LESSON XV.—­OF MANY ERRORS.

(1.) “Compound words are[, by L. Murray and others, improperly] included among the derivatives.”—­L.  Murray corrected. (2.) “The Apostrophe, placed above the line, thus ’, is used to abbreviate or shorten words.  But its chief use is, to denote the possessive case of nouns.”—­Id. (3.) “The Hyphen, made thus -, connects the parts of compound words.  It is also used when a word is divided.”—­Id. (4.) “The Acute Accent, made thus , denotes the syllable on which stress is laid, and sometimes also, that the vowel is short:  as, ‘Fancy.’  The Grave Accent, made thus `, usually denotes, (when applied to English words,) that the stress is laid where a vowel ends the syllable:  as, ‘Favour.’”—­Id. (5.) “The stress is laid on long vowels or syllables, and on short ones, indiscriminately.  In order to distinguish the long or open vowels from the close or short ones, some writers of dictionaries have placed the grave accent on the former, and the acute on the latter.”—­Id. (6.) “The Diaeresis, thus made “, is placed over one of two contiguous vowels, to show that they are not a diphthong.”—­Id. (7.) “The Section, made thus Sec., is sometimes used to mark the subdivisions of a discourse or chapter.”—­Id. (8.) “The Paragraph, made thus , sometimes denotes the beginning of a new subject, or of a passage not connected with the text preceding.  This character is now seldom used [for such a purpose], except in the Old and New Testaments.”  Or better:—­“except in the Bible.”—­Id. (9.) “The Quotation Points, written thus " “, mark the beginning and the end of what is quoted or transcribed from some speaker or author, in his own words.  In type, they are inverted commas at the beginning, apostrophes at the conclusion.”—­Id. (10.) “The Brace was formerly used in poetry at the end of a triplet, or where three lines rhymed together in heroic verse; it also serves to connect several terms with one, when the one is common to all, and thus to prevent a repetition of the common term.”—­Id. (11.) “Several asterisks put together, generally denote the omission of some letters belonging to a word, or of some bold or indelicate expression; but sometimes they imply a defect in the manuscript from which the text is copied.”—­Id. (12.) “The Ellipsis, made thus ——­, or thus ****, is used where some letters of a word, or some words of a verse, are omitted.”—­Id.