Society for Pure English, Tract 02 - On English Homophones by Robert Seymour Bridges;Society for Pure English
page 58 of 94 (61%)
page 58 of 94 (61%)
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Besides the above may be noted
WONT (_sub._): lost in _won't_ = will not. FAIR: Though we still speak of 'a fair complexion' the word has lost much of its old use: and the verb TO FARE has suffered; we still say 'Farewell', but scarcely 'he fares ill'; also TO FARE FORTH is obsolete. BOLT = to sift, has gone out, also BOLT in the sense of a missile weapon; but the weapon may have gone first; we still preserve it in 'a bolt from the blue', a thunder-bolt, and 'a fool's bolt is soon shot', and we shoot the bolt of a door. BARM: this being the name of an object which would be familiar only to brewers and bakers, probably suffered from the discontinuance of family brewing and baking. It would no longer be familiar, and may possibly have felt the blurring effect of the ill-defined BALM, which word also seems rarely used. In the South of England few persons now know what barm is. ARCH: _adj._, probably obsolescent. There are also examples of words with the affix a-, or initials simulating that affix, thus: ABY: lost in _abide_, with which it was confused. ABODE = bode (? whether ever in common use). |
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