To take, then, the matter of orthography, there are certain general classes of words which have borne the brunt of criticism. In his first edition Webster's rule was to omit _k_ after _c_ from the end of all words of more than one syllable, and to retain it in longer forms of the same word only when it was required to defend the hard sound of c. He wrote thus: _public_, _publication_. But Webster, like writers of to-day, was constantly allowing his uniform rule to give way in cases where custom had fastened upon him. Thus he still spelled _traffick_, _almanack_, _frolick_, _havock_, and it was quite possible for his critics to follow him through a long list of words of this class and detect his frequent aberration from a uniform rule. Yet, instead of receding from his position, the latest edition advances; a nicer discrimination is made in the etymological origin of the variation, but in point of practice a much more general conformity to the rule is recorded. There can be no question that the _k_ has a foreign air when found in such cases in American books. Again, Webster omitted the _u_ in the unaccented termination _our_, as _honor_ for _honour_. In this, too, he was not without English precedent. Johnson was singularly inconsistent in this respect, and his influence has extended over English orthography to the present day, so that one cannot take up a well-printed English journal without discovering an apparently arbitrary use of the termination. The usage as recorded by Webster has held its ground, and there is no variation between the first and latest editions, except that the alternative form _Saviour_ is given in the latest as a concession to an undefined sense of sanctity which would lead to a separation of the word from its class. There is a foot-note in the edition of 1828, in which Washington's omission of _u_ is cited as an argument in favor of the form _or_.