Page 13 - English

Also in Democratic newspapers now and then. Here are two
where the mistake has resulted from sound assisted by remote fact :

Plagiarist, a writer of plays.
Demagogue, a vessel containing beer and other liquids.

I cannot quite make out what it was that misled the pupil in the
following instances; it would not seem to have been the sound of the
word, nor the look of it in print:

Asphyxia, a grumbling, fussy temper.
Quarternions, a bird with a flat beak and no bill, living in New
Zealand.
Quarternions, the name given to a style of art practiced by the
Phrenicians.
Quarternions, a religious convention held every hundred years.
Sibilant, the state of being idiotic.
Crosier, a staff carried by the Deity.

In the following sentences the pupil’s ear has been deceiving him
again:

The marriage was illegible.
He was totally dismasted with the whole performance.
He enjoys riding on a philosopher.
She was very quick at repertoire.
He prayed for the waters to subsidize.
The leopard is watching his sheep.
They bad a strawberry vestibule.

Here is one which—well, now, how often we do slam right into
the truth without ever suspecting it:

The men employed by the Gas Company go round and speculate the
meter.

Indeed they do, dear; and when you grow up, many and many’s
the time you will notice it in the gas bill. In the following sentences
the little people have some information to convey, every time ; but in
my case they failed to connect: the light always went out on the
keystone word:

The coercion of some things is remarkable; as bread and molasses.
Her hat is contiguous because she wears it on one side.

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