_a._ The _-a-_ in _black-a-moor_ is possibly such a connecting element. _b._ The _-in-_ in _night-in-gale_ is most probably such a connecting element. Compare the German form _nacht-i-gale_, and remember the tendency of vowels to take the sound of _-ng_ before _g_. s. 422. _Improper compounds._--The _-s-_ in words like _Thur-s-day_, _hunt-s-man_, may be one of two things. _a._ It may be the sign of the genitive case, so that _Thursday_=_Thoris dies_. In this case the word is an improper compound, since it is like the word _pater-familias_ in Latin, in a common state of syntactical construction. _b._ It may be a connecting sound, like the _-i-_ in _nacht-i-gale_. Reasons for this view occur in the following fact:-- In the Modern German languages the genitive case of feminine nouns ends otherwise than in _-s_. Nevertheless, the sound of _-s-_ occurs in composition equally, whether the noun it follows be masculine or feminine. This fact, as far as it goes, makes it convenient to consider the sound in question as a connective rather than a case. Probably, it is neither one nor the other exactly, but the effect of a false analogy. s. 423. _Decomposites._--"Composition is the joining together of _two_ words."--See p. 357. In the first edition the sentence ran "_two or more_" words; being so written to account for compounds like _mid-ship-man_, {366} _gentle-man-like_, &c., where the number of verbal elements seems to amount to three. Nevertheless, the caution was unnecessary. Compound radicals like _midship_ and _gentleman_, are, for the purposes of composition, single words. Compounds wherein one element is compound are called decomposites. s. 424. The present chapter closes with the notice of two classes of words. They are mentioned now, not because they are compounds, but because they can be treated of here more conveniently than elsewhere. There are a number of words which are never found by themselves; or, if so found, have never the same sense that they have in combination. Mark the word combination. The terms in question are points of combination, not of composition: since they form not the parts of words, but the parts of phrases. Such are the expressions _time and tide_--_might and main_--_rede me my riddle_--_pay your shot_--_rhyme and reason_, &c. These words are evidently of the same class, though not of the same species with _bishopric_, _colewort_, _spillikin_, _gossip_, _mainswearer_, and the words quoted in p. 362. These last-mentioned terms give us obsolete words preserved in composition. The former give us obsolete words preserved in combination. The other words are etymological curiosities. They may occur in any language. The English, however, from the extent of its classical element, is particularly abundant in them. It is a mere accident that they are all compound words. * * * * * {367} CHAPTER XXXII. ON DERIVATION AND INFLECTION.