height} heighth} height} hight} hight } maneuver maneuver } manœuvre} melasses molasses mold mold } mould} molt molt } moult} plow plow } plough} tongue} tongue tung } wo woe crum crumb pontif pontiff ake } ache ache} maiz maize gimblet gimlet feather} feather fether } steady} steady steddy} mosk mosque ribin ribbon cutlas cutlass skain skain} skein} sherif sheriff porpess porpoise It should be added that in many cases where the later editors have receded from Webster's advanced position they have added a note approving his innovation as etymologically correct and preferable. There can be no doubt that Webster was careless and inconsistent in his entry of these words, since he would venture his improvement under the word, fling scorn at the current usage, and then, when using the word elsewhere in definition or in compounds, forget his improvement and follow the customary orthography. From our rapid survey of the orthography, however, it may be said in general that Webster's decision in the case of classes of words has been maintained in subsequent editions, but his individual alterations have been regarded as contributions to an impossibly ideal correct orthography, and quietly dropped. The fact illustrates Webster's strength and weakness. His notions on the subject of uniformity were often very sensible, and he had the advantage of reducing to order what was hopelessly chaotic in common usage. But his sense of the stability of usage was imperfect, and when he moved among the words at random, arranging the language to suit his personal taste, he discovered or his successors did that words have roots of another kind than what etymologists regard.