n this, not many of our letters--or, perhaps more properly, none of
them--can singly represent articulate sounds. The looseness of this term
induces me to add or prefer an other. "The Rev. W. Allen," who comes as
near as any of our grammarians, to the true definition of a _letter_, says:
1. "The sounds used in language are called _articulate sounds_." 2. "A
letter is a character used in printing or writing, to represent an
_articulate_ sound."--_Allen's Elements of E. Gram._, p. 2. Dr. Adam says:
1. "A letter is the mark of _a sound_, or of _an articulation of_ sound."
2. "A vowel is properly called a _simple sound_; and the sounds formed by
the concourse of vowels and consonants, _articulate sounds_."--_Latin and
English Gram._, pp. 1 and 2.

[87] Of this sort of blunder, the following false definition is an
instance: "A _Vowel_ is a letter, _the name of which_ makes a full open
sound."--_Lennie's Gram._, p. 5; _Brace's_, 7; _Hazen's_, 10. All this is
just as true of a consonant as of a vowel. The comma too, used in this
sentence, defeats even the sense which the writers intended. It is surely
no description either of a vowel or of a consonant, to say, that it is a
letter, and that the name of a letter makes a full open sound. Again, a
late grammarian teaches, that the names of all the letters are nothing but
_Roman capitals_, and then seems to inquire which of _these names_ are
_vowels_, thus: "_Q_. How many letters are in the alphabet? _A_.
Twenty-six. _Q_. What are their names? _A_. A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J,
K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. _Q_. Which of _these_ are
called _Vowels_?"--_Fowle's Common School Gram., Part First_, p. 7. If my
worthy friend Fowle had known or considered _what are the names_ of the
letters in English, he might have made a better beginning to his grammar
than this.

[88] By the colloquial phrase, "to a Tee" we mean, "to a _nicety_, to a
_tittle_, a _jot_, an _iota_. Had the British poet Cawthorn, himself a
noted schoolmaster, known how to write the name of "T," he would probably
have preferred it in the following couplet:

"And swore by Varro's shade that he
Conceived the medal to a T."--_British Poets_, Vol. VII, p. 65.

Here the name would certainly be much fitter than the letter, because the
text does not in reality speak of the letter. With the names of the Greek
letters, the author was better acquainted; the same poem exhibits two of
them, where the charac