without ever considering that they are often very fallible guides.

A complete dictionary is an immense volume, and to turn over its pages with even a casual observation of each word, requires an amount of time that few would feel like devoting to it; and yet this is the only way in which a person can become assured of the sanctioned pronunciation and meaning of a great many words. If they would make it an invariable rule to make memoranda of all the words they read or hear spoken, about the orthoepy and import of which they are not absolutely certain, and at their first leisure opportunity would consult their chosen authority, it would not be long before the majority of errors would be corrected; but this requires memory, inclination, time, continuity of purpose, possession of dictionaries or access to them—circumstances that are seldom found combined. It will doubtless be useless to rehearse any of the arguments commonly employed to prove the necessity of having some sovereign standard, to the guidance of which we must be willing to submit. Those for whom this work is intended will be willing to admit that. Nor is it necessary to assert that as far as the English speakers of the United States are interested, the only works that lay claim to such a position are the dictionaries of Webster and Worcester. If the right of the opinions of the majority of scholars throughout the land were alone considered, the former would certainly be entitled to the preference; but the work of the latter is too full of merit and has too many adherents in the ranks of the educated to permit any one to say that it is not worthy of high esteem.

With my own preference for the former and with my willingness to acknowledge the worth of the latter, I have consulted both authorities concerning every word in the following vocabulary—that is, every word requiring reference to either. It will be seen that there is much less difference between the decisions of the two dictionaries than is commonly supposed. By this reference to each, I have not only corrected errors in an impartial manner, but have also stopped up that loop-hole through which so many try to escape by saying, when they are called to account according to one dictionary, that they do not accept that as their standard. As far as the people of this country are concerned, there is no escape from the conclusion that a person is considered a correct or an incorrect speaker of English, according to whether or not he conforms his discourse to one of the above mentioned authorities. At first glance it will appear that the size of this volume is not at all commensurate to the task of correcting the many errors that are heard in our communication with all classes that pretend to speak the English language. It is not intended to instruct those whose education has been so neglected that they are guilty of the grossest violation of syntax and orthoepy, nor to cultivate the taste of those whose selection of words and cant and slang phrases betrays the low grade of the associations by which they have been surrounded. It is designed rather as a collection of the more common of those errors, chiefly orthoepical, that I have before spoken of as being of constant occurrence even among people of education, unless they have paid considerable attention to philology or belles-lettres. If by presenting them in this convenient form, thus saving much time and trouble in referring to the dictionary, I have merited the thanks of my readers, or if I have contributed even a mite toward the conservation of the present usage, I shall feel amply repaid.

I have taken advantage of the alphabetical arrangement to introduce a few miscellaneous errors that might have been placed under a separate heading.

Instead of dividing the words into syllables and loading them with marks as is usually