A Rhyming Dictionary: Answering at the Same Time, the Purposes of Spelling and Pronouncing the English Language ... and ... an Index of Allowable Rhymes, with Authorities ...

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T. Cadell & W. Davies, 1819 - Encyclopedias and dictionaries
 

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Page ix - ORTHOGRAPHY. But an analogical insight into the recesses of formation is not every advantage arising from this new and complete prospect of it. Our orthography is not only an insuperable difficulty to foreigners, but an eternal source of dispute and perplexity to ourselves; and though it would be in vain to think of removing every intricacy that is constantly arising from indolence and caprice, yet that a considerable number may be remedied by a view of the general laws of formation, will be readily...
Page xxiii - ... generally imagined, and we soon discover termination to be, as it were, a rudder to accent, a key that opens to us an unexpected scene of uniformity, and proves, as Mr. Elphinston admirably expresses it, " that speech, the peculiar glory of rational intercourse, is neither given nor guided by an arbitrary power, but that use in language, as in all nature, is no other than the constant agency of harmony and of reason.
Page xii - An ignorance of this rule has led many to write bigotted for bigoted, and from this spelling has frequently arisen a false pronunciation : but no letter seems to be more frequently doubled improperly than I. Why we should write libelling, levelling, revelling, and yet offering, suffering, reasoning, I am totally at a loss to determine...
Page x - I, or s, preceded by a single vowel, double the final consonant; as staff, mill, pass, &c.
Page xii - Why we should write libelling, levelling, revelling, and yet offering, suffering, reasoning, I am totally at a loss to determine ; and unless / can give a better plea than any other letter of the alphabet for being doubled in this situation, I must, in the style of Lucian in his trial of the letter T, declare for an expulsion.
Page xix - Those who see beyond the surface, regret the many deviations from that only standard of our language by the Greeklings and Latinitasters of this smattering age; and it is certainly to be feared, that if this pruning of our words of all the superfluous letters, as they are called, should be much farther indulged, we shall quickly antiquate our most respectable authors, and irreparably maim our language.
Page 7 - A figure in poetry, by which a short syllable after a complete foot is made long ; a pause in verse.
Page ix - ... of. By an affectation of approximating to the orthography of the learned languages we have rooted out many useful letters that sprung up naturally with exotic words, and have been led to exclude all letters in our compounds which are not actually pronounced, though their existence in these words is often no less necessary to prevent ambiguity than in the simples themselves. Thus the useful servile e. is hardly ever suffered to have a place in composition, though from a feeling of its importance...
Page xvii - Words taken into composition, often drop those letters which were superfluous in their simples ; as, handful, dunghil, withal ; also, chilblain, foretel.

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