or long? I think
one may already trace a reaction against the universal throwing backward
of the accent. I myself say "per-emptory" and "ex-emplary;" but it would
take very little encouragement to make me say "peremp-tory" and
"exemp-lary," which seem to me much more expressive words. There is
surely no doubt that, in accenting a prefix rather than the root of the
word, we lose a certain amount of force. "Con-template," for instance,
is not nearly so strong a word as "contemp-late." We say an
"il-lustrated" book or the "_Il-lustrated London News_" because we do
not require any particular force in the epithet; but when the sense
demands a word with colour and emotion in it, we say the "illus-trious"
statesman, the "illus-trious" poet, throwing into relief the essential
element in the word, the "lustre." What a paltry word would
"tri-umphant" be in comparison with "trium-phant!" But the larger our
list of examples, the more capricious does our accentuation seem, the
more evidently subject to mere accidents of fashion. There is scarcely a
trace of consistent or rational principle in the matter. To make a merit
of one practice, and find in the other a subject for contemptuous
criticism, is simply childish.

Mere slovenliness of pronunciation is a totally different matter. For
instance, the use of "most" for "almost" is distinctly, if not a
vulgarism, at least a colloquialism. It may be of ancient origin; it may
have crossed in the _Mayflower_ for aught I know; but the overwhelming
preponderance of ancient and modern usage is certainly in favour of
prefixing the "al," and there is a clear advantage in having a special
word for this special idea. If American writers tried to make "most"
supplant "almost" in the literary language, we should have a right to
remonstrate; the two forms would fight it out, and the fittest would
survive. But as a matter of fact I am not aware that any one has
attempted to introduce "most," in this sense, into literature. It is
perfectly recognised as a colloquialism, and as such it keeps its place.
Again, such pronunciations as "mebbe" for "maybe" and "I'd ruther" or "I
druther" for "I'd rather" are obvious slovenlinesses. No American would
defend them as being correct, any more than an Englishman would defend
"I dunno" for "I don't know" or "atome" for "at home." If an actor, for
instance, were to say,

"I druther be a dog and bay the moon
Than such a Roman,"

American and English critics