may be recorded here that it took its name from that of its
inventor--"The _Hansom's_ patent (cab) is especially constructed for
getting quickly over the ground" (Pulleyn's _Etymological Compendium_,
1853). _Sic transit!_

CHAPTER V

PHONETIC ACCIDENTS

The history of a word has to be studied from the double point of view of
sound and sense, or, to use more technical terms, phonetics and
semantics. In the logical order of things it seems natural to deal first
with the less interesting aspect, phonetics, the physical processes by
which sounds are gradually transformed. Speaking generally, it may be
said that phonetic changes are governed by the law of least resistance,
a sound which presents difficulty being gradually and unconsciously
modified by a whole community or race. With the general principles of
phonetics I do not propose to deal, but a few simple examples will serve
to illustrate the one great law on which this science is based.

The population of this country is educationally divided by the letter
_h_ into three classes, which we may describe as the confident, the
anxious, and the indifferent. The same division existed in imperial
Rome, where educated people sounded the aspirate, which completely
disappeared from the every-day language of the lower classes, the
so-called Vulgar Latin, from which the Romance languages are descended,
so far as their working vocabulary is concerned. The anxious class was
also represented. A Latin epigrammatist[42] remarks that since Arrius,
prophetic name, has visited the Ionic islands, they will probably be
henceforth known as the _Hionic_ islands. To the disappearance of the
_h_ from Vulgar Latin is due the fact that the Romance languages have no
aspirate. French still writes the initial _h_ in some words by
etymological reaction, e.g., _homme_ for Old Fr. _ome_, and also at one
time really had an aspirate in the case of words of Germanic origin,
e.g., _la honte_, shame. But this _h_ is no longer sounded, although it
still, by tradition, prevents elision and _liaison_, mistakes in which
are regarded much in the same way as a misplaced aspirate in English.
The "educated" _h_ of modern English is largely an artificial
restoration; _cf._ the modern _hotel_-keeper with the older word
_ostler_ (see p. 164), or the family name _Armitage_ with the restored
_hermitage_.

[Page Heading: PHONETIC LAZINESS]

We have dropped the _k_ sound in initial _kn_, as in _knave_, sti