Dr. J. A. H. Murray, the learned editor of the Philological Society’s New English Dictionary, quotes two amusing instances of ghost words in a communication to Notes and Queries (7th S., vii. 305).  He says:  ``Possessors of Jamieson’s Scottish Dictionary will do well to strike out the fictitious entry cietezour, cited from Bellenden’s Chronicle in the plural cietezouris, which is merely a misreading of cietezanis (i.e. with Scottish z = ?z = y), cieteyanis or citeyanis, Bellenden’s regular word for citizens.  One regrets to see this absurd p 7mistake copied from Jamieson (unfortunately without acknowledgment) by the compilers of Cassell’s Encyclopdic Dictionary.’’

``Some editions of Drayton’s Barons Wars, Bk.  VI., st. xxxvii., read—­

     `` `And ciffy Cynthus with a thousand birds,’

which nonsense is solemnly reproduced in Campbell’s Specimens of the British Poets, iii. 16.  It may save some readers a needless reference to the dictionary to remember that it is a misprint for cliffy, a favourite word of Drayton’s.’’

2.  In contrast to supposed words that never did exist, are real words that exist through a mistake, such as apron and adder, where the n, which really belongs to the word itself, has been supposed, mistakenly, to belong to the article; thus apron should be napron (Fr. naperon), and adder should be nadder (A.-S. nddre).  An amusing confusion has arisen in respect to the Ridings of Yorkshire, of which there are three.  The word should be triding, but the t has got lost in the adjective, as West Triding became West Riding.  The origin of p 8the word has thus been quite lost sight of, and at the first organisation of the Province of Upper Canada, in 1798, the county of Lincoln was divided into four ridings and the county of York into two.  York was afterwards supplied with four.

Sir Henry Bennet, in the reign of
Charles II., took his title of Earl of
Arlington owing to a blunder.  The proper
name of the village in Middlesex is
Harlington.

A curious misunderstanding in the Marriage Service has given us two words instead of one.  We now vow to remain united till death us do part, but the original declaration, as given in the first Prayer Book of Edward VI., was:  ``I, N., take thee N., to my wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us depart [or separate].’’

It is not worth while here to register the many words which have taken their present spelling through a mistaken view of their etymology.  They are too numerous, and the consideration of them would open up a p 9question quite distinct from the one now under consideration.