ABOUT PKUITS, FLO WEBS AND FAEMINO. 23 



AN ACRE OF WORDS ABOUT AKER. 



Our spelling acre according to Webster's former method* 

 — alcer^ has attracted no little attention, in a small way, both 

 far and near. It is very difficult to fix on any rule for any- 

 thing in our language. Etymology is chiefly useful in 

 settling the primitive signification, and is, or ought to be, 

 scarcely at all authoritative in orthography. Where two 

 languages are very different, it is absurd to attempt the 

 forms of the one in the other. In respect to idiorn^ no one 

 dreams of transferring it from one to another. Oftentimes 

 it is equally absurd to transfer mere literation, as in the 

 Greek-blooded word Phthisic for Tisic, or as Walker would 

 have spelled it, PhthisicA; .' Who rebels because demesne^ 

 as it is written in our best authors until within a little time, 

 is now spelled domain f We see no reason why Anglicized 

 words should, against all our notions of sound, retain a 

 cumbrous foreign spelling. Words adopted into a lan- 

 guage by the car^ which are spoken before they are 

 written, generally conform, on bemg written, to our modes 

 of spoiling. But words introduced first by the eye, as they 

 are written, for a long time wear the original spelling. 

 Thus some foreign words are spelled by one method, and 

 some by another. 



Custom is usually regarded as determinate, in the matter 

 of spelling, pronunciation, idiom, purity, etc. But, in 

 respect to spelling, custom is not long the same. If one 

 will examine our literature from the time of Henry VIII., he 

 will find a constant succession of changes in spelling, both 

 for good and for bad. Zhas been generally substituted for 

 Y^ as in Lykicyse^ accordynge^ beyng, certayne. Sir 

 Thomas More wrote hym^ thynges, desyer, myndes. Skel- 

 ton, the Poet Laureat, has centencyously, dyd, advysynge 

 hyll^ etc., etc. 



* Two-Tolome edition, imperial octaro. 



