are all monosyllables, but bad articulation is
frequently the result of joining sounds that do not belong together.
For example, no one finds it difficult to say _beauty_, but many persist
in pronouncing _duty_ as though it were spelled either _dooty_ or
_juty_. It is not only from untaught speakers that we hear such slovenly
articulations as _colyum_ for _column_, and _pritty_ for _pretty_, but
even great orators occasionally offend quite as unblushingly as less
noted mortals.

Nearly all such are errors of carelessness, not of pure ignorance--of
carelessness because the ear never tries to hear what the lips
articulate. It must be exasperating to a foreigner to find that the
elemental sound _ou_ gives him no hint for the pronunciation of _bough_,
_cough_, _rough_, _thorough_, and _through_, and we can well forgive
even a man of culture who occasionally loses his way amidst the
intricacies of English articulation, but there can be no excuse for the
slovenly utterance of the simple vowel sounds which form at once the
life and the beauty of our language. He who is too lazy to speak
distinctly should hold his tongue.

The consonant sounds occasion serious trouble only for those who do not
look with care at the spelling of words about to be pronounced. Nothing
but carelessness can account for saying _Jacop_, _Babtist_, _sevem_,
_alwus_, or _sadisfy_.

"He that hath yaws to yaw, let him yaw," is the rendering which an
Anglophobiac clergyman gave of the familiar scripture, "He that hath
ears to hear, let him hear." After hearing the name of Sir Humphry Davy
pronounced, a Frenchman who wished to write to the eminent Englishman
thus addressed the letter: "Serum Fridavi."

_Accentuation_

Accentuation is the stressing of the proper syllables in words. This it
is that is popularly called _pronunciation_. For instance, we properly
say that a word is mispronounced when it is accented _in'-vite_instead
of _in-vite'_, though it is really an offense against only one form of
pronunciation--accentuation.

It is the work of a lifetime to learn the accents of a large vocabulary
and to keep pace with changing usage; but an alert ear, the study of
word-origins, and the dictionary habit, will prove to be mighty helpers
in a task that can never be finally completed.

_Enunciation_

Correct enunciation is the complete utterance of all the sounds of a
syllable or a word. Wrong articulation gives the wrong sound to the
vowel or v