[16]
It may perhaps seem absurd to
say that a barbarism, which is an error in a single
word, may be made, like a solecism, by errors in
connexion with number or gender. But take on the
one hand scala (stairs) and scopa (which literally
means a twig, but is used in the sense of broom)
and on the other hand hordea (barley) and mulsa
(mead): here we have substitution, omission and
addition of letters, but the blemish consists in the
former case merely in the use of singular for plural,
[p. 87]
in the latter of plural for singular. Those on the
other hand who have used the word gladia are guilty
of a mistake in gender.
Quintilian. With an English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1920.
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