The Old and the New in Common English Words Though it was as long ago as last Christmas that we made a concession to some of our readers by omitting the middle "e?" in "judgment" we have not heard the last. of it yet. This piece of self-denial has been heard of in London, from whence we have received the cutting referred to and the fo}- lowing by 'The Londoner' in the "Evening News Pray understand that I spell after my own fashion: I have no spelling book chained to this desk. My spelling, Jike most of my habits, is in the main a following of ancient custom. Some day the progressive people, the people who love change, will send me 10 the Tower of London for my rebellion against a Nu Spelling Act of Parliament. When they come to cut my head off, they shall tind that the inscription on the wall of my cell, a neat piece of work done with a rusty nail, is all in the Old Spelling.
Nevertheless.I spell freely, letting the humour of the moment choose the shape of the word. Thus, if I were writing, humbly and loyally, of our lord the King. T might write of him og my sovereign Jard or-as my soveran Jard: there is warrant for cither. When I want the word havoc I want it with a "k" to the end of it: I put a "k' to trafic whenever I find myself careless of the printer's grief: the ghost of Dr. Johnson approves.
It seems that others beside the printer are grieved by this picking and choosing. There must be people whose family spelling book is bound up with the family Bible, as another work of Litera] Inspiration. They call down Athanasian curses on my head if they catch me changing a letter that is found in their blessed book; they curse me with bell, spelling book and candle.
The last time that I wrote of the quire of a church I had three re hukes by the morning's post. One of them: bade me find out how to spell the church choir before I should dirty ancther quire of paper with my bad spelling: I thought this letter lacked urbanity. But I keep my spelling of quire. turning for comfort to the Book of Common Prayer which yet orders how the anthem shall follow "in Quires and Places where they sing.'"" There was an English word quare. As the years went by, we fell to snelling it as quire; about the same time the frere became a friar. And then, little more than 0 years
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.