436 Rev. F. D. Morice and Mr. J. H. Durrant's 



rule by putting two words together according to some 

 pre-existing canon of philologists, but by prefixing or 

 affixing to a stem one out of several possible modifications 

 of another stem, the choice of the particular modification 

 to be employed being guided, not by rules of grammarians, 

 but by the influence of some apparent analogy,* or by 

 a sense which made the speaker or writer choose in- 

 stinctively out of several possible combinations that 

 which first occurred to him, or which he felt to be most 

 euphonious. 



A few more examples may be given to illustrate the 

 gratuitous nature of many modern " emendations." Be- 

 cause the inflexion-stem of vfjjua (nema) " thread " is 

 v)]^iat- certain authors have thought it necessary to change 

 such names as " Nemo-phora " to " Nemato-phora," etc., 

 etc. But the stem of degjua (derma) " skin " is degjuar-, that 

 of aljua (haema) "blood" is alfiar-; — and yet ! — Aristotle 

 calls " bats " deg/xonxega, not deg/nazonrsga ! Sophocles 

 expresses " bathed in blood" by aljuo-ftcuprjg, and Aristotle 

 calls " blood sucking " insects al/uo-^oga, although either 

 writer — had he chosen to do so — might have preferred 

 the analogy of such forms as ai/j,aro-7td)tr]g " blood drink- 

 ing " (Aristophanes), aljuar-cbdiig " blood-red " (Thucy- 

 dides)— in fact, this last word, (as well as al/Ao-fiogog) is 

 employed by Aristotle on another occasion. 



If it is rash to dogmatise as to what is, and what is not, 

 possible in the formation of Greek compounds, it is almost 

 more so to lay down laws of this kind in dealing with 

 Compounds in Latin. Such Latin writers as use Com- 

 pounds freely— and the best Latin writers, except certain 

 poets, hardly form new Compounds at all ! — are either 

 mere imitators (at a distance) of Greek originals, or de- 

 liberately aim (like Plautus, etc.) at comic effects, or 

 write on technical subjects without any attempt at literary 

 style, so that it is impossible to found any reasonable 

 arguments on their practice as to what is a solecism, and 

 what a legitimate word-formation. Thus it has been 

 held that pallidipes, leucomelaena, etc., etc., are " right " 

 and " pallipes," " leucomelana," etc., wrong. But it may 



* This is the case in all languages and at all times. A recent 

 newspaper-article used the word " Villa-dom " to express " a 

 region of villas." And this was not produced by compounding 

 " Villa " with " dom," but by imitating the analogy of such words 

 as Kingdom, Christendom, etc. 



