ut in wed, dew; the two sounds of w have no
resemblance to each other.

Z.

Z begins no word originally English; it has the sound, as its name izzard
or s hard expresses, of an s uttered with a closer compression of the
palate by the tongue, as freeze, froze.

In orthography I have supposed orthoepy, or just utterance of words, to
be included; orthography being only the art of expressing certain
sounds by proper characters. I have therefore observed in what words
any of the letters are mute.

Most of the writers of English grammar have given long tables of words
pronounced otherwise than they are written, and seem not sufficiently
to have considered, that of English, as of all living tongues, there is
a double pronunciation, one cursory and colloquial, the other regular
and solemn. The cursory pronunciation is always vague and uncertain,
being made different in different mouths by negligence, unskilfulness,
or affectation. The solemn pronunciation, though by no means immutable
and permanent, is yet always less remote from the orthography, and less
liable to capricious innovation. They have however generally formed
their tables according to the cursory speech of those with whom they
happened to converse; and concluding that the whole nation combines to
vitiate language in one manner, have often established the jargon of
the lowest of the people as the model of speech.

For pronunciation the best general rule is, to consider those as the
most elegant speakers who deviate least from the written words.

There have been many schemes offered for the emendation and settlement
of our orthography, which, like that of other nations, being formed by
chance, or according to the fancy of the earliest writers in rude ages,
was at first very various and uncertain, and is yet sufficiently
irregular. Of these reformers some have endeavoured to accommodate
orthography better to the pronunciation, without considering that this
is to measure by a shadow, to take that for a model or standard which
is changing while they apply it. Others, less absurdly indeed, but with
equal unlikelihood of success, have endeavoured to proportion the
number of letters to that of sounds, that every sound may have its own
character, and every character a single sound. Such would be the
orthography of a new language, to be formed