162 Wisco7isin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. 



know how to squeal so well as they did. However this may be^ 

 any one of us to-day, thanks to the Concordance of Mrs. Clarke, 

 and the Lexicon of Alexander Schmidt, may know much con- 

 cerning Shakspere's use of language which Shakspere himself 

 could not have known. One particular as to which he must have 

 been ignorant, while we may have knowledge, is regarding his em- 

 ployment of ^'Ana^ Xeyo^eva. 



The phrase '^Ako^ Xeyontva, literally "once spoken," may be 

 traced back to the Alexandrine glossographers centuries before- 

 our era, who invented it to describe those words which they ob- 

 served to occur once, and only once, in any author or literature. 

 It is so convenient an expression for statistical commentators on 

 the Bible, and on the classics as well, that they will not willingly 

 let it die. The synonomous phrase "A-niaq elprjiiiva is also a favor- 

 ite with some G-ermans, but if we accent it according to its Grreek 

 accents, it is hard to pronounce, and I accordingly eschew it. So 

 does Autenrieth in his Homeric dictionary. 



Style is modified by the presencj of such words — a moment 

 bright, then gone forever. Gr^ek critics were early sensitive ta 

 this subtle influence on style and therefore catalogued tho=e 

 words which produced it. 



The list of ''Ako^ Izjop-zva, — or words used once, and only once, 

 in Shakspere, is surprisingly large. Those words ara more than 

 any man can easily number. Nevertheless I have counted those 

 beginning with two letters. The result is that the " A-aq Izyba^va. 

 with initial A are 364:, and those with initial M are 810. 



I have no reason to suppose the census with these initials to be 

 proportionally greater than that with other letters. If it is not^ 

 then the Shaksperian words occurring only once cannot be fewer 

 than 5,000, and they are probably a still greater legion. 



The number I have culled from 146 pages of Schmidt is 674. 

 At this rate the total on the 1,409 pages of the entire lexicon 

 would foot up 6,504. It is possible then that Shakspere discarded, 

 after once trying them, more different words than fill and enrich 

 the whole English Bible. The old grammarians said their term 

 supine was so named because it was very seldom emploj^ed, and 

 therefore was almost always hnng on its lack. The supines of 

 Shakspere outnumbered the employes of most authors. 



