John Fox, a famous preacher of South Place Chapel,
London, whose voice was neither loud nor strong, was heard in every
part of Covent Garden Theatre, seating 3500, when he made
anti-corn-law orations, by the clearness with which he pronounced the
final consonants of the words he spoke.

One of the orators best known to readers is Edmund Burke, whose
speeches are studied as models of argumentative arrangement and style.
Yet in actual speech-making Burke was more or less a failure because
of the unfortunate method of his delivery. Many men markedly inferior
in capacity to Burke overcame disadvantageous accidents, but he was
frequently hurried and impetuous. Though his tones were naturally
sonorous, they were harsh; and he never divested his speech of a
strong Irish accent. Then, too, his gestures were clumsy. These facts
will explain to us who read and study leisurely these masterpieces
why they failed of their purpose when presented by their gifted but
ineffective author.

Pronunciation. Enunciation depends to a great degree upon
pronunciation. The pronunciation of a word is no fixed and
unchangeable thing. Every district of a land may have its peculiar
local sounds, every succeeding generation may vary the manner of
accenting a word. English people today pronounce _schedule_ with a
soft _ch_ sound. _Program_ has had its accent shifted from the last to
the first syllable. Many words have two regularly heard
pronunciations--_neither, advertisement, Elizabethan, rations,
oblique, route, quinine_, etc. Fashions come and go in pronunciation
as in all other human interests. Some sounds stamp themselves as
carelessnesses or perversions at once and are never admitted into
educated, cultured speech. Others thrive and have their day, only to
fade before some more widely accepted pronunciation. The first rule in
pronunciation is to consult a good dictionary. This will help in most
cases but not in all, for a dictionary merely records all accepted
sounds; only partly can it point out the better of disputed sounds by
placing it first. Secondly, speech is a living, growing, changing
thing. Dictionaries drop behind the times surprisingly rapidly. The
regularly accepted sound may have come into general use after the
dictionary was printed. New activities, unusual phases of life may
throw into general conversation thousands of unused, unheard words.
This was true of the recent Great War, when with little or no
preparation thousands o