ouns, at least in the singular
number; and should form the plural regularly, as ordinary appellatives.
Thus: (if we adopt the names now most generally used in English schools:)
_A, Aes; Bee, Bees; Cee, Cees; Dee, Dees; E, Ees; Eff, Effs; Gee, Gees;
Aitch, Aitches; I, Ies; Jay, Jays; Kay, Kays; Ell, Ells; Em, Ems; En, Ens;
O, Oes; Pee, Pees; Kue, Kues; Ar, Ars; Ess, Esses; Tee, Tees; U, Ues; Vee,
Vees; Double-u, Double-ues; Ex, Exes; Wy, Wies; Zee, Zees._

OBS. 2.--The names of the letters, as expressed in the modern languages,
are mostly framed _with reference_ to their powers, or sounds. Yet is there
in English no letter of which the name is always identical with its power:
for _A, E, I, O_, and _U_, are the only letters which can name themselves,
and all these have other sounds than those which their names express. The
simple powers of the other letters are so manifestly insufficient to form
any name, and so palpable is the difference between the nature and the name
of each, that did we not know how education has been trifled with, it would
be hard to believe even Murray, when he says, "They are frequently
confounded by writers on grammar. Observations and reasonings on the
_name_, are often applied to explain the _nature_ of a consonant; and by
this means the student is led into error and perplexity."--_L. Murray's
Gram._, 8vo, p. 8. The confounding of names with the things for which they
stand, implies, unquestionably, great carelessness in the use of speech,
and great indistinctness of apprehension in respect to things; yet so
common is this error, that Murray himself has many times fallen into
it.[87] Let the learner therefore be on his guard, remembering that
grammar, both in its study and in its practice, requires the constant
exercise of a rational discernment. Those letters which name themselves,
take for their names those sounds which they usually represent at the end
of an accented syllable; thus the names, _A, E, I, O, U_, are uttered with
the sounds given to the same letters in the first syllables of the other
names, _Abel, Enoch, Isaac, Obed, Urim_; or in the first syllables of the
common words, _paper, penal, pilot, potent, pupil_. The other letters, most
of which can never be perfectly sounded alone, have names in which their
powers are combined with other sounds more vocal; as, _Bee, Cee, Dee,--Ell,
Em, En,--Jay, Kay, Kue_. But in this respect the terms _Aitch_ and
_Double-u_ are irregular; because they