Dissertations on the English Language, with Notes, Historical and Critical; / to Which is Added, by Way of Appendix, an Essay on a Reformed Mode of Spelling, With Dr. Franklin's Arguments on that Subject

by Noah Webster

[61] Misused.

[62] Kenrick, who was not guided solely by the fashion of the day, but paid some regard to the regular construction of the language.

[63] Sheridan has repeated with approbation, a celebrated saying of Dean Swift, who was a stickler for analogy, in pronouncing wind like mind, bind, with the first sound of i. The Dean's argument was, "I have a great mi²nd to fi²nd why you pronounce that word wi²nd." I would beg leave to ask this gentleman, who directs us to say woond, if any good reason can be foond why he soonds that word woond; and whether he expects a rational people, will be boond to follow the roond of court improprieties? We acknowlege that wi²nd is a deviation from analogy and a corruption; but who pronounces it otherwise? Practice was almost wholly against Swift, and in America at least, it is as generally in favor of the analogy of wound. A partial or local practice, may be brought to support analogy, but should be no authority in destroying it.

[64] Government, management, retain also the accent of their primitives; and the nouns testament, compliment, &c. form another analogy.

[65] It is regretted that the adjectives, indissoluble, irreparable were derived immediately from the Latin, indissolubilis, irreparabilis, and not from the English verbs, dissolve, repair. Yet dissolvable, indissolvable, repairable and irrepairable, are better words than indissoluble, reparable, irreparable. They not only preserve the analogy, but they are more purely English words; and I have been witness to a circumstance which alone ought to determine their excellence and give them currency: People of ordinary education have found difficulty in understanding such derivatives as irreparable, indissoluble; but the moment the words irrepairable, indissolveable are pronounced, they are led to the meaning by a previous acquaintance with the words repair and dissolve. Numberless examples of this will occur to a person of observation, sufficient to make him abhor and reject the pedantry of authors, who have labored to strip their native tongue of its primitive English dress, and load it with fantastic ornaments.

[66] Flexion resolved into its proper letters would be fleksion, that is flekshun; and fleks-yun would give the same sound.

[67] To an ignorance of the laws of versification, we must ascribe the unwarrantable contraction of watery, wonderous, &c. into watry, wondrous.

[68] Rhetorical Grammar, prefixed to his Dictionary, page 32. London, 1773.

[69] Rhet. Gram. 33.

[70] His grammar was written in Latin, in the reign of Charles IId. The work is so scarce, that I have never been able to find but a single copy. The author was one of the founders of the Royal Society.