he defects of any given voice.

10. Make a short humorous speech imitating certain voice defects,
pointing out reasons.

11. Commit the following stanza and interpret each phase of delight
suggested or expressed by the poet.

An infant when it gazes on a light,
A child the moment when it drains the breast,
A devotee when soars the Host in sight,
An Arab with a stranger for a guest,
A sailor when the prize has struck in fight,
A miser filling his most hoarded chest,
Feel rapture; but not such true joy are reaping
As they who watch o'er what they love while sleeping.

--BYRON, _Don Juan_.

CHAPTER XIV

DISTINCTNESS AND PRECISION OF UTTERANCE

In man speaks God.

--HESIOD, _Words and Days_.

And endless are the modes of speech, and far
Extends from side to side the field of words.

--HOMER, _Iliad_.

In popular usage the terms "pronunciation," "enunciation," and
"articulation" are synonymous, but real pronunciation includes three
distinct processes, and may therefore be defined as, _the utterance of a
syllable or a group of syllables with regard to articulation,
accentuation, and enunciation_.

Distinct and precise utterance is one of the most important
considerations of public speech. How preposterous it is to hear a
speaker making sounds of "inarticulate earnestness" under the contented
delusion that he is telling something to his audience! Telling? Telling
means communicating, and how can he actually communicate without making
every word distinct?

Slovenly pronunciation results from either physical deformity or habit.
A surgeon or a surgeon dentist may correct a deformity, but your own
will, working by self-observation and resolution in drill, will break a
habit. All depends upon whether you think it worth while.

Defective speech is so widespread that freedom from it is the exception.
It is painfully common to hear public speakers mutilate the king's
English. If they do not actually murder it, as Curran once said, they
often knock an _i_ out.

A Canadian clergyman, writing in the _Homiletic Review_, relates that in
his student days "a classmate who was an Englishman supplied a country
church for a Sunday. On the following Monday he conducted a missionary
meeting. In the course of his address he said some farmers thought they
were doing their duty toward missions when they gave their 'hodds and
hends' to the work, but the L