The Grammar of English Grammars eBook

Goold Brown
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 4,149 pages of information about The Grammar of English Grammars.

The Grammar of English Grammars eBook

Goold Brown
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 4,149 pages of information about The Grammar of English Grammars.

In English, t is seldom, if ever, silent or powerless.  In depot, however, a word borrowed from the French, we do not sound it; and in chestnut, which is a compound of our own, it is much oftener written than heard.  In often and soften, some think it silent; but it seems rather to take here the sound of f.  In chasten, hasten, fasten, castle, nestle, whistle, apostle, epistle, bustle, and similar words, with their sundry derivatives, the t is said by some to be mute; but here it seems to take the sound of s; for, according to the best authorities, this sound is beard twice in such words. Th, written in Greek by the character called Theta, ([Greek:  th] or O capital, [Greek:  th] or [Greek:  th] small,) represents an elementary sound; or, rather, two distinct elementary sounds, for which the Anglo-Saxons had different characters, supposed by Dr. Bosworth to have been applied with accurate discrimination of “the hard or sharp sound of th,” from “the soft or flat sound.”—­(See Bosworth’s Compendious Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, p. 268.) The English th is either sharp, as in thing, ethical, thinketh; or flat, as in this, whither, thither.

Th initial is sharp; as in thought:  except in than, that, the, thee, their, them, then, thence, there, these, they, thine, this, thither, those, thou, thus, thy, and their compounds.”—­W.  Allen’s Grammar, p. 22.

Th final is also sharp; as in south:  except in beneath, booth, with, and several verbs formerly with th last, but now frequently (and more properly) written with final e; as loathe, mouthe, seethe, soothe, smoothe, clothe, wreathe, bequeathe, unclothe.

Th medial is sharp, too, when preceded or followed by a consonant; as in Arthur, ethnic, swarthy, athwart:  except in brethren, burthen, farther, farthing, murther, northern, worthy.  But “th between two vowels, is generally flat in words purely English; as in gather, neither, whither:  and sharp in words from the learned languages; as in atheist, ether, method”—­See W.  Allen’s Gram., p. 22.

Th, in Thames, Thomas, thyme, asthma, phthisis, and their compounds, is pronounced like t.”—­Ib.

XXI.  OF THE LETTER U.

The vowel U has three sounds which may be considered to be properly its own:—­

1.  The open, long, full, primal, or diphthongal u; as in tube, cubic, juvenile.

2.  The close, curt, short, or stopped u; as in tub, butter, justice, unhung.

3.  The middle u, resembling a short or quick oo; as in pull, pulpit, artful.

U forming a syllable by itself or U as naming itself is nearly equivalent in sound to you, and requires the article a, and not an, before it; as, a U, a union.

Copyrights
Project Gutenberg
The Grammar of English Grammars from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.