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phabet is very deficient. But it is also redundant. contains five superfluous letters, c, q, x, w, and y. of the letter c might be done by either k or by s; that of q by k; x is equal to ks or gs; w could be represented by oo; and all that y does could be done by i. It is in the vowelsounds that the irregularities of our alphabet are most discernible. Thirteen vowel-sounds are represented to the eye in more than one hundred different ways.

(i) There are twelve ways of printing a short i, as in sit, Cyril, busy, women, etc.

(ii) There are twelve ways of printing a short e, as in set, any, bury, bread, etc.

(iii) There are ten ways of printing a long ē, as in mete, marine, meet, meat, key, etc.

(iv) There are thirteen ways of printing a short u, as in bud, love, berth, rough, flood, etc.

(v) There are eleven ways of printing a long u, as in rude, move, blew, true, etc

THE GRAMMAR OF WORDS, OR ETYMOLOGY.

There are eight kinds of words in our language. These are (i) Names or Nouns. (ii) The words that stand for Nouns are called Pronouns. (iii) Next come the words-that-go-withNouns or Adjectives. (iv) Fourthly, come the words-thatare-said-of-Nouns or Verbs. (v) Fifthly, the words that go with Verbs or Adjectives or Adverbs are called Adverbs. (vi) The words that-join-Nouns are called Prepositions; (vii) those that-join-Verbs are called Conjunctions. Lastly (viii) come Interjections, which are indeed mere sounds without any organic or vital connection with other words; and they are hence sometimes called extra-grammatical utterances. Nouns and Adjectives, Verbs and Adverbs, have distinct, individual, and substantive meanings. Pronouns have no meanings in themselves, but merely refer to nouns, just like a in a book. Prepositions and Conjunctions once had independent

meanings, but have not much now: their chief use is to join words to each other. They act the part of nails or of glue in language. Interjections have a kind of meaning; but they never represent a thought-only a feeling, a feeling of pain or of pleasure, of sorrow or of surprise.

NOUNS.

1. A Noun is a name, or any word or words used as a

name.

Ball, house, fish, John, Mary, are all names, and are therefore nouns. "To walk in the open air is pleasant in summer evenings." The two words to walk are used as the name of an action; to walk is therefore

a noun.

The word noun comes from the Latin nomen, a name. From this word we have also nominal, denominate, denomination, etc.

THE CLASSIFICATION OF NOUNS.

2. Nouns are of two classes-Proper and Common. 3. A proper noun is the name of an individual, as an individual, and not as one of a class.

John, Mary, London, Birmingham, Shakespeare, Milton, are all proper

nouns.

The word proper comes from the Latin proprius, one's own. Hence a proper noun is, in relation to one person, one's own name. From the same word we have appropriate, to make one's own; expropriate, etc.

(i) Proper nouns are always written with a capital letter at the beginning; and so also are the words derived from them. Thus we write France, French, Frenchified; Milton, Miltonic; Shakespeare, Shakespearian.

(ii) Proper nouns, as such, have no meaning. They are merely marks to indicate a special person or place. They had, however, originally a meaning. The persons now called Armstrong, Smith, Greathead, no doubt had ancestors who were strong in the arm, who did the work of smiths, or who had large heads.

(iii) A proper noun may be used as a common noun, when it is employed not to mark an individual, but to indicate one of a class. Thus we can say, "He is the Milton of his age," meaning by this that he possesses the qualities which all those poets have who are like Milton. (iv) We can also speak of "the Howards," "the Smiths," meaning a number of persons who are called Howard or who are called Smith.

4. A common noun is the name of a person, place, or thing, considered not merely as an individual, but as one of a class. Horse, town, boy, table, are common nouns.

The word common comes from the Lat. communis, "shared by several"; and we find it also in community, commonalty, etc.

(i) A common noun is so called because it belongs in common to all the persons, places, or things in the same class.

(ii) The name rabbit marks off, or distinguishes, that animal from all other animals; but it does not distinguish one rabbit from another— it is common to all animals of the class. Hence we may say: a common noun distinguishes from without; but it does not distinguish within its own bounds.

(iii) Common nouns have a meaning; proper nouns have not. The latter may have a meaning; but the meaning is generally not appropriate. Thus persons called Whitehead and Longshanks may be dark and short. Hence such names are merely signs, and not significant marks.

5. Common nouns are generally subdivided into

(i) Class-names.

(ii) Collective nouns.

(iii) Abstract nouns.

