slate [Greek: podas [^o]kus
Achilleus] "swift-footed Achilles", and I took that to mean that Achilles
was a sprinter. I suppose _quick-footed_ would be the epithet for
Makepeace.'

SPRINTER is a good word, though _Sprinting Achilles_ could not be
recommended.

BRATTLE

A correspondent from Newcastle writes advocating the recognition
of the word _brattle_ as descriptive of thunder. It is a good old
echo-word used by Dunbar and Douglas and Burns and by modern English
writers. It is familiar through the first stanza of Burns's poem 'To a
Mouse'.

Wee sleekit cow'rin tim'rous beastie,
O what a panic's in thy breastie.
Thou need na start awa sae hasty
Wi' bickering brattle....

which is not suggestive of thunder. The _N.E.D._ explains this as 'to
run with brattling feet, to scamper'.

In Burns's 'A Winter Night', it is the noisy confusion of _biting
Boreas_ in the bare trees and bushes:

I thought me on the ourie cattle
Or silly sheep, wha bide this brattle
O' winter war.

It is possible that _brattle_ has fallen into disuse through too
indiscriminate application. After Burns's famous poem the word can
establish itself only in the sense of a scurrying dry noise: it is too
small for thunder.

We would call attention to the principle involved in this judgement,
for it is one of the main objects of our society to assist and guide
Englishmen in the use of their language by fully exposing the facts
that should determine their practice. Every word has its history,
and no word can prosper in the speech or writing of those who do not
respect its inherited and unalterable associations; these cannot
be got rid of by ignoring them. Littr['e] in the preface to his
dictionary claims for it this pre-eminent quality of usefulness,
that it will enable his countrymen to speak and write good French
by acquainting them with historic tradition, and he says that it was
enthusiasm for this one purpose that sustained him in his great work.
Its object was to harmonize the present use of the language with
the past usage, in order that the present usage may possess all
the fullness, richness, and certitude which it can have, and which
naturally belong to it. His words are: 'Avant tout, et pour ramener
[`a] une id['e]e m[`e]re ce qui va [^e]tre expliqu['e] dans la
_Pr['e]face_, je dirai, d['e]finissant ce dictionnaire, qu'il embrasse
et combine l'usage pr['e]sent de la langue et son usage pass['e],
afin de do