With this hope, however, academies have been instituted, to guard the avenues of their languages, to retain fugitives, and repulse intruders; but their vigilance and activity have hitherto been vain; sounds are too volatile and subtile for legal restraints; to enchain syllables, and to lash the wind, are equally the undertakings of pride, unwilling to measure its desires by its strength.

In words, as fashions, the same rule will hold; Alike fantastic, if too new, or old: Be not the first by whom the new are tried, Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.

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Page 131 - Either and neither are so often pronounced eye-ther and nigh-ther, that it is hard to say to which class they belong. Analogy, however, without hesitation, gives the diphthong the sound of long open e, rather than that of /', and rhymes them with breather, one who breathes. Appears in 25 books from 1806-2003

Page 132 - For the pronunciation i-ther and nither, with the i long, which is sometimes heard, there is no authority, either of analogy or of the best speakers. It is an affectation, and in this country, a copy of a second-rate British affectation. Appears in 24 books from 1868-1999

Page 122 - ... b'l) . . . E. Variants Where two or more pronunciations for a single word are given, the order in which they are entered does not necessarily mean that the first is preferred to or more correct than the one or ones that follow. In most cases, the order indicates that on the basis of available information, the form given first is the one most frequent in general cultivated use. Where usage is about evenly divided, since one form must be given first, the editors' preference generally prevails. Appears in 6 books from 1974-1999

Page 389 - To entertain them fair with open front And breast (what could we more ?) propounded terms Of composition, straight they... Appears in 171 books from 1776-2007

Page 24 ... landlessness alone resides the highest truth, shoreless, indefinite as God — so better is it to perish in that howling infinite, than be ingloriously dashed upon the lee, even if that were safety! For wormlike, then, oh! who would craven crawl to land! Terrors of the terrible! is all this agony so vain? Take heart, take heart, O Bulkington! Bear thee grimly, demigod! Up from the spray of thy ocean-perishing — straight up, leaps thy apotheosis! Appears in 72 books from 1853-2008

Page 287 - not recognized by the dictionaries ', is practised by two oddly consorted classes — the academic speakers who affect a more precise enunciation than their neighbours... Appears in 11 books from 1926-1999

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