Learning condemns beyond the reach of hope
    The careless lips that speak of s[)o]ap for s[=o]ap;
    Her edict exiles from her fair abode
    The clownish voice that utters r[)o]ad for r[=o]ad;
    Less stern to him who calls his c[=o]at, a c[)o]at
    And steers his b[=o]at believing it a b[)o]at. 
    She pardoned one, our classic city’s boast. 
    Who said at Cambridge, m[)o]st instead of m[=o]st,
    But knit her brows and stamped her angry foot
    To hear a Teacher call a r[=oo]t a r[)oo]t.

The foregoing examples 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’-viteinstead 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.