Oi-^ [Aprils, 



borrowed au A from a supposed Greek original, like rhythm, and gave us 

 rJiyme. The I has been inserted in coude, to make it like should and would 

 for which there is a reasonable use of the I. Milton's sovran (Latin su- 

 peranus) was supposed to have to do with reigning, and was so transformed 

 to indicate it, by writing sovereign. 



Says March : " Accurse, earlier acurse, from Anglo-Saxon a- intensive, 

 and curse, simulates by its unfonetic double consonant a Latin origin and 

 the prefix ad- ; many words are like it : affair, French a-faire, i.e., ado; 

 aff'ord, a-forth ; affright, from a-fyrhtan ; affray, past participle correctly 

 afraid; annoy, earlier anoi. Old French anoi, from Latin inodio, and so 

 on through the prefixes ; aZ/ef/ro is transformed from Latin alacrum; hurri- 

 cane, French ouragan, Spanish huracan, a word from one of the languages 

 of the aborigines of America, doubles its r to persuade etymologists that 

 it hurries the canes. The double consonants, never correct for pronuncia- 

 tion, are a nest of etymological blunders, and the digraf vowels are as 

 b;ul. Somewhat difi'erent from these sheer blunders are those words in 

 which their unfonetic spelling points to some remote derivation, but yet 

 disguises the history of the words. To follow up the double consonants, 

 a very large part of the apparent compounds of Latin prefixes suggest a 

 mistake. The words are not really Latin compounds, but French, Many 

 with ad-, for example, were made in French with the French a, and in 

 French and Early English are so spelt. The double consonant is a 

 modern insertion, which falsifies the sound and the history to give the 

 remote school-Latin. Such are accompany, Old French acompaignier, 

 compounded of a and compaignicr, to which there is no school-Latin 

 word corresponding ; Early English acoint, Latin cognitus, disguised now 

 in the form acquaint; acomplice ; acomplish ; address, earlier adress, 

 French adrcsser ; afirm ; afix ; afront ; agrieve ; alegeance ; alie. Old 

 French alier, alley; apease, French a pais ; apraise, a preis ; arears ; 

 asuage ; aturneye, attorney, etc. These examples, taken from the begin- 

 ning of the alfabet, may well make the stickler for historical spelling look 

 twice at a double consonant whenever he sees it. 



"There are many words which have letters in them which contribute 

 nothing towards ancient history, and falsify the present. Words ending 

 in silent e after a short syllable are examples. This e tells no history, it 

 is prevailingly an orthografic expedient to denote that the vowel before it 

 is long ; it lengthens fat \n\.o fate, hit into hite, fin into fine, not into note, 

 and the like. Whenever it follows a short vowel, therefore, it is false as 

 well as wasteful : genuin is standard English pronunciation, genuine is a 

 vulgar corruption ; 7mv spells the word intended, have should rime with 

 gave, slave, knave, rave, etc. We ought to write imbecil, medicin, treatis, 

 favorit, hypocrit, infinit, definit, indicativ, suhjunctiv, and the like. Several 

 hundred words belong to this class, in great part learned terms from 

 Greek or Latin, and common to many languages. To scholars they look 

 more natural and scholarly, as the Germans and most of the Europeans 

 write them, without the final e. This is one of the amendments which 



