[14]
And this same letter s,
which has disappeared from these words, has itself
in some cases taken the place of another letter. For
our ancestors used to say mertare and pultare.1 They
also said fordeum and faedi, using f instead of the
aspirate as being a kindred letter. For the Greeks
unlike us aspirate f like their own phi, as Cicero
bears witness in the pro Fundanio, where he laughs at
a witness who is unable to pronounce the first letter
of that name.
1 For mersare and pulsare.
Quintilian. With an English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1920.
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