Now, since we have ascertained, from the short calculation before recited, that the solar epact of this present year of 1851 is 2, and since the regular of October is also 2, we have but to add them together to obtain 4 (or Wednesday) as the commencing day of this next coming month of October. And, if we wish to know the day of the month belonging to any other day of the week in October, we have but to subtract the commencing day, which is 4, from 8, and to the result add the required day. Let the latter, for example, be Sunday; then 4 from 8 leaves 4, which added to 1 (or Sunday), shows that Sunday, in the month of October 1851, is either 5th, 12th, 19th, or 26th.
This additional application is here introduced merely to illustrate the great facilities afforded by the purely numerical form of Bede's "argumentum,"—such as must gradually present themselves to any person who will take the trouble to become thoroughly and practically familiar with it.
A. E. B.
Leeds, September, 1851.
HYPHENISM, HYPHENIC, HYPHENIZATION.
Where our ancestors wanted words, they made them, or imported them ready made. But we are become so particular about the etymological force of newly coined words, that we can never please ourselves, but rather choose to do without than to tolerate anything exceptionable. We have to learn again that a word cannot be like Burleigh's nod, but must be content to indicate the whole by the expression of some prominent part, or of some convenient part, prominent or not.
Among the uses to which the "NOTES AND QUERIES" might be put, is the suggestion of words. It very often happens that one who is apt at finding the want is not equally good for the remedy, and vice versâ. By the aid of this journal the blade might find a handle, or the handle a blade, as wanted, with the advantage of criticism at the formation; while an author who coins a word, must commit himself before he can have much advice.
The above remarks were immediately suggested by my happening to think of a word for a thing which gives much trouble, and requires more attention than it has received, but not more than it may receive if it can be fitly designated by a single word. A clause of a sentence, both by etymology and usage, means any part of it of which the component words cannot be separated, but must all go together, or all remain together: it is then a component of the sentence which has a finished meaning in itself. The proper mode of indicating the clauses takes its name from the means, and not from the end: we say punctuation, not clausification. This may have been a misfortune, for it is possible that punctuation might have been better studied, if its name had imported its object. But there is another and a greater misfortune, arising from the total want of a name. In a sentence, not only do collections of words form minor sentences, but they also form compound words: sometimes eight or ten words are really only one. When two words are thus compounded, we use a hyphen: but those who have attempted to use more than one hyphen have been laughed out of the field; though perspicuity, logic, and algebra were all on their side. The Morning Post adopted this practice in former days; and Horace Smith (or James, as the case may be,) ridiculed them in a parody which speaks of "the not-a-bit-the-less-on-that-account-to-be-universally-detested monster Buonaparte." It is, I think, much to be regretted that the use of the hyphen is so restricted: for though, like the comma, it might be abused, yet the abuse would rather tend to clearness.
But, without introducing a further use of the hyphen, it would be desirable to have a distinct name for a combination of words; which, without being such a recognised and permanent compound as apple-tree or man in the moon, is nevertheless one word in the particular sentence in hand. And the name is easily found. The word hyphen being Greek (ὑφ' ἕν), and being made a substantive, we might join Greek suffixes to it, and speak of hyphenisms and hyphenic phrases. For example, the following I should call a hyphenic error. When the British Museum recently published A Short Guide to that Portion of the Library of printed Books now open to the Public, a review pronounced the title a misnomer; because the books are not open to the public, but are in locked glass cases. The reviewer read it "library of printed-books-now-open-to-the-public," instead of "library-of-printed-books now open to the public." And though in this case the reviewer was very palpably wrong, yet there are many cases in which a real ambiguity exists.
A neglect of mental hyphenization often leads to mistake as to an author's meaning, particularly in this age of morbid implication. For instance, a person writes something about "a Sunday or other day-for-which-there-is-a-special-service;" and is taken as meaning "a Sunday-or-other-day for which," &c. The odds are that some readers will suppose him, by speaking of Sundays with special service, to imply that some are without.