PEGGE’S ANECDOTES OF THE ENGLISH LANCUACE. 
bably a contraction of the earlier form 
of the preposition now written on. It 
ought not to be confounded with the 
verbal augment a, which is of French 
origin, and which serves to transmute 
nouns into verbs, as from base to abase, 
from certain to ascertain, &c.; or with the 
participial augment a, which is of gothic 
origin, and which serves to form the 
participle present of the neuter, or mid- 
dle voice. The hay is amaking. 
«« Thou, now adying, sayst thou flatt'rst me.” 
To go abunting. But the active partici- 
ple will not receive this augment: they 
are Aunting the hare. 
P. 177. The participial augment y 
is called an excrescence, a redundance, 
in ybuilt, .ybrought, yloved. Where the 
participle is not distinguished by its ter- 
mination from the preterite, it is surely 
‘some object to distinguish it by a prefix. 
The most convenient form which our 
verbs can assume, is to form the pre- 
terite in ed, and the participle in en: 
show, showed, showa; owe, owed, owen; 
cast, casted, casten; wherever usage of- 
fers the choice, it is desirable to em- 
ploy the mixture of both conjugations. 
P. 181, Self isa substantive, signify- 
ing soul. It ought to be united with the 
possessive, not with the personal pro- 
noun. His self, her self, their selves, (as 
Sir William Jones has observed), are 
purer expressions than the received ones. 
Our author, instead of attending to this 
fact, proposes to adopt the hisself of the 
Londoners in the nominative case only, 
and to continue employing in the accu- 
sativethe barbarism himself. 
P. 228. ‘Lhe participle went is from 
the verb to wend, which means ¢o fara, 
and is scarcely obsolete. Itis not a pro- 
per substitute for the past tense of 
to go, in such phrases as J went strait 
forwards. Why not resume J goed, or J 
gang ? 
P. 249. Mr. Pegge very properly 
censures Johnson’s dictionary, of which 
only the preface is well executed; but 
his criticism is too vague to be instruc- 
tive. The late Dr. Geddes had, it is 
said, an interleaved copy of Johnson’s 
dictionary, in which he hsd inserted 
many words occurring in oriental books 
of travels, with proper definitions and 
vouchers. It is much to be wished that 
_ this, andall similar supplements to Jobn- 
son’s dictionary, were published; the 
smaller collections of words in maga- 
zines, and the larger in distinct volumes. 
Without such contributions from differ- 
633 
tnt quarters, a complete English dic- 
ionary will hardly be achieved. 
P,259. The syllables er, ist, ism, and 
ize pass in review. Our author asks 
why we do not say a dookist, a haitist, a 
stationist, as well as a druggist, a tobacconist, 
an organist? ‘The syllable er is originally 
Saxon, connected with the word herr, 
master, and with the pronoun er, he, 
and is used in all the gothic dialects to 
form personal substantives masculine 
from verbs. So bake, baker; drum, drum- 
mer; fish, fisher. ‘This sylable, closely 
resembling the Latin or and the French 
eur, has been frequently substituted to 
those syllables in words of French and 
Latin origin. So siationer, trumpeter, go- 
verner, translater; although the two last 
words are sometimes written with or. 
The syllable ist is of Greek origin : it 
seems connected with the root to stand, 
and signifies a stander. It is fitly used 
to inflect words of Greek derivation: 
Kihzen, Kidapiorns 5 organ, organist; Plato, 
platonist ; analyze, anajist ; sophist, theorist, 
methodist, monarchist. From an affecta- 
tion of learning, probably, some authors 
have called themselves tourists, some 
apoticaries druggists, and a subsequent 
subdivision of this trade, ftobacconists = 
these are .all hybrid words, The for- 
mative syllable ism being of Greek ori+ 
gin, is not frequently combined with 
words of any other derivation: Platonism, 
sophism, methodism, catholicism, theism; ex- 
cept that in the schools of philosophy all 
opinions are classed in isms, and all sec- 
tators in ists, Materialism, puritanism, 
libertinism, jesuitism, jacobinism, pro- 
testantism, republicanism ; materialist, 
spiritualist, idealist, Calvinist, philoso- 
phist, dogmatist, revolutionist, &c. se- 
veral of which words are hybrid, or 
made up of different languages. ‘I'he 
syllable ize is originally Greek : to the- 
orize, to philosophize, to cauterize; but it 
is used very familiarly both in the French 
and English writers of late date, to form - 
adjectives into yerbs. So human, hu- 
mauize; provincial, provincialixe ; volatile, 
volatilize, (and not volatize, as Mr. Burke 
writes) ; familiar, familiarize. There is 
an unwillingness to annex this syllable 
to all words of northern derivation, and 
to those adjectives of southern deriva- 
tion, which do not terminate in liquids. 
P. 267.. Minshew is probably right 
_inthe derivation of Aaberdasher ; it was 
a nick-name given to the German jews, 
from their offering petty wares with the 
phrase hab er dass, herr,mebuy you this, Sir. 
Mr. Perge is probably right in deducing 
