_Examination of controverted Points, continued._--_Of modern Corruptions in the English Pronunciation._ [Illustration] EXAMINATION _of_ CONTROVERTED POINTS, _continued_. [Illustration] In the preceding dissertation I have endeavored to settle a number of controverted points and local differences in pronunciation, on the most satisfactory principles hitherto discovered. I now proceed to some other differences of consequence to the language, and particularly in America. _Gold_ is differently pronounced by good speakers, and differently marked by the standard writers. Two of them give us _goold_, as the standard, and three, _gold_ or _goold_. But we may find better principles than the opinions or practice of individuals, to direct our judgement in this particular. The word indeed has the pronunciation, _goold_, in some of the collateral branches of the Teutonic, as in the Danish, where it is spelt _guld_. But in the Saxon, it was written _gold_, and has been uniformly written so in English. Besides, we have good reason to believe that it was, in early times, pronounced _gold_, with the first sound of _o_, for the poets invariably make it rhime with _old_, _behold_, and other words of similar sound. Thus in Chaucer: "With nayles yelwe, and bright as any _gold_, He hadde a bere's skin, cole blake for old." Knight's Tale, L. 2143. IN Pope: "Now Europe's laurels on their brows behold, But stain'd with blood, or ill exchang'd for _gold_." Essay on Man, Book 4. The rhime is here a presumptive proof that the poets pronounced this word with the first sound of _o_, and it is a substantial reason why that pronunciation should be preferred. But analogy is a still stronger reason; for bold, told, fold, and I presume every similar word in the language, has the first sound of _o_. These are good reasons why _gold_ should have that sound; reasons which are permanent, and superior to any private opinions. Similar reasons, and equally forceable, are opposed to the modern pronunciation of _wound_. I say _modern_; for in America _woond_ is a recent innovation. It was perhaps an ancient dialect; for the old Saxon and modern Danish orthography warrant this conjecture. But in English the spelling has uniformly corresponded with _bound_, _sound_, and if we may judge from the rhimes of our poets, the pronunciation has also been analogous. Thus in Skelton's Elegy on Henry, Earl of Northumberland, 1489, we have the following lines: "Most noble erle! O foul mysurd[61] ground Whereon he gat his finall deadly _wounde_." Rel. An. Eng. Poet. vol. 1. page 113. So in a song which seems to have been written in the reign of Henry VIII. "Where griping grefes the hart would _wounde_ And doleful dumps the mynde oppresse, There musicke with her silver sound, With speed is wont to send redresse." Ibm. page 165. Similar rhimes occur in almost every page of modern poetry.