unite with other consonants before or after a
vowel: except that _v_ is joined with _r_ in a few words of French origin,
as _livre, manoeuvre_; or with _l_ in some Dutch names, as _Watervleit. Q_
ends no English word, because it is always followed by _u_. The French
termination _que_, which is commonly retained in _pique, antique, critique,
opaque, oblique, burlesque_, and _grotesque_, is equivalent to _k_; hence
we write _packet, lackey, checker, risk, mask_, and _mosk_, rather than
_paquet, laquey, chequer, risque, masque_, and _mosque_. And some authors
write _burlesk_ and _grotesk_, preferring _k_ to _que_.

OBS. 24.--Thus we see that _j, q_, and _v_, are, for the most part, initial
consonants only. Hence there is a harshness, if not an impropriety, in that
syllabication which some have recently adopted, wherein they accommodate to
the ear the division of such words as _maj-es-ty, proj-ect,
traj-ect,--eq-ui-ty, liq-ui-date, ex-cheq-uer_. But _v_, in a similar
situation, has now become familiar; as in _ev-er-y, ev-i-dence_: and it may
also stand with _l_ or _r_, in the division of such words as _solv-ing_ and
_serv-ing_. Of words ending in _ive_, Walker exhibits four hundred and
fifty--exactly the same number that he spells with _ic_. And Horne Tooke,
who derives _ive_ from the Latin _ivus_, (q. d. _vis_,) and _ic_ from the
Greek [Greek: _ikos_], (q. d. [Greek: _ischus_]) both implying _power_, has
well observed that there is a general correspondence of meaning between
these two classes of adjectives--both being of "a potential active
signification; as _purgative, vomitive, operative_, &c.; _cathartic,
emetic, energetic_, &c."--_Diversions of Purley_, Vol. ii, p. 445. I have
before observed, that Tooke spelled all this latter class of words without
the final _k_; but he left it to Dr. Webster to suggest the reformation of
striking the final _e_ from the former.

OBS. 25.--In Dr. Webster's "Collection of Essays and _Fugitiv Peeces_,"
published in 1790, we find, among other equally ingenious improvements of
our orthography, a general omission of the final _e_ in all words ending in
_ive_, or rather of all words ending in _ve_, preceded by a short vowel;
as, "_primitiv, derivativ, extensiv, positiv, deserv, twelv, proov, luv,
hav, giv, liv_." This mode of spelling, had it been adopted by other
learned men, would not only have made _v_ a very frequent final consonant,
but would have placed it in an other new and strange