[33]
I will follow the natural order
and will begin by pointing out that there are some
blemishes so obvious that even the uneducated
regard them as worthy of censure; I refer to occasions when two consecutive words form some
unseemly expression by the coalescence of the
last syllable of the first word and the first of the
second.1 Again, there are occasions when vowels
clash. When this happens, the language is broken
by gaps and interstices and seems to labour. The
most unpleasing effects of sound will be produced
by the juxtaposition of the same long vowels, while
the worst hiatus occurs between vowels which are
pronounced hollow- or open-mouthed.2
Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1922.
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