PITFALLS OF THE VOCABULIST. 53 
identify the manual in use, Appleton’s Spanish dictionary of 1872, 
Seoane’s Neuman and Barretti by Velazquez. In adjusting this mate- 
rial to the growing vocabulary the clerk has followed consistently an 
easily identifiable method. In all cases where Seoane renders a Spanish 
_word by two English words the clerk has used the former. ‘The result 
is odd, but easily corrigible when we hold his manual. Of this class of 
error I cite the definition of gocstp through Spanish falca by the former 
of Seoane’s renderings ““washboard;’’ of course the washboard is yet a 
distant culture plane above the laundry requirements of these savages, 
and apart from this a priort reasoning the Visayan homologue szpsip 
enables us to discover, with the assistance of Fray Juan Félix, that the 
object is really a wedge. 
In this stage of the text appears yet another perturbation factor, 
the errors of the typewriter. Here a revising hand has made with the 
pen such corrections as seemed necessary. I instance the definition of 
meaon through Visayan mayahon and Spanish enano “‘dwarfish’’ by the 
typed word Awarfish; here the corrector, recognizing that there was no 
such word, has drawn his pen to part the initial A from warfish and has 
added the explicative note “fighting fish.’”” It was no more than a slip 
of the finger, the a key was hit when reaching for p. 
I have corrected all such errors as the use of the method of com- 
parative study has shown me. I can not feel sure that I have cleared 
the text of all error, that would be too much to expect; but I have per- 
formed the task of emendation with the utmost sympathy, for I have 
had abundant experience of the difficulty which attends the student of 
a new-found speech. 
