THE ATTRACTION OF WORDS.
[TO TAE EDITOR 01? THE " SPECTATOR."]
Sno—In distant Indian days I had the privilege of serving under a kindly and stalwart " Milesian " who had a dislike for the term" Chitta- gonian " as a name for a native of Chittagong, though a learned Judge addressed the following epigram to " viro doctissimo J. P. Grant " :—
" Qui Sitagoniacis donabas nuper in oria Tanta viatori munera, Munus ens."
No doubt " W. B. 0." objected to the hybrid aspect of the word " Chittagonian," and, so far, had reason. But its coinage implied a certain affectionate familiarity which was characteristic of the Anglo- India of that day. It was, at worst, no worse than the slipshod ease of utterance which has turned Kalikati into familiar Calcutta, and the sonorous 1115110)0 into the four flat " a's " of Anglicized Alla- habad. But not otherwise do our soldiers talk of desolate and im- mortal " Wipers," of their own brief holidays in " Blighty." Not otherwise do our gallant Allies make London suit their euphonic taste by calling it Londres, and deliberately alter the accentuation of Oxf4rd and Cambridge. Your contributor " A. S." might some day give us an article on the sea-changes of travelled words, changes so natural and instinctive that some of us mistrust the new pronunciation of Latin and Greek as making those maternal tongues unnecessarily unfamiliar and foreign to the invincible habits of British hearing and speaking. Is it possible that the new pronunciation is " no bong" I
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