_Rome_ is very frequently pronounced _Room_, and that by people of every class. The authors I have consulted give no light upon this word, except Perry, who directs to that pronunciation. The practice however, is by no means general in America: There are many good speakers who give _o_ its first sound. It seems very absurd to give _o_ its first sound in _Romish_, _Romans_, and pronounce it _oo_ in _Rome_, the radical word. I know of no language in Europe, in which _o_ has not one uniform sound, viz. the sound we give it in _rose_. It is perhaps the only vowel, in the sound of which all nations agree. In English it has other sounds; but the first is its proper one. A great proportion of people in America have restored the analogy of pronunciation in giving _o_ its first found in _Rome_; and a desire of uniformity would lead us to extend the practice.[56] In the pronunciation of _arch_ in many compound words, people are not uniform. The disputed words are _archangel_, _archetype_, _architecture_, _architrave_, _archives_. There seems to be no settled principle of analogy, by which the question can be determined. Etymology would require _ch_, in Greek and Hebrew derivatives, to have uniformly the sound of _k_; but before most consonants, such a pronunciation is harsh; for which reason it is generally softened into the English _ch_, as _archbishop_. But before vowels, as in the words just enumerated, the best practice has decided for the sound of _k_; and euphony, as well as derivation, favors the decision.[N] The sound of _ch_ in _chart_ is likewise disputed; and the standard authors are directly opposed to each other. There is as good foreign authority on one side as the other; but in America, _ch_ has generally its soft or English sound. This must perhaps be preferred, contrary to etymology; for we uniformly give _ch_ that sound in _charter_, which is from the same original; and this also distinguishes the word from _cart_; a reason which is not without its weight. There are many people who omit the aspirate in most words which begin with _wh_; as _white_, _whip_, &c. which they pronounce _wite_, _wip_. To such it is necessary only to observe, that in the pure English pronunciation, both in Great Britain and New England, for it is exactly the same in both, _h_ is not silent in a single word beginning with _wh_. In this point our standard authors differ; two of them aspirating the whole of these words, and three, marking _h_ in most of them as mute. But the omission of _h_ seems to be a foreign corruption; for in America, it is not known among the unmixed descendants of the English. Sheridan has here given the true English pronunciation. In this class of words, _w_ is silent in four only, with their derivatives; viz. _who_, _whole_, _whoop_, _whore_.