"Sir, your behavior has done you great credit."
"Honorable Members might say what they pleased; but he was convinced, for his part, that the New Poor Law had given great general satisfaction."
There being now no reason (or rule) to detain us in the Syntax, we shall forthwith advance into Prosody, where we shall have something to say, not only about rules, but also of measures.
Prosody { 103}consists of two parts; wherefore, although it may be a topic, a head, or subject for discussion, it can never be a point; for a point is that which hath no parts. Besides, there are a great many lines to be considered in the second part of Prosody, which treats of Versification. The first division teaches the true Pro-nunciation of Words, including Accent, Quantity, Emphasis, Pause, and Tone.
Lord Chesterfield's book about manners, which is intended to teach us the proper tone to be adopted in Society, may be termed an Ethical Prosody.
Lord Chesterfield may have been a polished gentleman, but Dr. Johnson was of the two the more shining character.
Though penetrated ourselves by the desire of imparting instruction, we are far from wishing to bore our readers; and therefore we shall: endeavor to repeat nothing here that we have said before.
Accent { 104}is the marking with a peculiar stress of the voice a particular letter or syllable in a word, in such a manner as to render it more distinct or audible than the rest. Thus, in the word théatre, the stress of the voice should be on the letter e and first syllable the; and in contrary, on the first syllable con. How shocking it is to hear people say con-trary, the-atre! The friends of education will be reminded with regret, that an error in the pronunciation of the first of these words is very early impressed on the human mind.
"Mary, Mary, Quite contrary, How does your garden grow?"
How many evils, alas! arise from juvenile associations!
Words of two syllables never have more than one of them accented, except for the sake of peculiar emphasis. Gentlemen, however, whose profession it is to drive certain public vehicles called cabs, are much accustomed to disregard this rule, and to say, "po-lite" (or "pur-lite"), "gén-téel," "con-cern," "po-lice," and so on: nay, they go so far as to convert a word of one syllable into two, for the sake of indulging in this style of pronunciation; and thus the word "queer" is pronounced by them as "ke-veer."
