Of orthography, § 1. Distinction of words of doubtful signification, 2-6. Composition with prepositions, 7-9. On the letter k, 10. Orthography subservient to custom; antique spelling, 11-27. Difference between spelling and pronunciation, 28, 29. Necessity of judgment, 30-32. Quintilian defends his remarks on this subject, 33-35. 1. SINCE we have mentioned what rules are to be followed in speaking, we must now specify what are to be observed by writers. What the Greeks call ὀρθογραφία (orthographia), we may call the art of writing correctly, an art which does not consist in knowing of what letters every syllable is composed (for this study is beneath the profession even of the grammarian), but exercises its whole subtilty, in my opinion, on dubious points. 2. As it is the greatest of folly to place a mark on all long syllables, since most of them are apparent from the very nature of the word that is written, yet it is at times necessary to mark them, as when the same letter gives sometimes one sense and sometimes another, according as it is short or long; thus malus is distinguished by a mark to show whether it means "a tree" or "a bad man;" 3. palus, too, signifies one thing when its first syllable is long, and another when its second is so; and when the same letter is short in the nominative and long in the ablative, we have generally to be informed by this mark which quantity we are to adopt. 4. Grammarians have in like manner thought that the following distinction should be observed: namely, that we should write the preposition ex, if the word specto was compounded with it, with the addition of -s in the second syllable, exspecto; if pecto, without the -s. 5. It has been a distinction, also, observed by many, that ad, when it was a preposition, should take the letter -d, but when a conjunction, the letter -t; and that cum, if it signified time, should be written with a -q and two -u's following, but if it meant accompaniment, with a -c. 6. Some other things were even more trifling than these, as that quicquid should have a -c for the fourth letter, lest we should seem to ask a double question, and that we should write quotidie, not cotidie, to show that it was for quot diebus. But these notions have already passed away among other puerilities. 7. It is, however, a question in writing prepositions whether it is proper to observe the sound which they make when joined to another word, or that which they make when separate, as for instance when I pronounce the word obtinuit, for our method of writing requires that the second letter should be -b, while the ear catches rather the sound of -p; 8. or when I say immunis, for the letter -n, which the composition of the word requires, is influenced by the sound of the following syllable and changed into another -m. 9. It is also to be observed, in dividing compound words, whether you ought to attach the middle consonant to the first or to the second syllable; for aruspex, as its latter part is from spectare, will assign the letter -s to the third syllable; abstemius, as it is formed of abstinentia temeti, "abstinence from wine," will leave the -s to the first syllable. 10. As to -k, I think it should not be used in any words, except those which it denotes of itself, so that it may be put alone. This remark I have not omitted to make because there are some who think -k necessary when -a follows; though there is the letter -c, which suits itself to all vowels. 11. But orthography submits to custom and has therefore frequently been altered. I say nothing of those ancient times when there were fewer letters and when their shapes were different from these of ours, and their natures also different, as that of -o among the Greeks, which was sometimes long and sometimes short, and -as among us was sometimes put for the syllable which it expresses by its mere name. 12. I say nothing also of -d, among the ancient Latins, being added as the last letter to a great number of words, as is apparent from the rostral pillar erected to Calus Duellius in the forum; nor do I speak of -g being used in the same manner, as on the pulvinar of the Sun, which is worshipped near the temple of Romulus, is read vesperug, which we take for vesperugo. 13. Nor is it necessary to say anything here of the interchange of letters, of which I have spoken above, for perhaps as they wrote they also spoke. 14. It was for a long time a very common custom not to double the semivowels, while, on the other hand, even down to the time of Accius and later, they wrote, as I have remarked, long syllables with two vowels. 15. Still longer continued the practice of using -e and -i together, joining them in the same manner as the Greeks in the diphthong -ei. This practice was adopted for a distinction in cases and numbers, as Lucilius admonishes us: Jam pueri venere: E postremum facito, atque I, and afterwards, Mendaci furique addes E, quum dare furei 16.However this addition of -e is both superfluous, since -i has the nature of a long as well as of a short letter, and also sometimes inconvenient; for in those words which have -e immediately before the last syllable, and end with -i long, we should use, if we adopted that method, a double -e, as aureei, argenteei, and the like; and this would be extremely embarrassing to those who are being taught to read. 17. This happens also among the Greeks by the addition of the letter -i, which they not only write at the end of dative cases, but sometimes even in the middle of a word, as ΛΗΙΣΤΗΙ (LĒISTĒI), because etymology, in making a division of the word into three syllables, requires that letter. 