How to parse. ...

Par. 268.] HINTS ON SPELLING.

175

wise the sound of the word might be altered, e.g.
" happ-yer," " gidd-yest." Hence -
Defy, defiance; easy, easi-est; remedy, remedial
remedi-ed; merry, merri-er; country, countries.
In many of these words the original termination was -ie,
which indeed was the regular English equivalent of the
French -e':
Citie; nobilitie; felicitie; clergie.
From a very early period y and i were interchanged (for
example in the Present Participle which ended in -inde or
-ynde) so that in the Utopia (1516 A.D.) we have " writynge,"
"myghte," " thynge,"" fyne." Hence y began to supersede
i in these terminations, so that in the Utopia, we find on the
same page, "felicitye" and " felicitie." By degrees, the e
after y, being found unnecessary, was dropped. It might
have been expected that the same curtailment would have
been attempted in the Plural: and accordingly in the Utopia
we find " qualityes." But, owing perhaps to the danger of
mispronunciation, " qualit-yes"-the innovation- did not
succeed in supplanting tile old Plural " qualit-ies."
This rule is also extended to -y before other
affixes, viz. -ment, -ly -fil: -
Necessari-ly; greediness; beauti-ful.
268 II. -y. When (1) the affix is -ing, or'(2) -y is
already preceded by a vowel, or (3) -y terminates a
monosyllable -in all these cases -y remains generally unchanged:(1) Pity-ing (not "pitting"); (2) enjoy-ment, valleys; (3) dry-ness.
The reasons are in (1) the desire to avoid ii; in