In fact _Mona_, has the long _o_
of 'moan' and _Mon[ae]ses_ the ordinary _o_ of 'monaster'. A boy at
school was not troubled by these matters. He had only two things to
learn, first the quantity of the penultimate unit, second the fact
that a final vowel was pronounced. When he knew these two things
he gave the Latin word the sounds which it would have if it were
an English word imported from the Latin. Thus he finds the word
_civilitate_. I am not sure that he could find it, but that does not
matter. He would know 'civility', and he learns that the penultima of
the Latin word is long. Therefore he says _c[)i]v[)i]l[)i]t[=a]t[)e]_.
Again he knows '[)i]nf[)i]n[)i]t' (I must be allowed to spell the
word as it is pronounced except in corrupt quires). He finds that
the penultima of _infinitivus_ is long, and he therefore says
_[)i]nf[)i]n[)i]t[=i]v[)u]s_. Again he knows 'irradiate', and
finding that the penultima of _irradiabitur_ is short he says
_[)i]rr[=a]d[)i][)a]b[)i]t[)u]r_. It is true that some of these
verb forms under the influence of their congeners came to have
an exceptional pronunciation. Thus _irradi[=a]bit_ led at last to
_irradi[=a]bitur_, but I doubt whether this occurred before the
nineteenth century. The word _dabitur_, almost naturalized by Luther's
adage of _date et dabitur_, kept its short _a_ down to the time when
it regained it, in a slightly different form, by its Roman right;
and _am[)a]mini_ and _mon[)e]mini_ were unwavering in their use.
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