Quotation from: Fifteen Thousand Useful Phrases

Written by: Grenville Kleiser


Foreigners sometimes reproach us for the asperity and discordance of our
speech, and in general, this reproach is just, for there are many persons
who do scanty justice to the vowel-elements of our language. Although
these elements constitute its music they are continually mistreated. We
flirt with and pirouette around them constantly. If it were not so,
English would be found full of beauty and harmony of sound. Familiar with
the maxim, "Take care of the vowels and the consonants will take care of
themselves,"--a maxim that when put into practise has frequently led to
the breaking-down of vowel values--the writer feels that the common custom
of allowing "the consonants to take care of themselves" is pernicious. It
leads to suppression or to imperfect utterance, and thus produces
indistinct articulation.

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