Spanish, Italian, Turkish, as compared with English, Danish, and German. Participating, then, in the physical influences of a southern climate, we have contracted something of the more distinct articulation that belongs to a dry atmosphere and a clear sky. And this view of the case is confirmed by the fact that the inhabitants of the Southern States incline, like the people of southern Europe, to throw the accent toward the end of the word, and thus, like all nations that use that accentuation, bring out all the syllables. This we observe very commonly in the comparative Northern and Southern pronunciation of proper names. I might exemplify by citing familiar instances; but, lest that should seem invidious, it may suffice to say that, not to mention more important changes, many a Northern member of Congress goes to Washington a dactyl or a trochee, and comes home an amphibrach or an iambus. Why or how external physical causes, as climate and modes of life, should affect pronunciation, we can not say; but it is evident that material influences of some sort are producing a change in our bodily constitution, and we are fast acquiring a distinct national Anglo-American type. That the delicate organs of articulation should participate in such tendencies is altogether natural; and the operation of the causes which give rise to them is palpable even in our handwriting, which, if not uniform with itself, is generally, nevertheless, so unlike common English script as to be readily distinguished from it.

"To the joint operation, then, of these two causes—universal reading and climatic influences—we must ascribe our habit of dwelling upon vowel and diphthongal sounds, or of drawling, if that term is insisted upon.... But it is often noticed by foreigners as both making us more readily understood by them when speaking our own tongue, and as connected with a flexibility of organ, which enables us to acquire a better pronunciation of other languages than is usual with Englishmen. In any case, as, in spite of the old adage, speech is given us that we may make ourselves understood, our drawling, however prolonged, is preferable to the nauseous, foggy, mumbling thickness of articulation which characterizes the cockney, and is not unfrequently affected by Englishmen of a better class."—George P. Marsh.

Bryant's Prohibited Words. See Index Expurgatorius.

But. This word is misused in various ways. "I do not doubt but he will be here": read, doubt that. "I should not wonder but": read, if. "I have no doubt but that he will go": suppress but. "I do not doubt but that it is true": suppress but. "There can be no doubt but that the burglary is the work of professional cracksmen."—"New York Herald." Doubt that, and not but that. "A careful canvass leaves no doubt but that the nomination," etc.: suppress but. "There is no reasonable doubt but that it is all it professes to be": suppress but. "The mind no sooner entertains any proposition but it presently hastens," etc.: read, than. "No other resource but this was allowed him": read, than.

By. See At.

Calculate. This word means to ascertain by computation, to reckon, to estimate; and, say some of the purists, it never means anything else when properly used. If this is true, we can not say a thing is calculated to do harm, but must, if we are ambitious to have our English irreproachable, choose some other form of expression, or at least some other word, likely or apt, for example. Cobbett, however, says, "That, to Her, whose great example is so well calculated to inspire," etc.; and, "The first two of the three sentences are well enough calculated for ushering," etc. Calculate is sometimes vulgarly used for intend, purpose, expect; as, "He calculates to get off to-morrow."

Caliber. This word is sometimes used very absurdly; as, "Brown's Essays are of a much higher caliber than Smith's." It is plain that the proper word to use here is order.

Cant. Cant is a kind of affectation; affectation is an effort to sail under false colors; an effort to sail under false colors is a kind of falsehood; and falsehood is a term of Latin origin which we often use instead of the stronger Saxon term lying!

"Who is not familiar," writes Dr. William Matthews, "with scores of pet phrases and cant terms which are repeated at this day apparently without a thought of their meaning? Who ever attended a missionary meeting without hearing 'the Macedonian cry,' and an account of some 'little interest' and 'fields white for the harvest'? Who is not weary of the ding-dong of 'our Zion,' and the solecism of 'in our midst'; and who does not long for a verbal millennium when Christians shall no longer 'feel to take' and 'grant to give'?"

"How much I regret," says Coleridge, "that so many religious persons of the present day think it necessary to adopt a certain cant of manner and phraseology [and of tone of voice] as a token to each other [one another]! They improve this and that text, and they must do so and so in a prayerful way; and so on."

Capacity. See Ability.

Caption. This word is often used for heading, but, thus used, it is condemned by careful writers. The true meaning of caption is a seizure, an arrest. It does not come from a Latin word meaning a head, but from a Latin word meaning to seize.

Caret. Cobbett writes of the caret to his son: "The last thing I shall mention under this head is the caret [^], which is used to point upward to a part which has been omitted, and which is inserted between the line where the caret is placed and the line above it. Things should be called by their right names, and this should be called the blunder-mark. I would have you, my dear James, scorn the use of the thing. Think before you write; let it be your custom to write correctly and in a plain hand. Be careful that neatness, grammar, and sense prevail when you write to a blacksmith about shoeing a horse as when you write on the most important subjects. Habit is powerful in all cases; but its power in this case is truly wonderful. When you write, bear constantly in mind that some one is to read and to understand what you write. This will make your handwriting and also your meaning plain. Far, I hope, from my dear James will be the ridiculous, the contemptible affectation of writing in a slovenly or illegible hand, or that of signing his name otherwise than in plain letters."

Carry. See Bring.

Case. Many persons of considerable culture continually make mistakes in conversation in the use of the cases, and we sometimes meet with gross errors of this kind in the writings of authors of repute. Witness the following: "And everybody is to know him except I."—George Merideth in "The Tragic Comedies," Eng. ed.,