Page:The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy (Volume 4).pdf/190

 instead of in Nomine patris, &c.—Is this a baptism? No,—say the ablest canonists; inasmuch as the radix of each word is hereby torn up, and the sense and meaning of them removed and changed quite to another object; for Gomine does not signify a name, nor gatris a father—What do they signify? said my uncle Toby—Nothing at all—quoth Yorick—Ergo, such a baptism is null, said Kysarcius—In course, answered Yorick, in a tone two parts jest and one part earnest—

But in the case cited, continued Kysarcius, where patrim is put for patris, filia for filij, and so on—as it is a fault only in the declension, and the roots of the words continue untouch'd, the inflexions of their branches, either this way or that, does not in any sort hinder the