ON ERRATA RECEPTA. 149 



considered perhaps too manifest to require remark. There is a ten- 

 dency of late years — natural enough — to convert into plain English, 

 the Academic titles, which were once supposed to adhere for life only 

 in Latin, having been conferred in that learned dialect. Hence, we 

 have now M.A., B.A., the English forms of A.M., A.B.— D.M. for 

 M.D., has not yet appeared. Why not ? 



Divinity for Theology, (as Divinitas for Theologia) is an English 

 solecism without any continental or classical authority. Hence have 

 arisen our D.D. and B.D., as representing the Academic designa-' 

 tions, common to all the old historic Universities, S.T.P., S.T.B. 

 {Sacrae Theologiae Professor Baccalaureus.) 



The three initial R's are notorious : the four P's are not so well 

 known. In John Heywood's drama (temp. Hen. VIII.) so entitled 

 ("The Four P's") they seriously denote Palmer, Pardoner, Potticary, 

 and Pedlar. 



The y in the humorously-revived Pepysian "ye " for " the," is no 

 y, but the Anglo-Saxon character for th. This make-shift for a dis- 

 used letter appears passim in the early, printed books, and old copies 

 of the English Bible. It is admitted in the modern Polyglots of 

 Bagster for the purpose of gaining space, so as to make the matter in 

 the pages of the several versions respectively correspond. Yr, jt, jm, 

 &c., are also common contractions of their, that, them, &c. ; the e, r, 

 t, &c., ought to be placed over the y. 



2. "We come now (secondly) to abbreviations, I mean abridged 

 words, as errata recepta. 



"We all know how unallowable the abbreviation of words is, in letters 

 and finished compositions, although in references, foot-notes, indices, 

 business-reports, medical prescriptions, and a few other similar memo- 

 randa, the practice for convenience sake is permitted. 



There is a tendency, in some degree, to employ these abridgments 

 as complete words. We hear of consols. In the familiar language of 

 Algebraists and Geometricans such abbreviations are not uncommon. 

 Among booksellers we hear such barbarisms as 12mo's, 32mo's. 

 Lawyers will tell you oi fi, fa.''s. Musicians speak of sol-fa-ing.^ 



* Guido Aretino (A.D. 1020) observed, that in a certain qhant for a hymn in honour of 

 John the Baptist, the voice ascended in regular gradation upon the first syllable of each 

 half line. To represent the sounds at these points, he adopted the first syllables of the 

 half-lines in the following stanza : 



TJt queant laxis resonare fibris Mirz, gestorum/amuli tuorum SoUe: poUuti laWx reatum,] 



Sancte Johanues ! 

 For ut, do was afterwards substituted ; and si was added. 



