ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume I, Issue 48, 2 January 1877, Page 2

ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE.

' [We are -at all times ready to gi,vc ;expression to every.shaple of opinion, but in;' no case do we hold ourselves resporvrible lor .the- sentiments of" our correspondents. TO-' HORSeV-TO HORSE ! ..'- .

(TO TUB EDITOtt OF THE AK&ROAi'MArrf)''. *£• | Sift, —-In.your last issue you have a'parftgraph on the word, Riding. I atn rather ' pleased to seethe old word revived in this, our new world.. I. believe it had nearly become obsolete, and was scarcely*- reeog- i nised out of Yorkshire, though its use at' onetime must have"" been commgn to OurJ race. ...... • ; It seems, however, a great pity that the. original orthographical construction of the' term had hot been revived also. It may interest some of your rural readers to know that the word is a very old Saxon one, and means, a luxuriant thicket. The R, however,, should be preceded by W, thus : - Wriding. Hence for many years; past we have hajj many, Wriding Masters: in our-Peninsula, if not one Riding Master. It is not difficult to conceive "how the W was dropped forfls far as the v pr,QflSsip*jr i tion is concerned; it As' no more" required' than in write, wriggle', wren, - and njany other words. At the same time when words having precise!}" the same sounds, but widely different meanmgs,' aire' distinguished from each other by orthographical characteristics, there is an undoubted gain in'retaining such-characteristics, and this is sacrificed when Wriding is made Riding. In, their ofhodox and generally recognised significance one differs as widely', from the .other as'does a forest of pines from' : a squadron of dragoons, or, the Little River Road Board from the Council- of Solomon, and I repeat I. hold it a matter of regret that in the list of new things the Government'have given us an additional double u.Jis not to be found. This would have involved to them less trouble and reproach.than did either of their other doubles, and would, I imagine, have been a cause of satisfaction to us generally. I am, &c,, .. - GEO.R. JOBLIN.