COVER OR COVERT?
There is one English country term that many of us would like to know how to spell. Should we write covert or cover ? It is often regarded as a sign, if not of illiteracy, of ignorance of rural things, to write " cover." Why ? Beckford, best of all the older writers on sport, and a singularly careful scribe, wrote " cover," with others of his time. No ones unless he be altogether too literary, pronounces the last letter of covert, if he uses the word. I read the other day in a daily paper that it was a bad year for partridges in the South and that most of the birds shot in the Hampshire coverts were old birds ! The error in natural history seemed to be emphasized by the careful use of the tern► "covert." We have a rich and elastic language ; let us allow both forms, but prefer the simpler and truer to sound.
Previous page
