Kindly permit me to make a few comments. As to “honour, fervour, ardour,” etc., you say that “undoubtedly the American way (i. e., honor, etc.) is better than the other, historically as well as economically.” I suppose that “economically” means the saving of one letter; that I do not consider as worthy of note at all. As to the historical point, the words in Latin are all “honor, ardor, fervor, labor, color,” etc.; but then in French, through which they came into English, they are “honneur, couleur,” etc., so that it seems to me that the u is historically defensible.

“Sceptical” or “skeptical”—a matter of indifference; the hard c represents the Greek kappa in any case. I suppose you spell “speculator,” yet the Greek is spe?????t??; so “sceptre” is the Greek s??pt???. So we might write “spektakle” if we cared to do so; indeed, many Greek scholars do use k where ordinary people would use c, as “Asklepiad, Korkyra,” etc.

“Ascendant, ascendancy”—the usual plan is to take the letter found in the supine of the Latin verb; thus, “dependent,” from Latin “dependens,” “intermittent,” from Latin “intermittens,” “dominant,” from Latin “dominans,” and so on. On this plan “ascendent” and “ascendency” would be right, as “scando” and “ascendo” make “scandens” and “ascendens.”

You say, “Each of the large dictionaries is worthy of acceptance as final authority in every instance.” Not by everybody, by any manner of means. There are many better scholars than the dictionary-makers. Would you expect Mr. Gladstone, John Ruskin, Andrew Lang, Archbishop Temple, Bishops Lightfoot and Westcott, Dean Farrar, and many others to accept the dictum of a dictionary man in every instance? Why, I do not do it myself. Indeed, though I possess Greek, Latin, and French dictionaries, I have never possessed an English one, and do not much regard them or the people who think them infallible. Educated people in England have no such opinion about dictionaries; in fact, they consider themselves the source of authority in matters of usage and pronunciation. Oxford and Cambridge men and members of the educated classes in England are the sole arbiters in such matters; there is no appeal against them. Richard Grant White thoroughly grasped this and expressed it very well. Just as all classical scholars try to write Attic Greek, i. e., the Greek of the inhabitants of one Greek city, and entirely disregard the millions of other Greeks (even though so eminent as Homer and Herodotus), so all English-speaking people should model their language on that of the educated classes of Great Britain.

“Economically,” as used in the article criticised above, meant the saving of one letter, and as many scholars, both English and American, are noting such economy, and making it very important, it may be concluded that it is worthy of note. Certainly the spellings “honour,” etc., are defensible historically—but no assertion has been made that they were not; the saying was merely that the other way is better historically. The words came into English through French, but the Latin spelling is preferable for more reasons than one. If we are to preserve the u because it is in the French words, is not the reasoning equally applicable to the whole syllable in which the letter is used? Would it not be equally reasonable to preserve the other u in the first syllable of “couleur”? The French themselves once spelled these words—or most of them—or. They changed them probably to represent better the natural French sound of such syllables. Because Englishmen first learned such words from Frenchmen does not seem a valid reason why the former may not revert to the historical original, which is more in keeping with English analogy, and better represents the English sound.

As to “sceptical” and “skeptical,” one who knows the need of a vast majority of English-speaking people of an authoritative choice between the two forms can never admit that the spelling is “a matter of indifference,” even if it could be reasonably admitted on any ground. Our correspondent is unfortunate in his selection of an example here, for spe?????t?? seems to be not a true Greek word, but only a transliteration of Latin “speculator,” the true etymon of the English word, which does not come from Greek. We might have written “spektakle” if we had cared to do so, as it is spelled with ks in some Teutonic languages; but in the close connection here there is a strong suggestion that this word might also be Greek, which it is not. The reason for preferring “skeptical” is that there is not another English word in which c in the combination sce is hard, and so “sceptical” is a very bad spelling, even if it is prevalent in Great Britain.

On the plan mentioned in the letter “ascendent” and “ascendency” are right; but the other spellings are copied from the French, so potent with our correspondent in the other case, and are prevalent in present usage. “Ascendant” and “ascendancy” are preferable for this reason, and because the use of these spellings removes one of the puzzling differences which most people can not understand or explain. The plan mentioned would also give “descendent,” which has no currency as a noun, though it has been used as an adjective, and “descendant” and “ascendant” are so much alike in their nature that it is better not to make them different in form.

“Each of the large dictionaries is worthy of acceptance as final authority in every instance” was intended only as an assurance that those who desired such an authority—and there are many such—might reasonably accept the one chosen, without trying to make exceptions. There could be no intention of dictating that scholars should “accept the dictum of a dictionary man” in every instance, for that would be “putting the cart before the horse” with a vengeance. One need feel no hesitation in saying, however, that the English-speaking educated man does not live, and never will live, who can afford to ignore utterly dictionaries of English. No dictionary is made as our correspondent seems to assume that all are made, though probably every one of them has provided employment for some men not so thoroughly educated as men can be. Educated people, in America as well as in England, make the scholarly part of the language, though it contains much that is made by the common people and that finds just as thorough establishment as that made by the scholars. Dictionary-makers never pose as language-makers. They are recorders of what is already made, which is so great in quantity that no scholar can hope to master the fiftieth part of it so thoroughly as to need no record of it. Even supposing that Oxford and Cambridge men and members of the educated classes in England are the sole arbiters in such matters—it is not supposable, though—how is the rest of the world to know their decisions if they are not recorded? Any record of them will constitute a dictionary, for that is exactly what a dictionary is—namely, a record of the accepted details of diction. As a matter of fact, also, our actual dictionary-makers, those who are vested with authoritative decision, are selected from among the very men for whom independence of dictionary men’s dicta is claimed. Noah Webster, Dr. Worcester, Professor Goodrich, Professor Whitney, Dr. March, President Porter, Dr. C. P. G. Scott, and Dr. J. A. H. Murray—not to mention the many other English scholars who have been dictionary-makers—rank with the men named in the letter, if some of these do not outrank some of those in scholarship, and they are the ones who choose where there is a choice in making the record. Dictionaries contain errors, and scholars are independently above acceptance of the errors; but we may repeat the saying that when once a large dictionary is chosen as authority it is better, as to matters of spelling, to accept it in full.

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