disyllables, as 'doctr[)i]n(e)'. The
modern words 'morphin(e)' and 'strychnin(e)', coined, the one from
Morpheus and the other from the Greek name of the plant known to
botanists as _Withania somnifera_, correctly follow 'doctrine' in
shortening the _i_, though another pronunciation is sometimes heard.

STEMS IN -TUDIN. These shorten the antepenultima, as 'plenitude',
'solitude', with the usual exceptions, such as 'fortitude'.

STEMS IN -TION. These words retain the suffix, which in early days
was disyllabic, as it sometimes is in Shakespeare, for instance in
Portia's

Before a friend of this descripti['o]n
Shall lose a hair through Bassanio's fault.

Thus they came under the 'alias' rule, and what is now the penultimate
vowel is long unless it be _i_. Examples are 'nation', 'accretion',
'emotion', 'solution', while _i_ is shortened in 'petition',
'munition', and the like, and left short in 'admonition' and
others. In military use an exception is made by 'ration', but the
pronunciation is confined to one sense of the word, and is new at
that. I remember old soldiers of George III who spoke of 'r[=a]tions'.
Perhaps the ugly change is due to French influence.

Originally the adjectives from these words must have lengthened the
fourth vowel from the end long, as n[=a]t[)i][)o]nal, but when _ti_
became _sh_ they came to follow the rule of Latin trisyllables in our
pronunciation.

STEMS IN -IC. Of these words we have a good many, both Latin and
Greek. Those that came direct keep the stress on the vowel which was
antepenultimate and is in English penultimate, and this vowel is short
whatever its original quantity. Examples are 'aquatic', 'italic',
'Germanic'. Words that came through French threw the stress back, as
'l['u]natic'. Skeat says that 'fanatic' came through French, but he
can hardly be right, for the pronunciation 'f['a]natic' is barely
three score years old. There is no inverted stress in Milton's

Fan['a]tic Egypt and her priests.

As for 'unique' it is a modern borrowing from French, and of late
'['a]ntique' or '['a]ntic', as Shakespeare has it, has followed in one
of its senses the French use. It is a pity in face of Milton's

With mask and ['a]ntique Pageantry,

and it obscures the etymological identity of 'antique' and 'antic',
but the old pronunciation is irredeemable. At least the new avoids the
homophonic inconvenience.

Greek words of this class used as adjectives mostly follow the