Institutio Oratoria
Quintilian
Quintilian. Institutio Oratoria, Volume 1-4. Butler, Harold Edgeworth, translator. Cambridge, Mass; London: Harvard University Press, William Heinemann Ltd., 1920-1922.
We now write here, but I still find in manuscripts of the old comic poets phrases such as heri ad me uenit, [*]( Ter. Phorm. 36. ) and the same spelling is found in letters of Augustus written or corrected by his own hand.
Again did not Cato the censor spell dicam and faciam as dicem
I learn from Pedianus that Livy, whose precedent he himself adopted, used this spelling: to-day we make these words end with an i.
What shall I say of uorlices, uorsus and the like, which Scipio Africanus is said to have been the first to spell with an e?
My own teachers spelt seruus and ceruus with a uo, in order that the repetition of the vowel might not lead to the coalescence and confusion of the two sounds: to-day however we write these words with a double u on the principle which I have already stated: neither spelling however exactly expresses the pronunciation. It was not without reason that Claudius introduced the Aeolic digamma to represent this sound. [*](cp. I. iv. 8.) It is a distinct improvement that to-day we spell cui as I have written it:
when I was a boy it used to be spelt quoi, giving it a very full sound, merely to distinguish it from qui.
Again, what of words whose spelling is at variance with their pronunciation? For instance C is used as an abbreviation for Gaius, and when inverted stands for a woman, for as we know from the words of the marriage service women used to be called Gaiae, just as men were called Gaii. [*]( The bride used the formula ubi tu Gaius, ibi ego Gaia. ) Gnaeus
too in the abbreviation indicating the praenomen is spelt in a manner which does not agree with its pronunciation. We also find columnas [*](columa is mentioned by the grammarian Pompeius as a barbarism in the fifth century. cp. dimin. columella. Consul is abbreviated cos. ) and consul spelt without an n,
On all such subjects the teacher must use his own judgment; for in such matters it should be the supreme authority. For my own part, I think that, within the limits prescribed by usage, words should be spelt as they are pronounced.