Word: sound
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Dates: during 1890-1899
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...English speaking person of today most when studying French are the peculiar vowels, such as u, eu and mute e, and the nasal vowels an, en, in, on and un. These difficulties are not found to so great an extent in the French of the eleventh century. The u sound did exist then and seemed to offer certain difficulties to the Englishman of the day. But the eu, as in coleur, apparently did not exist. In its place, however, are found two other sounds, one something like o, and the other a dipthongal sound not unlike the first two letters...
Beside the open and closed sound of e, as in modern French, there was still a third sound in old French, about which we can only theorize. It may have been like one of the other two except in length...
...apparent diphthongs in modern French, ai, ei, eu, ou and au, were pronounced separately in old Frence. Exception must be made in this case to au, for it does not appear in old writings, although it may have existed in speech. The sound oi, which seems so eminently English, is in reality of old French origin...
There were certain peculiarities in old French that the modern tongue does not possess, which brought the language nearer the English. The sound, as in thin, is an example. When we say faith we are reproducing almost exactly the old French word...
...professional opinion that seven of the eleven men were unfit to engage in a game. The committee therefore decided that it would be unjust to the other members of the team to announce who the out-of-trim men were. If a team was made up with the four sound men included, that would virtually be telling who the others were, and to make up a team composed entirely of substitutes would be unjust to the Boston men and to the regular 'varsity team. The secretary of the B. A. A. was in conference with the faculty committee on Monday...