With that vowel sound one or
more consonants may be united; but the ways in which consonants may
combine with a vowel to form a syllable are limited. In general we
may place any consonant before and any consonant after the vowel in
the same syllable: but _y_ for instance, can be given a consonant
sound only at the beginning of a syllable, as in _yet_; at the end
of a syllable _y_ becomes a vowel sound, as in _they_ or _only_.
In the syllable _twelfths_ we find seven consonant sounds; but if
these same letters were arranged in almost any other way they could
not be pronounced as one syllable---as for instance _wtelthfs_.
A word consists of one or more syllables to which some definite
meaning is attached.
The difficulties of spelling and pronunciation arise largely from the
fact that in English twenty-six letters must do duty for some forty-two
sounds, and even then several of the letters are unnecessary, as for
instance _c,_ which has either the sound of _s_ or of _k_; _x,_ which
has the sound either of _ks, gs,_ or _z_; _q,_ which in the combination
_qu_ has the sound of _kw_. All the vowels represent from two to seven
sounds each, and some of the consonants interchange with each other.
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