[65] It is regretted that the adjectives, _indissoluble_, _irreparable_ were derived immediately from the Latin, _indissolubilis_, _irreparabilis_, and not from the English verbs, _dissolve_, _repair_. Yet _dissolvable_, _indissolvable_, _repairable_ and _irrepairable_, are better words than _indissoluble_, _reparable_, _irreparable_. They not only preserve the analogy, but they are more purely English words; and I have been witness to a circumstance which alone ought to determine their excellence and give them currency: People of ordinary education have found difficulty in understanding such derivatives as _irreparable_, _indissoluble_; but the moment the words _irrepairable_, _indissolveable_ are pronounced, they are led to the meaning by a previous acquaintance with the words _repair_ and _dissolve_. Numberless examples of this will occur to a person of observation, sufficient to make him abhor and reject the pedantry of authors, who have labored to strip their native tongue of its primitive English dress, and load it with fantastic ornaments. [66] _Flexion_ resolved into its proper letters would be _fleksion_, that is _flekshun_; and _fleks-yun_ would give the same sound. [67] To an ignorance of the laws of versification, we must ascribe the unwarrantable contraction of _watery_, _wonderous_, &c. into _watry_, _wondrous_. [68] Rhetorical Grammar, prefixed to his Dictionary, page 32. London, 1773. [69] Rhet. Gram. 33. [70] His grammar was written in Latin, in the reign of Charles IId. The work is so scarce, that I have never been able to find but a single copy. The author was one of the founders of the Royal Society. [71] This sound of _u_, foreigners will nearly obtain, by attempting to pronounce the dipthong _iu_; that is, the narrow _i_ before _u_ or _w_; (as in the Spanish word _ciudad_, a city.) Yet the sound (of _u_) is not exactly the same, altho it approaches very near to it; for the sound of _iu_ is compound; whereas the _u_ of the English and French is a simple sound. [72] Lowth condemns such a phrase as, "the introducing an _e_" and says it should be, "the introducing _of_ an _e_." This is but one instance of a great number, in which he has rejected _good_ English. In this situation, _introducing_ is a participial noun; it may take an article before it, like any other noun, and yet govern an objective, like any transitive verb. This is the idiom of the language: but in most cases, the writer may use or omit _of_, at pleasure. [73] I must except that reason, which is always an invincible argument with weak people, viz. "It is the practice of some great men." This common argument, which is unanswerable, will also prove the propriety of imitating all the polite and detestable vices of the great, which are now unknown to the _little vulgar_ of this country.