Pronouncing Dictionary. & EXPOSITOR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, Not only the meaning of every word is clearly SUBJECT TO DIFFERENT PRONUNCIATIONS, The Authorities of our best Pronouncing Dictionaries are. PREFERABLE PRONUNCIATION IS POINTED OUT the Whole interspersed with Observations, PRONOUNCING DICTIONARY, AND EXPOSITOR OF The English Language, IN WHICP NOT ONLY THE MEANING OF EVERY WORD IS CLEARLY EXPLAINED, AND THE SOUND BUT, WHERE WORDS ARE SUBJECT TO DIFFERENT PRONUNCIATIONS, THE AUTHORITIES OF OUR BEST PRONOUNCING DICTIONARIES ARE FULLY EXHIBITED, TO WHICH ARE PREFIXED, PRINCIPLES OF ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION: IN WHICH THE SOUNDS OF LETTERS, SYLLABLES AND WORDS, ARE CRITICALLY INVESTIGATED The influence of the Greek and Latin Accent and Quantity, on the Accent and Quantity of the English, LIKEWISE, RULES TO BE OBSERVED BY THE NATIVES OF SCOTLAND, IRELAND, AND LONDON, And Directions to Foreigners, for acquiring a knowledge of the use of this Dictionary, THE WHOLE INTERSPERSED WITH OBSERVATIONS, ETYMOLOGICAL, CRITICAL, AND GRAMMATICAL, BY JOHN WALKER, Author of Elements of Elocution. Rhyming Dictionary, &c. &c. Qure, si fieri potest, et verba omnia, et vox, hujus alumnum urbis oleant: ut oratio Romans plane videatur, Quintilian. London PRINTED FOR J. RICHARDSON AND CO.; G. OFFER; J. SHARPE; ROBINSON AND CO.; ALSO R. GRIFFIN AND CO., GLASGOW. PREFACE. FEW subjects have of late years more employed the pens of every class of criticks than the improvement of the English Language. The greatest abilities in the nation have been exerted in cultivating and reforming it; nor have a thousand minor criticks been wanting to add their mite of amendment to their native tongue. Johnson, whose large mind and just taste made him capable of enriching and adorning the Language with original composition, has condescended to the drudgery of disentangling, explaining, and arranging it, and left a lasting monument of his ability, labour, and patience; and Dr. Lowth, the politest scholar of the age, has veiled his superiority in his short Introduction to English Grammar. The ponderous folio has gravely vindicated the rights of analogy; and the light ephemeral sheet of news has corrected errours in Grammar, as well as in Politics, by slyly marking them in italics. Nor has the improvement stopped here. While Johnson and Lowth have been insensibly operating on the orthography and construction of our Language, its pronunciation has not been neglected. The importance of a consistent and regular pronunciation was too obvious to be overlooked; and the want of this consistency and regularity has induced several ingenious men to endeavour at a reformation; who, by exhibiting the irregularities of pronunciation, and pointing out its analogies, have reclaimed some words that were not irrecoverably fixed in a wrong sound, and prevented others from being perverted by ignorance or caprice. Among those writers who deserve the first praise on this subject is Mr. Elphinston, who, in his Principles of the English Language, has reduced the chaos to a system; and, by a deep investigation of the analogies of our tongue, has laid the foundation of a just and regular pronunciation. After him Dr. Kenrick contributed a portion of improvement by his Rhetorical Dictionary; in which the words are divided into syllables as they are pronounced, and figures placed over the vowels, to indicate their different sounds. But this gentleman has rendered his Dictionary extremely imperfect by entirely omitting a great number of words of doubtful and difficult pronunciation-those very words for which a Dictionary of this kind would be most consulted. To him succeeded Mr. Sheridan, who not only divided the words into syllables, and placed figures over the vowels, as Dr. Kenrick had done; but, by spelling these syllables as they are pronounced, seemed to complete the idea of a Pronouncing Dictionary, and to leave but little expectation of future improvement. It must, indeed, be confessed that Mr. Sheridan's Dictionary is greatly superior to every other that preceded it; and his method of conveying the sound of words, by spelling them as they are pronounced, is highly rational and useful;-but here sincerity obliges me to stop. The numerous instances I have given of impropriety, inconsistency, and want of acquaintance with the analogies of the Language, sufficiently show how imperfect I think his Dictionary is upon the whole, and what ample room was left for attempting another that might better answer the purpose of a Guide to Pronunciation. See Principles, Nos. 124, 126, 129, 386, 454, 462, 479, 480, 530; and the words Assume, Collect, Covetous, Donative, Ephemera, Satiety, &c. and the inseparable preposition Dis. |