[11]
is also the servant of usage
and therefore undergoes frequent change. I make
no mention of the earliest times when our alphabet
contained fewer letters1 and their shapes differed
from those which we now use, while their values also
were different. For instance in Greek the letter o
was sometimes long and short, as it is with us, and
again was sometimes used to express the syllable
[p. 139]
which is identical with its name.2
Quintilian. With an English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1920.
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