30
], nitr-e; [Greek: petr-os], petr-e. In this class of words the final letters (after the analogy of Latin) have sometimes become transposed; e.g. [Greek: lepr-os], lep-er. So now-a-days, cent-er as well as centr-e. Compare metr-e, diamet-er.
To apply our rules to the words required to be formed in an English shape from [Greek: muth-os].
Very few words in our language end in th which are not of purely native growth. Frith is questionable exception. Besides the monosyllable plinth, we have imported from the Greek colocynth, hyacinth, labyrinth, with the proper names Corinth, Erymanth, all terminating in nth.
In the ending the our language does not rejoice. Most of such words are verbs, so distinguished from their cognate substantives, as wreathe from wreath. We have, as substantives, lathe (A.-S. [Saxon: leð]), hythe ([Saxon: hyð]), scythe (more properly sithe, [Saxon: siðe]), tythe ([Saxon: tyðe]); as adjectives, blithe ([Saxon: bliðe]), lithe ([Saxon: lið]). There may be one or two more.
In all these the sounds is [Saxon: ð] (th in this) not [Saxon: þ] (th in thick). This appears worth notice.
On the whole, I should venture to say that so uncouth a slip as mythe, when set in our soil, was unlikely to thrive. Still m[)y]th is objectionable, though we at Cambridge might quote g[)y]p However I may seem to be a breaker of my own laws, I suggest, if we must have an English form of the word, that we should write and pronounce m[=y]th. Several words ending in th have the preceding vowel lengthened, e.g. both, sloth, ruth, truth (though with the inconsistency attributed to us,