The Congregational Observer

SAYBROOK PLATFORM.
Communicated.
OBSERVATIONS ON ORTHOGRAPHY.—NO. 3.
BY N. WEBSTER.

I write afterward, backward, onward, toward, upward, without s. This letter is of no use, and it is better to write these words in one way only. I have rejected this letter from my large Dictionary now in the press, and from my stereotype edition of the New Testament. I shall banish it from all my books.

I write mold, instead of mould, because it is the original word in our mother tongue; and so it was written by Pope, Goldsmith, and many others in a former age, and by Mitford. The English mistake the origin of the word, supposing it to be French.

I write hainous for heinous, because this is the true spelling from the French haineux, and so we pronounce it. How absurd to give a spelling different both from the original and the pronunciation. In Cotgrave and Mitford it is written hainous, as in More, Hackluyt, Spenser, Donne, Whiston &c.

I write tun, instead of ton, a weight; for tun is our native word, never changed till modern times. The name of the weight is the same as that of a cask. In writing ton from the French the English confound the word with ton, from the Latin tonus.

I follow Lowth in writing Mode, instead of Mood in Grammar, Mode is from the Latin modus, but mood is a word from a different source, and these ought not to be confounded.