(i) Under class-names are included not only ordinary names, but also the names of materials-as tea, sugar, wheat, water. The names of materials can be used in the plural when different kinds of the material are meant. Thus we say "fine teas," coarse sugars," when we mean fine kinds of tea, etc.

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(ii) A collective noun is the name of a collection of persons or things, looked upon by the mind as one. Thus we say committee, parliament, crowd; and think of these collections of persons as each one body.

(iii) An abstract noun is the name of a quality, action, or state, considered in itself, and as abstracted from the thing or person in which it really exists. Thus, we see a number of lazy persons, and think of laziness as a quality in itself, abstracted from the persons. (From Lat. abs, from; tractus, drawn.)

(a) The names of arts and sciences are abstract nouns, because they are the names of processes of thought, considered apart and abstracted from the persons who practise them. Thus, music, painting, grammar, chemistry, astronomy, are abstract nouns.

(iv) Abstract nouns are (a) derived from adjectives, as hardness, dulness, sloth, from hard, dull, and slow; or (b) from verbs, as growth, thought, from grow and think.

Thus we

(v) Abstract nouns are sometimes used as collective nouns. say "the nobility and gentry " for "the nobles and gentlemen" of the land.

(vi) Abstract nouns are formed from other words by the addition of such endings as ness, th, ery, hood, head, etc.

6. The following is a summary of the divisions of nouns :—

Proper.

NOUNS.

Common.

Class-Names.

Collective Nouns. Abstract Nouns.

THE INFLEXIONS OF NOUNS.

7. Nouns can be inflected or changed. They are inflected to indicate Gender, Number, and Case.

We must not, however, forget that differences of gender, number, or case are not always indicated by inflexion.

Inflexio is a Latin word which means bending. An inflexion, therefore, is a bending away from the ordinary form of the word.

GENDER.

8. Gender is, in grammar, the mode of distinguishing sex by the aid of words, prefixes, or suffixes.

The word gender comes from the Lat. genus, generis (Fr. genre), a kind or sort. We have the same word in generic, general, etc. (The d in gender is no organic or true part of the word; it has been inserted as a kind of cushion between the n and the r.)

(i) Names of males are said to be of the masculine gender, as master, lord, Harry. Lat. mas, a male.

(ii) Names of females are of the feminine gender, as mistress, lady, Harriet. Lat. femina, a woman. (From the same word we have

effeminate, etc.)

(iii) Names of things without sex are of the neuter gender, as head, tree, London. Lat. neuter, neither. (From the same word we have neutral, neutrality.)

(iv) Names of animals, the sex of which is not indicated, are said to be of the common gender. Thus, sheep, bird, hawk, parent, servant, are common, because they may be of either gender.

(vi) If we personify things, passions, powers, or natural forces, we may make them either masculine or feminine. Thus the Sun, Time, the Ocean, Anger, War, a river, are generally made masculine. On the other hand, the Moon, the Earth ("Mother Earth"), Virtue, a ship, Religion, Pity, Peace, are generally spoken of as feminine.

(vii) Sex is a distinction between animals; gender a distinction between nouns. In Old English, nouns ending in dom, as freedom, were masculine; nouns in ness, as goodness, feminine; and nouns in en, as maiden, chicken, always neuter. But we have lost all these distinctions, and, in modern English, gender always follows sex.

9. There are three ways of marking gender :

(i) By the use of Suffixes.

(ii) By Prefixes (or by Composition).

(iii) By using distinct words for the names of the male and female.

I. GENDER MARKED BY SUFFIXES.

A. Purely English or Teutonic Suffixes.

10. There are now in our language only two purely English suffixes used to mark the feminine gender, and these are used in only two words. The two endings are en and ster, and the two words are vixen and spinster.

(i) Vixen is the feminine of fox; and spinster of spinner (spinder or spinther, which, later on, became spider). King Alfred, in his writings, speaks of "the spear-side and the spindle-side of a house "--meaning the men and the women.

(ii) Ster was used as a feminine suffix very largely in Old English. Thus, webster was a woman-weaver; baxter (or bagster), a female baker; hoppester, a woman-dancer; redester, a woman-reader; huckster, a female hawker (travelling merchant); and so on.

(iii) In Ancient English (Anglo-Saxon) the masculine ending was 2, and the feminine e, as in wicca, wicce, witch. Hence we find the names of many Saxon kings ending in a, as Isa, Offa, Penda, etc.