[26]
where they make the last syllable of circum acute on
the ground that, if that syllable were given the grave
accent, it might be thought that they meant circus
not circuitus.1 Similarly when quale is interrogative,
they give the final syllable a grave accent, but when
using it in a comparison, make it acute. This practice,
however, they restrict almost entirely to adverbs
and pronouns; in other cases they follow the old
usage.
1 i.e. that circum is the ace. of circus, and not the adverb indicating circuit.
Quintilian. With an English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1920.
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