When in the seventeenth century the English developed a passion for the classical languages, certain well-meaning meddlers began fiddling with the spellings of many other words in an effort to make them conform to a Latin ideal. Thus b’s were inserted into debt and doubt, which had previously been spelled dette and doute, out of deference to the Latin originals, debitum and dubitare. Receipt picked up a p by the same method. Island gained its s, scissors its c, anchor its h. Tight and delight became consistent with night and right, though without any etymological basis. Rime became rhyme. In
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