MUTE E

or

exciteable or excitable? time, timeous or timous ? move, moveable movable? like, likely or likly? dote, doteard or dotard? judge, judgement or judgment? hinge, hingeing or hinging? singe, singeing or singing? gauge, gaugeable or gaugable? notice, noticeable or noticable? mouse, mousey or mousy? change, changeing or changing, changeling or changling? hie, hieing or hiing? glue, gluey or gluy? due, duely or duly? blue, blueish or bluish? whole, wholely or wholly? Whether such questions are idle was decided for me, as this article was being written, by the following in an evening paper:The almost ungaugable Forces which make history & forge the destinies of the race will not be hurried.

The only satisfactory rule, exceptions to which are very few, is this: If the suffix begins with a consonant, the mute e is retained; if the suffix begins with a vowel, the mute e is dropped. Applying this to the list above, we get (with the wrong results in italics, as a basis for exceptions); stalish; loving; milage; livable; striving; excitable; timous; movable; likely; dotard; judgement; hinging; singing; gaugable; noticable; mousy; changing; changeling; hiing; gluy; duely; bluish ; wholely.

The chief exception (gaugeable, noticeable, singeing) is that e remains even before a vowel when the soft sound of c or g is to be made possible (as before -able) or to be insisted on (as in distinguishing the participles of singe & sing). There are no other general exceptions; duly, truly, & wholly, are individual ones merely; hicing is specially so spelt to avoid consecutive is, much as clayey has an e actually inserted to separate two ys; & glucy, bluey, are due to fear that gluy, bluy, may be pronounced after buy & guy. For practical purposes, then, a single rule, with a single exception, suffices-stated again below. The only sacrifice involved is that of the power (most arbitrarily & incon

sistently exercised at present) of indicating the sound of an earlier vowel by insertion or omission of the e (mileage for fear that milage may be pronounced mil-). The history of dispiteous is perhaps the best comment; from despite came despitous (dispi'tus); when the spelling changed to despiteous (cf. the recent lineage, li'nij), the pronunciation changed to dispi'tius (cf. the old-established lineage, li'niěj), & out of this came a false association with piteous, cutting the word off from its etymology & attaching it to pity instead of to spite.

RULE

When a suffix is added to a word ending in mute e, the mute e is dropped before a vowel, but not before a consonant.

EXCEPTION

The e is kept even before a vowel if it is needed to preserve or emphasize the soft sound of a preceding g or c.

EXAMPLES

change, changeling, changing, changeable; singe, singeing; hinge, fake, hinging; trace, traceable; fakable; line, linage; mite, mity; strive, striving; pale, palish; judge, judgement.

mutilate makes lable, -tor; see -ABLE 1, -Or.

mutiny. For inflexions see VERBS IN -IE, -Y, -YE, 6.

mutism. So spelt; see MUTE E. mutual is a well-known trap. The essence of its meaning is that it involves the relation, a is or does to y as y to x; & not the relation, a is or does to z as y to z; from which it follows that our mutual friend Jones (meaning Jones who is your friend as well as mine), & all similar phrases, are misuses of m. example of the mistake, which is very common, is: On the other hand, if we [i.e., the Western Powers] merely sat with our arms folded there would be a peaceful penetration of

An

MUZHIK

Russia by the country [i.e., Germany] which was the mutual enemy [i.e., of both Russia & the Western Powers]. In such places common is the right word, & the use of m. betrays ignorance of its meaning. It should be added, however, that m. was formerly used much more loosely than it now is, & that the OED, giving examples of such looseness, goes no further in condemnation than Now regarded as incorrect', Commonly censured as incorrect, but still often used in the collocations m. friend, m. acquaintance, on account of the ambiguity of common'. The Dickens title has no doubt much to do with the currency of m. friend.

Another fault is of a different kind, betraying not ignorance, but lack of the taste or care that should prevent one from saying twice over what it suffices to say once. This happens when m. is combined with some part of each other, as in: It is this fraternity of Parliament-men serving a common cause, mutually comprehending each other's problems & difficulties, & respecting each other's rights & liberties, which is the foundation of the structure. It may fairly be said that the sole function of mutually) is to give the sense of some part of each other when it happens to be hard to get each other into one's sentence; if each other not only can be, but is, got in, m. is superfluous; in the quotation it adds nothing whatever, & is the merest tautology.

A few bad specimens follow:-The ring was mutually chosen by the Duke & Lady Elisabeth last Wednesday./ They have affinities beyond a m. admiration for Mazzini./M. exchange of prisoners./A m. exchange of berthage accommodation at Southampton & Bremen./It involves . . . m. semibankruptcy of employers & employed./ M. quotation of each other.

