Page:A Dictionary of the English language- Volume I.djvu/11

 At the end of a word it is always hard, ring, snug, song, frog.

Before e and i the sound is uncertain.

G before e is soft, as gem, generation, except in gear, geld, geese, get, gewgaw, and derivatives from words ending in g, as singing, stronger, and generally before er at the end of words, as finger.

G is mute before n, as gnash, sign, foreign.

G before i is hard, as give, except in giant, gigantick, gibbet, gibe, giblets, giles, gill, gilliflower, gin, ginger, gingle, gipsy.

Gh in the beginning of a word has the found of the hard g, as ghostly; in the middle, and sometimes at the end, it is quite silent, as though, right, sought, spoken tho' rite, soute.

It has often at the end the sound of f, as laugh; whence laughter retains the same sound in the middle; cough, trough, sough, tough, enough, slough.

It is not to be doubted, but that in the original pronunciation gh had the force of a consonant, deeply guttural, which is still continued among the Scotch.

G is used before h, l, and r.

H is note of aspiration, and shows that the following vowel must be pronounced with a strong emission of the breath, as hat, horse. It seldom, perhaps never, begins any but the first syllable, in which it is always sounded with a full breath, except in heir, herb, hostler, honour, humble, honest, humour, and their derivatives.

J confonant founds uniformly like the soft g, and is therefore a letter useless, except in etymology, as ejaculation, jester, jocund, juice.

K has the found of hard c, and is used before e and i, where, according to English analogy, c would be soft, as kept, king, skirt, skeptick, for so it should be written, not sceptick.

It is used before r, as knell, knot, but totally loses its found.

K is never doubled; but c is used before it to shorten the vowel by at double consonant, as cǒckle, pǐckle.

L has in English the same liquid sound as in other languages.

The custom is to double the l at the end of monosyllables, as kill, will, full. These words were originally written kille, wille, fulle; and when the e first grew silent, and was afterwards omitted, the ll was retained, to give force, according to the analogy of our language, to the foregoing vowel.

L is sometimes mute, as in calf, half, halves, calves, could, would, should, psalm, talk, salmon, falcon.

The Saxons, who delighted in guttural sounds, sometimes aspirated the l at the beginning of words, as hlaf, a loaf, or bread hlaford, a lord; but this pronunciation is now disused.

Le at the end of words is pronounced like a weak el, in which, the e is almost mute, as table, shuttle.

M has always the same sound, as murmur, monumental.

N has always the same sound, as noble, manners.

N is sometimes mute after m, as damn, condemn, hymn.

P has always the same sound, which the Welsh and Germans confound with B. P is