ON SOME MINOR PSYCHOLOGICAL INTERFERENCES. 91 so modified as to assimilate, wholly or partially, the former vowel to the latter. 1 With (2) a close analogy appears in contractions like the Latin anfcstari for anteiestari, veweficus for vemmfious, nu- trix for nutritrix. sewestris for semimestris, etc. ; in each of which, as in (2) above, it is one of two similar syllables that is suppressed ; but here also such similarity is not essential, as is shown by praebere for praa/izbere, vicies for vicewiies, etc. These suppressions were probably at first individual mis- pronunciations, and gradually spread, owing to the general tendency of men to avoid unnecessary effort even in speak- ing. Of " Cross Compensation " we meet in actual talk with instances actually identical in nature with those in (3) above : indeed, there are probably few people who have not at sundry times been guilty of such more or less amusing interchanges of sounds. The differentiae of the spoken exam- ples are that they affect separate words, and of these words the initial letter or syllable. I once heard, for example, an orator, in presenting the portrait of a public man to a public institution, declare that it would thenceforth adorn " the Halls of those TFalls ". In farcical writings artificial instances are used to supply a sort of mechanical humour ; as where Mr. Bouncer states that he feels " scattered and yZattified ". (To this phenomenon as a permanent feature in certain strata of language, and to analogous but casual examples observed in correlative actions, I invited the attention of Psychologists by a Note in this Journal as far back as January, 1878.) In respect of " Contamination " also the spoken examples are identical in form and nature with those in (5) ; but they most frequently crop up in the talk of the illiterate ; as when an old woman recently pronounced a waiting-room to be stufficating ( = stuffy + (suSo)cating) . Of this process likewise instances may be manufactured ; as in a tale by Mayne Keid (I think), where an old hunter is represented as using pre- zackly ( = jore(cisely) + eg(zactly), gz = x: compare the facetious tanner-grown, or the American beauty electro-cution. As to phrases, we may both hear plenty and see them reproduced in sloppy journals and books ; e.g. : the now frequent com- binations, " cheap fares " and " dear rents," as if we bought 1 This process occasionally repeats itself in modern times : thus, for " cabbage " (pronounced " cabb/dge ") we often hear " kebbfdge " (partial assimilation) ; a better instance is given by the series Jane, Janie, Jmm'e (partial assimilation), pronounced Jinnie (complete assimilation): and similarly, James . . . Jimmy.
