New Practical SpellerD.C. Heath & Company, 1900 - 154 pages |
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Common terms and phrases
2d syllable abbreviation abundant accent the 2d accent the last acquaintance acquire affix alpaca Anglo-Saxon animals apostrophe arithmetic attention axiom bäm barouche called celery cent cheer Civility clothes collect 2 syllables color common concealed danger dearth definition dictation exercises dictionary Difficult to Spell diphtheria discernment discreet docile elegant employed English English language fancy felicitate gingham glycerin grandeur grateful grieve guage habit happiness HARVARD COLLEGE haste Haughtiness horse implies instruction knowledge language last syllable Latin less lět lettuce long seat magnificence maize means mind misspelled negligent Norman nouns Nouns ending obligation observation occurrence originally overthrow paregoric person pitiful place a period plain plural politeness pronunciation pupil rules Saxon scarcity schooner sense serene sheep signifies singe singular sloop sound the g square rigged Strychnine synonyms teach term things tion tongue treasure tureen usually venison venom verbs vowel wind words wound writing
Popular passages
Page 122 - Words of one syllable or words accented on the last syllable, ending in a single consonant preceded by a single vowel, double the final consonant when adding a suffix beginning with a vowel.
Page 141 - Suppose the English language to be divided into a hundred parts ; of these, to make a rough distribution, sixty would be Saxon, thirty would be Latin (including of course the Latin which has come to us through the French), five would be Greek ; we should thus have assigned ninety -five parts, leaving the other five, perhaps too large a residue, to be divided among all the other languages from which we have adopted isolated words.
Page 150 - ... with that. You will often be able to glean knowledge from the names of things, if not as important as that I have just been speaking of, yet curious and interesting. What a record of inventions is preserved in the names which so many articles bear, of the place from which they first came, or the person by whom they were first invented. The "bayonet" tells us that it was first made at Bayonne — "cambrics...
Page 152 - Might one not at first presume it impossible to bring all these uses of "post" to a common centre? Yet indeed when once on the right track, nothing is easier; "post
Page 43 - Saxon hind had the charge and labour of tending and feeding them, but only that they might appear on the table of his Norman lord. Thus ox, steer, cow...
Page 152 - ... and that all the others, however widely they may diverge from one another and seem to recede from this one, may yet be affiliated upon it, may be brought back to the one central meaning which grasps and knits them all together; just as the races of men, black, white, and red, despite of all their present diversity and dispersion, have a central point of unity in their first parents. Let me illustrate what I mean by two or three familiar examples. Here is the word "post;" how various are the senses...
Page 152 - ... in Johnson's dictionary,) that a word has originally but one meaning, and that all the others, however widely they may diverge from one another, and seem to recede from this one, may yet be affiliated upon it, may be brought back to the one central meaning, which grasps and knits them all together ; just as the races of men, black, white and red, despite of all their present diversity and dispersion, have a central point of unity in their first parents. " Let me illustrate what I mean by two...
Page 153 - ... or public funds, money sticks fast, inasmuch as those who place it there can not withdraw or demand the capital, but receive only the interest ; the " stock" of a tree is fast set in the ground; and from this use of the word it is transferred to a family ; the " stock" ov " stirps" is that from which it grows, and out of which it unfolds itself.
Page 147 - ... will not be too big here, hanging like a giant's robe on the limbs of a dwarf; nor too small there, as a boy's garments into which the man has painfully and ridiculously thrust himself. You do not feel in one place that the writer means more than he has succeeded in saying ; in another that he has said more than he means ; or in a third something beside what his intention was : and all this, from a...
Page 143 - treasurer,' ' palace,' ' castle,' ' hall,' ' dome,' and a multitude more. At the same time the one remarkable exception of 'king' would make us, even did we know nothing of the actual facts, suspect that the chieftain of this ruling race came in not upon a new title, not as overthrowing a former dynasty, but claiming to be in the rightful line of its succession ; that the true continuity of the nation had not, in fact, any more than in word, been entirely broken, but survived, in due time to assert...