A Troublesome Word

How rnnch better it would be if th8 past tense of the verb read could be changed to red. Tbe verb read would then form the past tense (red) analogously with the verb lead, and that tense, as in the case of led, would then be 6pelled as it is pronounced, red. Wben a person is reading aloud and coraes to the word read, he is.often nnable to teil whether it should be pronoanced reed or red and after mispronouncing it read when it should be prononnced red, or vice versa, he is obliged, after getting into the midst of a sentence, to go back and set himself right. Take, tor example, the following sentence, and nobody can teil, when hereaches the word read, whether it is to be pronounced reed or red : "Tho&e who read Sir Walter Scott's novel of 'Edward Waverley' when it first appeared did not know by whom it was written." In this example read is to be proDounced red, bnt nobody would know this till reaching a subsequent part of tlie sentence, and the reader is just as apt to mispronounco it reed as to give it the correct pronunciatiou of red. In the sentence given as an example the reader learns soon after passing the word read how it shoifld be pronounced, but in rnany cases one has to proceed quite a distance after reaching the word before the context shows how