufficient reason for confining these two sounds of _e_ and _i_, to
that short quantity in which they cannot be mistaken. But to suppose, as
some do, that the protraction of _u_ in _tun_ would identify it with the
_o_ in _tone_, surpasses any notion I have of what stupidity may
misconceive. With one or two exceptions, therefore, it appears to me that
each of the pure vowel sounds is of such a nature, that it may be readily
recognized by its own peculiar quality or tone, though it be made as long
or as short as it is possible for any sound of the human voice to be. It is
manifest that each of the vowel sounds heard in _ate, at, arm, all, eel,
old, ooze, us_, may be protracted to the entire extent of a full breath
slowly expended, and still be precisely the same one simple sound;[103]
and, on the contrary, that all but one may be shortened to the very minimum
of vocality, and still be severally known without danger of mistake. The
prolation of a pure vowel places the organs of utterance in that particular
position which the sound of the letter requires, and then _holds them
unmoved_ till we have given to it all the length we choose.

OBS. 11.--In treating of the quantity and quality of the vowels, Walker
says, "The first distinction of sound that seems to obtrude itself upon us
when we utter the vowels, is a long and a short sound, according to the
greater or less duration of time taken up in pronouncing them. This
distinction is so obvious as to have been adopted in all languages, and is
that to which we annex _clearer ideas than to any other_; and though the
short sounds of some vowels have not in our language been classed with
sufficient accuracy with their parent long ones, yet this has bred but
little confusion, as vowels long and short are always sufficiently
distinguishable."--_Principles_, No. 63. Again: "But though the terms long
and short, as applied to vowels, are pretty generally understood, an
accurate ear will easily perceive that these terms do not always mean the
long and short sounds of the respective vowels to which they are applied;
for, if we choose to be directed by the ear, in denominating vowels long or
short, we must certainly give these appellations to those sounds onl