COMPARATIVE ETYMOLOGY. 
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verted in popular speech to another of totally different meaning, 
or to one which has no meaning at all. 
IV. Idem sonans. Here words totally different in derivation 
come at last to be identical in form and sound. Necessity of dis- 
tinguishing between eye and ear in etymological research. Mistakes 
made, not only by uneducated persons, but also by well instructed 
and popular authors. 
V. Description. Generally speaking, perhaps universally, the 
appellations of animals and natural objects are given from some 
accident of cry, form, colour, &c. This peculiarity observable in 
Hesiod and the old Greek didactic poetry. 
VI. Modification. This principle, so familiar in German, and 
there called umlant, about sound, and in that language denoted by 
a particular mark, is observable also in English. The broad vowels, 
a, o, u, subject to this phenomenon. 
VII. Elevation and depression. This is where words of origi- 
nally high and serious derivation deteriorate, and come to be applied 
to common and low meanings; or, contrariwise, those of a low 
origin are raised to high dignity. In some instances a word will 
suffer both elevation and depression, as, e.g., treacle. 
VIII. Miscellanea. The Lecturer concluded with one or two 
miscellaneous remarks with respect to the decline of languages. 
Abundance of diminutive forms in use in the low or popular Latin ; 
thence passing into the modern French. The loss of inflexion a 
common sign of an ancient language passing into a modern one. 
Peculiar use in some English dialects of the nominative of the 
personal pronouns instead of the objective. 