For the distinction between m. & reciprocal, see RECIPROCAL.

muzhik. See MOUJIK.

my. For my & your work &c. (not mine), see ABSOLUTE POSSESSIVES. mynheer, mein Herr, Herr. The first is Dutch & can mean gentleman, sir, or Mr; the second is German for sir; the third is German for gentleman & Mr.

myriad is generally used of a great but indefinite number; but it is well to remember that its original sense, still occasionally effective, is ten thousand.

mystic has been much slower than mysterious in becoming a popular word & thereby losing its definitely spiritual or occult or theological implications. Everything that puzzles one has long been called mysterious (who committed the latest murder, for instance), but not, mystic. It is very desirable that mystic should be kept as long as possible from such extension. fortunately the NOVELTY-HUNTERS, tired of mysterious, have lately got hold of it: But I don't want to be mystic, & you shall hear the facts & judge me afterwards.

Un

mystifiedly. A bad form; see -EDLY. mystify. For inflexions, see VERBS IN -IE, -Y, -YE, 6.

myth is a word introduced into English less than a century ago as a name for a form of story characteristic of primitive peoples & thus defined by the OED: A purely fictitious narrative usually involving supernatural persons, actions, or events, & embodying some popular idea concerning natural or historical phenomena. By those who wish to mark their adherence to this original sense the word is still often pronounced mith. But the meaning popularly attached to the word is little more than a tale devoid of truth or a non-existent person or thing or event; always in these senses, & usually even in the original one, the pronunciation is mith. See POPULARIZED TECHNICALITIES.

mythopoeic, -pœic. See A, Œ.

N

N

n. To the nth. As a mathematical symbol, n means an unspecified number; it is a dummy occupying a place until its unknown principal comes along, or a masquerader who on throwing off the mask may turn out to be anything. It does not mean an infinite number, nor the greatest possible number, nor necessarily even a large number, but simply the particular number that we may find ourselves concerned with when we come to details; it is short for one or two or three or whatever the number may be '. It follows that the common use of to the nth for to the utmost possible extent (The Neapolitan is an Italian to the nth degree./Minerva was starched to the nth) is wrong. It is true that sentences can be constructed in which the popular & the mathematical senses are reconciled (Though the force were increased to the nth, it would not avail), & here, no doubt, the origin of the misuse is to be sought. Those who talk in mathematical language without knowing mathematics go out of their way to exhibit ignorance. See POPULARIZED TECHNICALITIES.

nacrous, nacreous. better.

The first is

naiad. Pl. -ds or -des (pron. -dēz). naïf. If we were now adopting the French word for the first time, & were proposing not to distinguish between masculine & feminine, but to choose either -f or -ve for all uses, something might be said for the masculine form (in spite of pensive, effective, &c.) as being the French word before inflexion. But both forms have been with us for centuries representing both genders, & it is undeniable that naïve is now the prevalent spelling, & the use of naïf (either in all contexts or whenever the gender is not conspicuously feminine) a conscious correction of other people's supposed errors. Such corrections are pe

dantic when they are needless; on the needlessness of correcting established mis-spellings of foreign words,

see MORALE.

nail. Hit the (right) n. on the head. It is clear from the OED quotations that right, which blunts the point by dividing it into two, is a modern insertion; all the quotations up to 1700 are without it, & all after 1700 have it; it is better omitted.

naïve, naïveté, naive, naivety. The slowness with which the naturalization of the words has proceeded is curious & regrettable. For it will hardly be denied that they deserve a warm welcome as supplying a shade of meaning not provided by the nearest single English words. The OED definition, for instance, 'Natural, unaffected, simple, artless', clearly omits elements-the actor's unconsciousness & the observer's amusement-that are essential to the ordinary man's idea of naïveté. Unconsciously & amusingly simple; naive means not less than that, & is therefore a valuable word: but, as long as the majority of Englishmen are kept shy of it by what is to them queer spelling & pronunciation, its value will not be exploited. The difficulty is rather with the noun than with the adjective; many by this time write naive, & many call it nav; but naivety, though it was used by Hume & other 18th-century writers, has not yet made much headway against naïveté; till it wins, these potentially useful words will be very much wasted.

NARGHILE

narghile. Pron. -gili.

narrate makes table, -tor; see -ABLE 1, -OR.

narratress. See FEMININE DESIG

NATIONS.

nasal. For n. organ see PEDANTIC HUMOUR. For the phonetic sense see TECHNICAL TERMS.

nath(e)less. The OED puts first the spelling natheless & the pronunciation na'thlis.

nationalize, naturalize, make -zable; see MUTE E.

nature. 1. Periphrasis. The word is a favourite with the lazy writers who prefer glibness & length to conciseness & vigour. The accident was caused through the dangerous nature of the spot, the hidden character of the by-road, & the utter absence of any warning or dangersignal. The other way of putting this would be The accident happened because the spot was dangerous, the by-road hidden, & no warning given./ It must not be supposed that when we speak of Mr Balfour as unwilling to snatch at office we are suggesting any feeling of a converse nature in Mr Asquith. 'Any feeling of a converse nature' means the converse (or rather, perhaps, the opposite) feeling./It is true that nature slips readily off the tongue or pen in such contexts, but the temptation should be resisted; see PERIPHRASIS.

