Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 2.djvu/374

 306

NOTES AND QUERIES. uo* s. n. OCT. is, im.

teenth private and third public edition, and is in every way admirable as a guide for, as the preface states, " compositors and readers at the Clarendon Press." I have no objection to its being "offered to so much of the general public as is interested in the techni- calities of typography, or wishes to be guided to a choice amidst alternative spellings." As such it is a welcome step in the direction of a much-needed reform, and can thus only make for good. But it is only a tentative measure, and its norma scribendi will hardly meet with general acceptance. This, of course, is the initial fate of most attempts at reform in any sphere of activity. Yet there is something to be said for opposition, apart from mere literary conservatism. Thus the substitution of z for s in many instances (e.g., anglicize, catechize, &c.) will be objectionable to many, although Dr. Murray's protest (p. 9) " against the unscholarly habit of omitting e from abridgement, acknowledgement, judgement, lodgement," will find acceptance with many more; and the compiler's injunction against phonetic^spellings (such as program, catalog, &c.) is timely. Also with the use of italics in foreign words and phrases I am fully in accord, as with the moderate employment of capitals. Mr ; Mprley, under this latter head, in his otherwise incomparable ' Life of Glad- stone,' has, I fear, declined to the opposite extreme. We need not copy the German system of printing almost every noun with an initial capital ; but such words as Home Rule, Parliament, House of Commons, <fec., require it. But and herein lies my chiefest grievance against this otherwise estimable effort this little book of rules forces itself Autocratically upon authors who submit their works to the University Press for publication. A noteworthy sample of this procedure occurs -at p. 12, in a note on the word " forgo ":

" In 1896 Mr. W. E.Gladstone, not being aware of this rule, wished to include, in a list of errata for insertion in vol. ii. of Butler's ' Works,' an altera- tion of the spelling, in vol. i., of the word 'forgo.' On receipt of his direction to make the alteration, I sent Mr. Gladstone a copy of Skeat's k Dictionary ' to show that 'forgo,' in the sense in which he was using the word, was right, and could not be cor- rected ; but it was only after reference to Dr. J. A. H. Murray that Mr. Gladstone wrote to me, 'Personally I am inclined to prefer " forego," on its merits ; but authority must carry the day. / give in.' "

This is precisely what, pace Drs. Skeat and Murray, I should not have done. The Periodical for June may be right in saying, "That any one so tenacious as Mr. Gladstone should surrender to the ' Rules ' is their best testimonial"; but even this eminent sur- render fails, in my judgment, to justify an

intolerable manipulation, by any compositors of any printing firm, howevef* illustrious, of an author's choice of spelling. Besides, in this particular case, I question strongly the substitution of forgo im forego. Why eliminate the e ? To forego is to do without, to pass over, which forgo does not, I submit, imply as accurately. Forgo may be strained to mean "instead of"; but it would more naturally be led to indicate the slang ex- pression " to go for." I for one should think twice before submitting a MS. to the tender mercies of such ruthless and arbitrary treatment. Still, these 'Rules' enforced upon the compositors and readers of the Oxford University Press are distinctly pre- ferable to either the American or Furnivall methods. Honor and tho, linkt and sufferd, lookt, &c., are abominations which no com- positor should put in type.

J. B. McGovERN. St. Stephen's Rectory, C.-on-M., Manchester.

[A note on the back of the title-page of the 'Rules,' fifteenth edition, states: "The following Rules are to apply generally ; but directions to the contrary may be given in some cases."]

"PERI," A GTJIANA TERM. Homonyms are always interesting to the lexicographer, and the above, which has nothing to do with the peri who stood at the gate of Eden, may be of interest to Dr. Murray, who is now engaged upon Pe-. It is the name given by the Eng- lish in Guiana to a notorious fish, which naturalists, from the resemblance of its jaw to a saw, call Serra-salmo. For a similar reason the Tupis, or native Indians of Brazil, called it piraya or piranha. The interchange of y and nh in this term is very old. As far back as 1648 Marcgrave, in his 'Hist. Nat. Brasilise,' p. 164, described the fish under the head * Piraya et Piranha.' The colonists of British Guiana seem never to have used the second form, but only the first, which they cut down to peri. The Portuguese of Brazil do just the contrary, that is, they treat piranha as the standard orthography, and piraya as a mere vulgarism.

JAMES PLATT, Jun.

PROF. WILSON AND BURNS. In his article on Prof. Wilson in the 'D.N.B.,' Dr. Garnett says : " Of a later date were some excel- lent papers entitled ' Dies Boreales,' his last literary labour of importance, and an edition of Burns." One of the few thoroughly sound and intimate disquisitions on Burns in the language is the essay entitled ' The Genius and Character of Burns,' in vol. iii. of Wilson's 'Essays Critical and Imaginative.' This eloquent and sympathetic appreciation