A few remarks may well be made here on some of the peculiarities of Southern English that appear here. The use of _v_ for _f_ (as in _vader_, _vram_, _vlesshe_), and of _z_ for _s_ (as in _zone_, _zit_, _zennes_) are common to this day, especially in Somersetshire. The spelling _lhord_ reminds us that many Anglo-Saxon words began with _hl_, one of them being _hl{-a}fweard_, later _hl{-a}ford_, a lord; and this _hl_ is a symbol denoting the so-called "whispered _l_," sounded much as if an aspirate were prefixed to the _l_, and still common in Welsh, where it is denoted by _ll_, as in _llyn_, a lake. In every case, modern English substitutes for it the ordinary _l_, though _lh_ (= _hl_) was in use in 1340 in Southern. The prefix _y-_, representing the extremely common A.S. (Anglo-Saxon) prefix _ge-_, was kept up in Southern much longer than in the other dialects, but has now disappeared; the form _y-clept_ being archaic. The plural suffix _-en_, as in _haly-en_, holy ones, saints, is due to the fact that Southern admitted the use of that suffix very freely, as in _cherch-en_, churches, _sterr-en_, stars, etc.; whilst Northern only admitted five such plurals, viz. _egh-en_, _ey-en_, eyes (Shakespeare's _eyne_), _hos-en_, stockings, _ox-en_, _shoo-n_, shoes, and _f{-a}-n_, foes; _ox-en_ being the sole survivor, since _shoon_ (as in _Hamlet_, IV iv 26) is archaic. The modern _child-r-en_, _breth-r-en_, are really double plurals; Northern employed the more original forms _childer_ and _brether_, both of which, and especially the former, are still in dialectal use. _Evrelest-inde_ exhibits the Southern _-inde_ for present participles. But the word _zennes_, sins, exhibits a peculiarity that is almost solely Kentish, and seldom found elsewhere, viz. the use of _e_ for _i_. The explanation of this rests on an elementary lesson in Old English phonology, which it will do the reader no harm to acquire. The modern symbol _i_ (when denoting the _short_ sound, as in _pit_) really does double duty. It sometimes represents the A.S. short _i_, as in _it_ (A.S. _hit_), _sit_ (A.S. _sittan_), _bitten_ (A.S. _b{)i}ten_), etc.; and sometimes the A.S. short _y_, as in _pyt_, a pit. The sound of the A.S. short _i_ was much the same as in modern English; but that of the short _y_ was different, as it denoted the "mutated" form of short _u_ for which German has a special symbol, viz. _{ue}_, the sound intended being that of the German _ue_ in _schuetzen_, to protect. In the latter case, Kentish usually has the vowel _e_, as in the modern Kentish _pet_, a pit, and in the surname _Petman_ (at Margate), which means _pitman_; and as the A.S. for "sin" was _synn_ (dat. _synne_), the Kentish form was _zenne_, since Middle English substantives often represent the A.S. dative case. The Kentish plural had the double form, _zennes_ and _zennen_, both of which occur in the _Ayenbite_, as might have been expected.