or _Dahcotahs; Iroquois_, to _Iroquoys_, or _Hurons_.

OBS. 12.--Respecting the plural of nouns ending in _i, o, u_, or _y_,
preceded by a consonant, there is in present usage much uncertainty. As any
vowel sound may be uttered with an _s_, many writers suppose these letters
to require for plurals strictly regular, the _s_ only; and to take _es_
occasionally, by way of exception. Others, (perhaps with more reason,)
assume, that the most usual, regular, and proper endings for the plural, in
these instances, are _ies, oes, and ues_: as, _alkali, alkalies; halo,
haloes; gnu, gnues; enemy, enemies_. This, I think, is right for common
nouns. How far proper names are to be made exceptions, because they are
proper names, is an other question. It is certain that some of them are not
to be excepted: as, for instance, _Alleghany_, the _Alleghanies_; _Sicily_,
the Two _Sicilies_; _Ptolemy_, the _Ptolemies_; _Jehu_, the _Jehues_. So
the names of tribes; as, The _Missouries_, the _Otoes_, the _Winnebagoes_.
Likewise, the _houries_ and the _harpies_; which words, though not strictly
proper names, are often written with a capital as such. Like these are
_rabbies, cadies, mufties, sophies_, from which some writers omit the _e_.
Johnson, Walker, and others, write _gipsy_ and _gipsies_; Webster, now
writes _Gipsey_ and _Gipseys_; Worcester prefers _Gypsy_, and probably
_Gypsies_: Webster once wrote the plural _gypsies_; (see his _Essays_, p.
333;) and Johnson cites the following line:--

"I, near yon stile, three sallow _gypsies_ met."--_Gay_.

OBS. 13.--Proper names in _o_ are commonly made plural by _s_ only. Yet
there seems to be the same reason for inserting the _e_ in these, as in
other nouns of the same ending; namely, to prevent the _o_ from acquiring a
short sound. "I apprehend," says Churchill, "it has been from an erroneous
notion of proper names being unchangeable, that some, feeling the necessity
of obviating this mispronunciation, have put an apostrophe between the _o_
and the _s_ in the plural, _in stead of an e_; writing _Cato's, Nero's_;
and on a similar principle, _Ajax's, Venus's_; thus using the possessive
case singular for the nominative or objective plural. Harris says very
properly, 'We have our _Marks_ and our _Antonies_: _Hermes_, B. 2, Ch. 4;
for which those would have given us _Mark's_ and _Antony's_."--_New Gram._,
p. 206. Whatever may have been the motive for it, such a use of the
apostrophe is a gross imp