INTRODUCTION xi 



in another, would convey to a reader unversed in 

 synonymy the idea that two Gannets are found in 

 Iceland. 



Foreigners usually make fun of our linguistic abilities, 

 and not, I am afraid, without reason. Many of us seem 

 to consider ourselves entitled to be a law unto our- 

 selves in the matter of the pronunciation and spelling 

 of foreign names and words. All the same, it is just 

 as excruciating to hear an Englishman speaking of 

 ' Pdkkavik ' or ' Ryky vik,' as it would be to hear him 

 singing out of tune. Besides, there is no reason why a 

 visitor to Iceland should not master the general rules 

 of pronunciation on the passage out, so that there is no 

 absolute necessity for him to set everybody's teeth on 

 edge when he gets there. As to misspelling, nothing 

 can, I fear, excuse what was recently described as ' our 

 lordly disregard for foreign ideas of orthography.' 

 Herra Grondal is abundantly justified in ridiculing the 

 spelling of Icelandic proper names in a recent paper 

 in the Ihis, in which there appear to be over thirty 

 errors of the sort. But I do wish that the Eoyal 

 Geographical Society, when issuing their recent map 

 to illustrate Dr. Thoioddsen's paper (1899), had put in 

 the names in Icelandic, instead of Anglo-Dano-Icelandic. 

 As far as accuracy of surveying goes, this map is far in 

 front of any previous one of the district ; and for the 

 credit of British w^orkmanship, I am only sorry that 

 the nomenclature is not equal to the rest. 



Gunnlaugsson's map is still the only one with any 

 title to completeness, though it has obvious defects, 



