Villian was affected by ruffian; Goldern by leathern; Assimulation by dissimulation; Duoble (for double) by Latin duo; Libials (for labials = "lip-letters") by lip, and so Libio-dentals: in this reading of a line from "Julius Cæsar,"—"The troubled Tiber chaffing with her shores,"—one of the candidates was possibly "chaffing" the Examiners: another gave a more pronounced instance in Purtending: he had in his mind's eye two words that would equally well have expressed his meaning, viz., purposing and intending, but began with one and finished with the other, reminding us of Horace's mulier formosa superne (quæ) desinit in piscem.[1] But Contamination on the largest scale appears in locutions of all sorts, and is a great corrupter of language: the only distinct instance, however, that I met with in the Answerbooks was the combination "Lords Templars": the candidate meant to write "Lords Temporal," but had probably been recently reading about the "Knights Templars" in Ivanhoe or elsewhere.
But Writing is only a method of representing to the eye the sounds addressed to the ear in Speaking. It would seem a priori probable therefore that the mistakes made in the one and those made in the other would exhibit a close relationship. And that is so; although, as thought and speech are generally synchronous, the errors of correct and careful speakers are much fewer than those in the writing of generally correct spellers. Of mistakes in speaking I have made no special collection; but will nevertheless briefly refer to some which are either identical in nature with some of those above described, or which (although now we only see the permanent results) originally sprang from similar causes. In the latter division we find, corresponding to (1) above, the well-known process called Umlaut by the Germans, which has, to a large extent, transformed the vowel-systems of the Teutonic dialects. In this case the linguistic sense of whole tribes and peoples, while the voice was pronouncing a syllable containing a vowel of a certain quality, became affected by the expectation of a vowel of a different quality in the immediately following syllable; and under the influence of this expectation the action of the vocal organs was gradually
- ↑ Many such forms have become permanent in our spelling; e.g., the Old French soverain (=late Latin superanus), Chaucer's soverain or sovereyne, soon became sovereign; cf. live-li-hood, island, lute-string, bedridden, etc.: some of these show attempts at "popular etymology" (see below): here and there one has reverted to a more correct form, e.g., runagate to renegade.