2. One touch of nature makes the whole world kin. What Shakspere meant was: There is a certain tendency natural to us all, viz that specified in the following lines (Troilus & Cressida, 111. iii. 176–9), which is, so far as one word may express it, fickleness. What is meant by those who quote him is: A thing that appeals to simple emotions evokes a wonderfully wide response; this is both true & important; but to choose for the expression of it words by which Shakspere meant nothing of the kind is unfair both to him & to it. That the first words of a cynicism appropriately put in the mouth of the Shaksperian Ulysses should be

NECESS(IT)ARIAN

the stock quotation for the power of sympathy is an odd reversal.

naught, nought. The variation of spelling is not a modern accident, but descends from Old English. The distinction, however, now usually observed between the senses borne by each form is a matter of convenience only, & by no means universally recognized. This distinction is that nought is simply the name of the cipher 0, while the archaic, poetic, & rhetorical uses in which the word is substituted for nothing in any other than the arithmetical sense now prefer naught :one, nought, nought, one; noughts & crosses; bring or come to, or set at, naught; availeth naught; give all for naught.

nautilus. Pl. -lī.

navigate makes gable; see -ABLE. navy. For n. & army, see ARMY. near(ly). The use of near in the sense of nearly (Not near so often; near dead with fright; near a century ago) has been so far affected by the vague impression that adverbs must end in ly as to be obsolescent; see UNIDIOMATIC -LY for other words in which the process has not gone so far. Those who still say near for nearly are suspected, if provincialism & ignorance are both out of the question, of pedantry; it is a matter in which it is wise to bow to the majority.

nebula. Pl. -lae.

necessarian. See NECESSITARIAN. necessary. For essential, n., & requisite, see ESSENTIAL.

necess(it)arian. The existence of two forms of a word, unless they are utilized for differentiation, is inconvenient, putting those who are not thoroughly familiar with the matter to the needless pains of finding out whether the two do in fact stand for different things or for the same. It would therefore be well if one of this pair could be allowed to lapse. There is no valid objection to the formation of either; but neces

NECTAR

sitarian is the better word, (1) as having a less un-English or a somehow more acceptable sound, (2) because its obvious connexion with necessity rather than with necessary makes the meaning plainer, & (3) as being already the more usual word. Necessarian should be regarded as a Needless varIANT.

nectar has kept the word-makers busy in search of its adjective; nectareal, nectarean, nectared, nectareous, nectarian, nectariferous, nectarine, nectarious, & nectarous, have all been given a chance. Milton, with nectared, nectarine, & nectarous, keeps clear of the four-syllabled forms in which the accent is drawn away from the significant part; & we might do worse than let him decide for us.

need. He seems to think that the Peronne bridge-head was abandoned earlier than need have been./It was assumed that Marshal Foch's reserves & army of manœuvre had been used up and need no longer to be taken into account as a uniform, effective body. These extracts suffice to show that lapses in grammar or idiom may occur with need. The first looks like some confusion between the verb & the noun need; at least the two right ways of putting it would be (a) earlier than it (i.e. the bridgehead) need have been (sc. abandoned), where need is the verb, & (b) earlier than need was (sc. to abandon it), where need is the noun.

With uncertainties whether need is a noun or a verb, whether needs is a verb or a plural noun or an adverb, & what relation is borne to the verbal needs & needed by the abnormal need often substituted for them, there are certain difficulties. The writer of the second extract has missed the point of idiom that, while needs & needed are ordinary verbs followed by infinitive with to, the abnormal need is treated as a mere auxiliary, like must, requiring no to; the reserves needed no longer to be taken, or did not need any

longer to be taken, but need no longer be taken, into account. The rules for the use of need instead of needs & needed are :-It is used only in interrogative & negative sentences; in such sentences it is more idiomatic than the normal forms, which are however permissible; if need is preferred, it is followed by infinitive without to, but needs & needed require to before their infinitive. Idiomatic form, They need not be counted; normal form, They did not need to be counted, or They needed not to be counted; wrong forms, They need not to be counted, They needed not (or did not need) be counted.

needle. A n. in a bottle of hay is the right wording, bottle being an old word, now dialectal only, for bundle; it is often mistaken for a mistake, & changed to bundle of hay or haystack.

needleful. Pl. needlefuls; see -FUL. NEEDLESS VARIANTS. Though it savours of presumption for any individual to label words needless, it is certain that words deserving the label exist; the question is which they are, & who is the censor that shall disfranchise them. Every dictionary-maker would be grateful to an Academy that should draw up an index expurgatorius & relieve him of the task of recording rubbish. There is no such body, & the dictionary-maker must content himself with recognizing, many many years after the event for fear he should be precipitate, that a word here & there is dead, aware the while that he is helping hundreds of others to linger on useless by adver tising them once more. Natural selection does operate, in the worlds of talk & literature; but the dictionaries inevitably lag behind. It is perhaps, then, rather a duty than a piece of presumption for those who have had experience in wordjudging to take any opportunity, when they are not engaged in actual dictionary-making, of helping things