22 Scientific Proceedings, Royal Dublin Society. 



accentuation of the three words are alike. They should therefore be 

 pronounced in the same way in English ; both on this account, and 

 still more in order not to infringe an almost universal rule that when 

 the first syllable of an English dissyllable ends in i, the i is to be pro- 

 nounced as it is in biped, cider, dial, final, giant, &c. To justify the 

 pronunciation of the word litre which is now prevalent, it would need 

 to be spelled lietre or leetre ; and, as its etymology forbids this, it is 

 the pronunciation which should be corrected. 



Again, in x^ 1 "? an ^ all its Greek derivatives, the t of the first 

 syllable is long. It is advisable therefore to pronounce the i long in 

 its English derivatives, to avoid introducing a needless anomaly into 

 our language. This concerns the words kilem or kilometre, kilo or 

 kilogram, kilolite or kilolitre, and kilowatt ; in all of which the i 

 should be pronounced as it is in microscope, nitrogen, &c. 



Euphony (which is really ease of pronunciation) in no degree 

 requires us to keep up the practice of frenchifying the terms litre, 

 kilometre, &c, especially in the objectionable form of pronouncing the 

 first syllable as French and the other syllable or syllables as English. 

 The practice has lost whatever semblance of appropriateness it may 

 have had while Metric Weights and Measures were exclusively 

 foreign. But in other cases euphony does justify a deviation from what 

 would otherwise be required for etymological correctness, as when hekto 

 is employed in the metric nomenclature as the prefix to signify a 

 hundred. Hekato would be awkward in such words as hektogram, 

 hektolitre, &c. So, again, kilo is excusable instead of kilio as the 

 prefix for a thousand ; and perhaps the spelling — k instead of ch — as 

 being on the whole more convenient. 



Are, the metric unit of land surface, and the group of letters a-r-e 

 in the words hektare and dekare, should in English be pronounced as 

 in the words declare, dare, &c. 



Note 3. 



On Alternative Names. 



Shorter names for some of the metric measures will inevitably 

 arise among English-speaking people who use those measures. It is 

 therefore advisable that they be contrived with care, so as to secure : — 



1. That they shall embody in briefer form the whole of the mean- 

 ing conveyed by the longer names ; 