18. The diphthong -ae, for the second letter of which we now substitute -e, our ancestors expressed with a varied pronunciation, by -a and -i, some using it in all cases like the Greeks, others only in the singular when they had to form a genitive or dative case. Whence Virgil, a great lover of antiquity, has inserted in his verses pictai vestis and aquai, but in the plural number of such nouns they use -e, as Syllae, Galbae. 19. There is on this point also a precept of Lucilius, which, as it is expressed in a great number of verses, whoever is incredulous about it may seek in his ninth book. 20. I may mention, too, that in the time of Cicero and some what later, the letter -s, as often as it occurred between two long vowels or followed a long vowel, was doubled, as caussae, cassus, divissiones, for that both he and Virgil wrote in this way, their own hands show. 21. But those of a somewhat earlier period wrote the word jussi, which we express with two -s's, with only one. That optimus, maximus, should take -i as their middle letter which among the ancients was -u, is said to have been brought about by an inscription to Caius Caesar. 22. The word here we now end with the letter -e; but I still find in the books of the old comic writers Heri ad me venit, which same mode of spelling is found in the letters of Augustus, which he wrote or corrected with his own hand. 23. Did not Cato the Censor, also, for dicam and faciam, write dicem and faciem? And did he not observe the same method in other verbs which terminate in a similar way? This is indeed manifest from his old writings and is remarked by Messala in his book on the letter -s. 24.Sibe and quase occur in the writings of many authors, but whether the authors themselves intended them to be written thus, I do not know. That Livy spelled them in that way, I learn from Pedianus, who himself imitated Livy; we end those words with the letter -i. 25. Why need I allude to vortices and vorsus and other similar words, in which Scipio Africanus is said to have first changed the second letter into -e? 26. Our tutors wrote ceruum and seruum with the letters -u and -o, ceruom, seruom, in order that the same two vowels, following each other, might not coalesce and be confounded in the same sound; they are now written with two -u's on the principle which I have stated, though in neither way is the word which we conceive exactly expressed. Nor was it without advantage that Claudius introduced the Aeolic letter for such cases. 27. It is an improvement of the present day that we spell cui with the three letters which I have just written; for in this word, when we were boys, they used, making a very offensive sound, qu and oi, only that it might be distinguished from qui. 28. What shall I say, too, of words that are written otherwise than they are pronounced? Gaius is spelled with the letter -c, which, inverted, means a woman; for that women were called Caiae, as well as men Caii, appears even from our nuptial ceremonies. 29. Nor does Gneius assume that letter, in designating a praenomen, with which it is sounded. We read, too, columna and consules with the letter -n omitted, and Sabura, when it is designated by three letters, takes -c as the third. There are many other peculiarities of this kind, but I fear that those which I have noticed have exceeded the limits of so unimportant a subject. 30. On all such points let the grammarian use his own judgment, for in this department it ought to be of the greatest authority. For myself, I think that all words (unless custom has ordered otherwise) should be written in conformity with their sound. 31. For this is the use of letters, to preserve words, and to restore them, like a deposit, to readers; and they ought, therefore, to express exactly what we are to say. 32. These are the most important points as to speaking and writing correctly. The other two departments, those of speaking with significancy and elegance, I do not indeed take away from the grammarians, but as the duties of the rhetorician remain for me to explain, I reserve them for a more important part of my work. 33. Yet the reflection recurs to me that some will regard those matters of which I have just treated as extremely trifling and even as impediments to the accomplishment of anything greater. Nor do I myself think that we ought to descend to extreme solicitude and puerile disputations about them; I even consider that the mind may be weakened and contracted by being fixed upon them. 34. But no part of grammar will be hurtful, except what is superfluous. Was Cicero the less of an orator because he was most attentive to the study of grammar and because, as appears from his letters, he was a rigid exactor, on all occasions, of correct language from his son? Did the writings of Julius Caesar On Analogy diminish the vigor of his intellect? Or was Messala less elegant as a writer because he devoted whole books, not merely to single words, but even to single letters? These studies are injurious not to those who pass through them, but to those who dwell immoderately upon them.
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