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kh, ph, rh, sh, th, wh, ng, as alphabetic characters, adding to them dh and zh. He would write the and that as 'dhe' and 'dhat' and azure he would write azhure.' After the same manner the vocalic digraphs ee, ai, aa, au, oa, oo, oi, ou, would be counted as primary letters, and thus complete an alphabet of forty-six characters. The e final would be discarded in all instances in which it is really idle, having no effect on the preceding vowel; and freez, gauz, would take the place of freeze, gauze (158). In this scheme the idea seems to be that an orthography-reasonably phonetic and consistent-ought to be discovered without the sacrifice of tradition and historical association. It would be—' not uniform spelling, but consistent spelling; so dhat dhat half ov dhe language which iz spelt etymologically may be spelt consistently on dhe etymological principle, while dhe odher half ov dhe language which iz spelt phonetically may be spelt consistently on dhe phonetic principle.'

The phonetic principle is to be admitted when it does not conflict with the etymological. For instance, the s would be rejected from island (properly iland), but retained in isle, to which it rightly belongs. For Mr. Fry proposes, as a means of reconciling tradition with current pronunciation, that silent letters should be preserved whenever required by etymology, but otherwise omitted.

192. More plans are proposed than we have enumerated or have space to enumerate. It is plain where so many schemes are broached that the need of some change is very widely felt, but there seems to be little agreement as to the direction reform should take.

If however a distinct path is chosen, it will at once lay open to our view a new and as yet unnoticed difficulty. When we enter on the path of spelling-reform, we pass from that on which we are tolerably agreed, namely conventional orthography, to raise a new structure on a foundation of unascertained stability. The moment you resolve to spell the sound, you bring into the foreground what before lay almost unobserved-the great diversity of opinion which exists as to the correct sound of many words.

CHAPTER III.

OF INTERJECTIONS.

193. THE term Interjection signifies something that is 'pitched in among' things of which it does not naturally form a constituent part. The Interjection has been so named by grammarians in order to express its relation to grammatical structures. It is found in them, but it forms no part of them.

The interjection may be defined as a form of speech which is articulate and symbolic but not grammatical. It is only to be called grammatical in that widest sense of the word, in which all that is written, including accents, stops, and quotation marks, would be comprised within the notion of grammar. When we speak of grammar as the handmaid of logic, then the interjection must stand aside.

Emotion is quick, and leaves no time for logical thought: if it use grammatical phrases they must be ready made and familiar to the lips; there is not time to select what is appropriate or consecutive. Hence the limited variety of interjections, and the almost unlimited use of single forms.

An interjection implies a meaning which it would require a whole grammatical sentence to expound, and it may be regarded as the rudiment of such a sentence. But it is a confusion of thought to rank it among the parts of speech. It is not in any sense a part; it is a whole (though an indistinct) expression of feeling or of thought. An inter

jection bears to its context the same sort of relation as a pictorial illustration does.

We rightly call an adjective or an adverb a Part of Speech, because these have no meaning by themselves without the aid of nouns and verbs, and because their very designation implies the existence of nouns and verbs. But an interjection is intelligible without any grammatical adjunct; and such completeness as it is capable of is attained without collateral assistance.

194. Ancient grammarians ranked the interjections as adverbs, but the moderns have made them a separate class. If it were a question to which of the parts of speech the interjection is most cognate, it must be answered to the verb. For if we take any simple interjection, such as, for example, the cry 'Oh! Oh!' in the House of Commons, and assign to it a predicative value, it can only be done by a verb, either in the imperative or in the indicative first person. Either you must say it is equivalent to 'Don't say such things,' or else to 'I doubt,' 'I wonder,' 'I demur, 'I dispute,' 'I deny,' 'I protest': by one or more of these or such verbs must 'Oh, Oh!' be explained; and thus it seems to present itself as a rudimentary verb. But this again rises, not out of any singular affection that it bears to the verb in its formal character, but out of the general fact that the verb is the central representative and focus of that predicative force, which unequally pervades all language, but which in the interjection is wrapped round and enfolded with an involucre of emotion.

It may stand either insulated in the sentence, or by virtue of this obscure verbal character, it may be connected with it by a preposition, as—

Oh for a humbler heart and prouder song!

This is the nearest approach which it makes to structural

relations with the sentence, and this sort of relation it can have with a noun or pronoun, as—

They gaped upon me with their mouths, and said: Fie on thee, fie on thee, we saw it with our eyes.-Psalm xxxv. 21.

From that same germ of verbal activity it joins readily with the conjunction. Operating with the conjunction, it rounds off and renders natural an abrupt beginning, and forms as it were the bridge between the spoken and the unspoken:

Oh if in after life we could but gather

The very refuse of our youthful hours!-Charles Lloyd.

Because of the variety of possible meanings in the interjection, writing is less able to represent interjections than to express grammatical language. Even in the latter, writing is but an imperfect medium, because it fails to convey the accompaniments, such as the look, the tone, the gesture. This defect is more evident in the case of interjections, where the written word is but a very small part of the expression; and the manner, the pitch of tone, the gesture, is nearly everything.

195. Hence also it comes to pass that the interjection is of all that is printed the most difficult thing to read well aloud; for not only does it require a rare command of modulation, but the reader has moreover to be perfectly acquainted with the situation and temperament of the person using the interjection. Shakspeare's interjections cannot be rendered with any truth, except by one who has mastered the whole play.

In the accompaniments of tone, air, action, lies the rhetoric of the interjection, which is used with astonishing effect by children and savages. For it is to these that the interjection more especially belongs; and in proportion to the march of culture is the decline of interjectional speech.

But though the use of interjections is very much reduced by civilisation, and though there are whole fields of literature from which they are utterly banished, as History, Mathematics, Physical Science,—yet they have a sphere in which they are retained, and in this, the literature of the emotions, their importance will always be considerable. It should moreover be added, that while certain of the natural accompaniments of interjectional speech, such as gestures, grimaces, and gesticulations, are restrained by civilisation, there yet remains one, which alone is able to render justice to the interjection, and which culture tends to improve and develope, and that is, modulation. It is this which makes it still worth a poet's while to throw meaning into his interjections.

Moreover, though it is true on the whole that interjectional communications are restrained by civilisation; yet it is also to be noted on the other hand, that there are certain interjections which are the fruits of culture, and only find a place in the higher and more mature forms of human speech. Hence an important division, which will make this chapter fall into the two heads of (1) interjections of nature, or primitive interjections; and (2) artificial or historical interjections. The distinction between these sorts will be generally this, that the latter have a philological derivation, and the former have not.

§ 1. The Natural Interjection.

196. O; oh! This is well known as one of the earliest articulations of infants, to express surprise or delight. Later in life it comes to indicate also fear, aspiration, appeal, and an indefinite variety of emotions. It would almost seem that in proportion as the spontaneous modulation of the voice comes to perfection, in the same degree the range of this

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