Y YThe twenty-fifth letter in the Eng- lish alphabet. Its form is derived from the Greek upsilon ( T ), which in turn was borrowed from the Phoenician vau. Of like deriva- tion are U, V, W. The Romans adopted Y to transliterate the upsilon of Greek words, which they had represented by V previous to the reign of Augustus. Pho:xetic Character andPhilological Value. As a phonetic character 1/ is both consonantal and vocalic. Its vowel usage (like i) is seen in such words as hoh/, lady, handyicork, y-clept (where it stands for an older palatalized ig, ge- cf. Anglo-Saxon holig, hand-geweork, ge-clepi), and in my. etc., where it was chosen by the penmen and illuminators in.stead of i, and again for upsilon in words of Greek origin, as myth, syn- tax (Greek fiOSos, o-tfyrojis). As a palatalized consonant y is found generally in words of Ger- manic origin, yield (Anglo-Saxon gieldan) , yard (Anglo-Saxon geard) . As a consonant Eng- lish y (through palatalization of Anglo-Saxon g) may represent (1) Indo-Germanic i. for example, English //o»»j, Anglo-Sa.xon geong, Latin juvcnis, Sanskrit yuvan; (2) Indo-Germanic g]i, as Eng- lish yesterday, Anglo-Saxon giestra, Latin liesterinis, Greek x^^t- In the archaic form ye olden time, the peculiar character is really not y by origin, but is a substitute for the Anglo-Saxon rune )> ("thorn'), and it should be pronounced 'the.' As A Symbol and Abbre^tatiox. In chemistry Y is the symbol for yttrium. In algebra y stands for the second variable or unknown quan- tity, and in analytical geometry y = the ordinate of the rectilinear coordinsite. As a mediteval Roman numeral Y = 150; Y = 150,000. Y or IJ, I Ihet Ij). An arm of the Zuyder Zee immediately north of Amsterdam (ilap: Netherlands, C 2). It is now almost wholly drained and reclaimed, except the central portion, which has been dredged to form a part of the Nortli Sea Canal, and is connected through a lock with the Zuyder Zee. YACHT (MDutch jacht, Dutch jazt, yacht, chase, from jugen, OHG. jiigwi, Ger. jagcn, to hunt, chase) and YACHTING. A yaciit is a boat used for pleasure Tbc preliistoric savage ■who built the first boat and used it for his own pleasure owned a yacht. The dugout with an outrigger was the first 'racing machine.' Ships were built and sailed for pleasure in the days of 0'J8 Homer, and at Rhodes. Ptolemy, the son of Lagus (B.C. 283), had 800 thalamegi (pleasure lioats ) . of which some were more than 300 feet long, and were propelled by oars and sails. If the origin of things be considered, modern cruisers are thalamegi : modern racers are yachts. The first British yacht of which there is dis- tinct record was the Kat of Wight, built at Cowes in 1588. In July, 1600, a Dutch yacht arrived in the Thames and created such an interest in pleasure ships that the King and the Duke of York each built one. The first formal British yacht race of which there is a record was held between these two on the lower Thames course, on October 1, 16G1. The Water Club of the Harbor of Cork, first of all yaclit clubs, was established in 1720. The Royal Yacht Squadron was founded at Cowes in 1812. But yacht-racing was not universally popular until after 1843, when Queen Victoria began to encourage it by giving cups for racing prizes. In America a Boston yacht built in 1774 by Lord Percy to demonstrate the value of a centre- board on vessels of shoal draught was one of the first on record, though the word yacht, as ap- plied to dispatch boats, was in use much earlier. From the earliest times people living along shore in America used various kinds of small boats for pleasure, but yachts fit for a venture beyond headlands are not recorded until the nineteenth century. The ketch-rigged pirogue Trouble, built by Jolui C. Stevens, of Hoboken, N. J., is called the first yacht in the United States.- The first American yacht to gain fame as a racer was the schooner Wave, built by Stevens in 1832. She was 65 feet long and had a wide V-shaped cross- section. The schooner Oimeraclc, also a Stevens yacht, is notable because she had a plate of iron 12 feet long and 4 feet deep fastened to her keel as a fin, to serve as ballast and give lateral plane— the fir.st fin-keel yaclit. On July 30, 1844, the New York Yaclit (^lub was organized in her cabin. This is called the first American yacbt club. The New York Yacht Club began with eight yachts. Its first home was a wooden struc- ture on the Elysian Fields, Hoboken, N. J. Us first races were sailed on the Hudson. In 1903 its home was in the finest yacht club house in the world, and its ficet numbered 551, of which several were steamers nearly twice as large as any merchant ship afloat in 1844. Its record
