Page:The practice of typography; correct composition; a treatise on spelling, abbreviations, the compounding and division of words, the proper use of figures and nummerals by De Vinne, Theodore Low, 1828-1914.djvu/22

 knowledge of, and often no access to, that authority, for not one printing-house in a hundred has more than one dictionary as a book of reference. Prompt obedience is impracticable when British orthography is demanded. The Imperial and Stormonth's dictionaries are known by name only to many American proof-readers, and the great Oxford dictionary, still incomplete, is out of reach of the workmen who need it most. In the absence of authority the compositor and the proof-reader have to hazard guesses, based on analogy, at the spelling desired, and some of the guesses are certain to be wrong. Failing to find in the first proof the spelling he prefers, the author does last what he should have done first, and carefully writes out on the proof the spellings which should have been made in his copy. These alterations delay the work and give dissatisfaction to the author because of the added expense.

There are some niceties in spelling and style that have to be passed with slight notice. The formation of foreign words in the plural number, obso-