English pronunciation stresses the second syllable. /Paresis/ illustrates the same tendency. The English accent the first syllable, but, as Krapp says, American usage clings to the [Pg170] accent on the second syllable.[79] There are, again, /pianist/, /primarily/ and /telegrapher/. The English accent the first syllable of each; we commonly accent the second. In /temporarily/ they also accent the first; we accent the third. Various other examples might be cited. But when one had marshalled them their significance would be at once set at naught by four very familiar words, /mamma/, /papa/, /inquiry/ and /ally/. Americans almost invariably accent each on the first syllable; Englishmen stress the second. For months, during 1918, the publishers of the Standard Dictionary, advertising that work in the street-cars, explained that /ally/ should be accented on the second syllable, and pointed out that owners of their dictionary were safeguarded against the vulgarism of accenting it on the first. Nevertheless, this free and highly public instruction did not suffice to exterminate /al´ly/. I made note of the pronunciations overheard, with the word constantly on all lips. But one man of my acquaintance regularly accented the second syllable, and he was an eminent scholar, professionally devoted to the study of language. Thus it is unsafe, here as elsewhere, to generalize too facilely, and particularly unsafe to exhibit causes with too much assurance. "Man frage nicht warum," says Philipp Karl Buttmann. "Der Sprachgebrauch lässt sich nur beobachten."[80] But the greater distinctness of American utterance, whatever its genesis and machinery, is palpable enough in many familiar situations. "The typical American accent," says Vizetelly, "is often harsh and unmusical, but it sounds all of the letters to be sounded, and slurs, but does not distort, the rest."[81] An American, for example, almost always sounds the first /l/ in /fulfill/; an Englishman makes the first syllable /foo/. An American sounds every syllable in /extraordinary/, /literary/, /military/, /secretary/ and the other words of the /-ary/-group; an Englishman never pronounces the /a/ of the penultimate syllable. /Kindness/, with the /d/ silent, would attract notice in the United States; in England, according to [Pg171] Jones,[82] the /d/ is "very commonly, if not usually" omitted. /Often/, in America, commonly retains a full /t/; in England it is actually and officially /offen/. Let an American and an Englishman pronounce /program/ (/me/). Though the Englishman retains the long form of the last syllable in writing, he reduces it in speaking to a thick triple consonant, /grm/; the American enunciates it clearly, rhyming it with /damn/. Or try the two with any word ending in /-g/, say /sporting/ or /ripping/. Or with any word having /r/ before a consonant, say /card/, /harbor/, /lord/ or /preferred/. "The majority of Englishmen," says Menner, "certainly do