See also, in the same work, (B. hi, Ch. iv, Sec. 2d,) an express defence of "those elisions whereby the sound is improved;" especially of the suppression of the "feeble vowel in the last syllable of the preterits of our regular verbs;" and of "such abbreviations" as "the eagerness of conveying one's sentiments, the rapidity and ease of utterance, necessarily produce, in the dialect of conversation.

19.According to Dr. Lowth, as well as Coar and some others, those preterits in which ed is sounded like t, "admit the change of ed into t; as, snacht, checkt, snapt, mixt, dropping also one of the double letters, dwelt, past.

If we refer this indefinite preterit to the same root, will becomes redundant; will, willed or would, willing, willed.

The acknowledged doctrine of all the teachers of English grammar, that the inflection of our auxiliaries and preterits by st or est is peculiar to "the solemn style," leaves us no other alternative, than either to grant the propriety of here dropping the suffix for the familiar style, or to rob our language of any familiar use of the pronoun thou forever.

Other varieties of this figure, not uncommon in English, are the putting of adjectives for adverbs, of adverbs for nouns, of the present tense for the preterit, and of the preterit for the perfect participle.

With respect to a vast number of our most common verbs, he himself never knew, nor does the greatest grammarian now living know, in what way he ought to form the simple past tense in the second person singular, otherwise than by the mere uninflected preterit with the pronoun thou.