Book Description

Excerpt from A Critical Pronouncing Dictionary: And Expositor of the English Language That a polite pronunciation is an essential part of a genteel and liberal education, is incontestable; and whoever smooths the way to an acquirement so desirable and important, does a real service to society. This subject has employed the pens of may learned and ingenious men, who laboured with various degrees of skill and success: The rules they laid down, and the analogies they pointed out, had reduced English pronunciation to something like system. The late Mr. Walker, author of this Dictionary, exerted himself more earnestly and perseveringly than perhaps any of his predecessors: he compared the different orthoepists with indefatigable attention, weighed their reasons with critical justice, and modestly pronounced his decisions with a confidence which a lifetime's familiarity with the subject entitled him to assume. Mr. Walker's Pronouncing Dictionary, and the Principles prefixed to it, are master-pieces of their kind, and seem to have fixed English pronunciation, which had long been fluctuating and unsettled. This opinion plainly appears to be that of the Public, the work having gone through four large editions in the course of a few years. The Author not only improved each new edition with respect to orthoepy, but added a considerable number of words not found in any of our Dictionaries, as well as some of his own forming, that were evidently both proper and useful. This work, after so many degrees of improvement, was thought worthy of being Stereotyped, in order to give stability and permanence to the pronunciation of a language now spoken in most parts of the known world. Having been many years intimately acquainted with the author, and greatly profited by the many personal communications we had together, as well as by a careful study of his works, by which, it is presumed, I had acquired a competent knowledge of his principles in regard to accentuation, quantity and notation, Mr. Walker did me the honour, a considerable time before his decease, of recommending me as a fit person to edit this Stereotype edition. To the utmost of my power I have justified the confidence that my worthy friend reposed in me, having sedulously examined and revised every page of this arduous and important work, with no less zeal for the honour of the author the anxiety for my own responsibility. To effect that correctness so necessary and desirable, my coadjutors, Mr. Wilson and his assistants, have paid unremitting attention, and cooperated with me entirely to wish. It is therefore presumed that the Public will find this edition possessed of an uncommon degree of typographical exactness. This most important advantage will be perpetuated, by means of the Stereotype; for it is an admirable feature of this modern improvement in the art of printing, that the labours of learned and ingenious men will be thereby protected from the accumulation of errors inseparable from moveable types. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.