Language Arts & Disciplines Books

Preface The purpose of this book, as conceived by the author, is not to attempt to create or to influence usage by pointing out which words should or should not be used, nor to explain the meaning of terms, but simply to provide in a form convenient for reference and study the words that can be used, leaving it to those who consult its pages to determine for themselves, with the aid of a dictionary if... more...

INTRODUCTION. The following paper from the pen of Dr. Prior was read at a Conversazione of the Society at Taunton, in the winter of 1871, and as it treats the subject from a more general point of view than is usually taken of it, we print it with his permission as an introduction to our vocabulary:— On the Somerset Dialects. The two gentlemen who have undertaken to compile a glossary of the Somerset... more...

INTRODUCTORY. During the past two years the present writer has devoted the intervals between official duties to collecting and collating materials for the study of sign language. As the few publications on the general subject, possessing more than historic interest, are meager in details and vague in expression, original investigation has been necessary. The high development of communication by gesture... more...

A. A-, prefix (1), adding intensity to the notion of the verb.—AS. á for ar-, ar-, Goth. us-. For the quantity of the á see Sievers, 121. Cf. . A-, prefix (2), standing for A, prep., and for Icel. á; see . A-, prefix (3), standing for Of, prep.; see . A-, prefix (4), standing for AS. and-, against, in return, toward.—AS. and-, ond-, on- (proclitic). Cf. A-, prefix (5), standing for At, prep.,... more...

To sit down in cold blood and deliberately set to cudgel one's brains with a view to dragging from them a plot wherewith to make a book is (I have been told) the habit of some writers, and those of no small reputation. Happy people! What powers of concentration must be theirs! What a belief in themselves—that most desirable of all beliefs, that sweet propeller toward the temple of fame. Have... more...

RHAGYMADRODD. Mae yr awyddfryd cynyddol sydd yn mhlith y Cymry i ymgydnabod yn fwy â’r iaith Saesoneg yn un o arwyddion gobeithiol yr amserau.  Am bob un o’n cydgenedl ag oedd yn deall Saesoneg yn nechreuad y ganrif hon, mae yn debyg na fethem wrth ddyweud fod ugeiniau os nad canoedd yn ei deall yn awr.  O’r ochor arall, y mae rhifedi mwy nag a feddylid o’r Saeson sy’n ymweled a’n gwlad... more...

SPELLING The idea that there is one right way to combine the letters representing a certain sound or group of sounds, that is a word, and that all other ways are wrong and little short of shameful is a comparatively new idea among us. The English speaking folk held down to a comparatively recent time that any group of letters which approximately represented the sound was amply sufficient as a symbol of... more...

I came out at Haslingden town-end with my old acquaintance, "Rondle o'th Nab," better known by the name of "Sceawter," a moor-end farmer and cattle dealer. He was telling me a story about a cat that squinted, and grew very fat because—to use his own words—it "catched two mice at one go." When he had finished the tale, he stopped suddenly in the middle of the road, and... more...

CHAPTER I. THE HURON-IROQUOIS NATIONS. At the outset of the sixteenth century, when the five tribes or"nations" of the Iroquois confederacy first became known to Europeanexplorers, they were found occupying the valleys and uplands of northernNew York, in that picturesque and fruitful region which stretcheswestward from the head-waters of the Hudson to the Genesee. The Mohawks,or Caniengas—as... more...

I.—THE PROCESS BY COMBINATION. Two or more words may be united to form a new one, or to perform the office of a new one, and four methods or stages of combination may be noted. a. By juxtaposition, where the two words are placed together and yet remain as distinct words. This method is illustrated in Chinese, where the words in the combination when taken alone seldom give a clew to their meaning when... more...