Pronouncing medical lexicon : containing the correct pronounciation and definition of terms used in medicine and the collateral sciences, with addenda and list of poisons and their antedotes / by C.H. Cleaveland.

  • Cleaveland, C. H. (Charles Harley), 1817-1863.
Date:
1872
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Pronouncing medical lexicon : containing the correct pronounciation and definition of terms used in medicine and the collateral sciences, with addenda and list of poisons and their antedotes / by C.H. Cleaveland. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    EXPLANATION OF THE PHONETIC ALPHABET. All who have thought of the matter are aware that there is very little analogy between the spell- ing of words and their pronunciation, especially in the English language; the result of which is, that no one can tell the spelling of an unfamiliar word from hearing it pronounced, or pronounce such a word from seeing its spelling; hence the necessity for Pronouncing Dictionaries, and the almost cease- less drilling of children in the difficult task of read- ing and spelling correctly. This want of consistency between orthography and pronunciation is the result of using an imper- fect alphabet, containing but twenty-six letters for the representation of forty-three elementary sounds. By the rejection of three redundant letters, (c, q, a?,) and the addition of twenty new ones, and restricting the use of each of the forty-three to the represen- tation of a single sound, a simple and philosophical orthography is established, which makes spelling and pronunciation synonimous, and the art of read- ing very simple and easily acquired. (For inform- ation in regard to the use of this improved alphabet in teaching children and foreigners to read the com- mon English orthography, address the publishers of this work.) The Alphabet thus perfected affords, of course, the simplest means of representing pronunciation, and it is now employed for that purpose by various publishers. The use of figures, or diacritical marks, to indicate the ever-varying sounds of the vowels, has always proved perplexing, and driven students from the critical study of pronunciation. By a lit- tle observation of the alphabet on the following page, learning the sounds of the letters from the key-words, the pronunciation of the most strange and difficult terms in the Lexicon is made as man- ifest and easy as the most simple.