There are said to be 2,754 languages.

Rhetoric, as an art, dates from 466 B. C.

A poet terms words "the soul's embassadors."

The rude speech of fishwives is called Billingsgate.

Lyric poetry has to do with the feelings and emotions.

A terse and poetical expression of an idea is an Epigram.

Leibnitz was first to reduce philology to a science of induction.

Appolonius of Alexandria was called the Prince of Grammarians.

In the Turkish language are to be met the longest compound words.

When we express a principle very concisely we employ an Aphorism.

The tales, ballads and legends of a people constitute its Folk-lore.

A pithy saying that conveys an important truth, is called an Apophthegm.

Rhetoric is the theory and practice of eloquence, whether spoken or written.

Language is claimed to have begun in the use of cries to help out gestures.

A Hellenist is one that is versed in the Greek languages and literature.

One verse in the Bible (Ezra vii. 21) will be found to contain all the letters of our alphabet.

Orientals aver that the serpent who tempted Eve spoke Arabic, "the most suasive of tongues."

The Italian, Spanish, French and other tongues derived mainly from Latin, are called the Romance languages.

It was not Talleyrand, but Montron, the diplomat, who said: "Language is given to man to conceal his thoughts."

Acrostic is a term for any given number of verses, the first letters of which in their order form a given word, phrase or sentence.

Didactic poetry is that class which aims, or seems to aim, at instruction as its object, making pleasure entirely subservient thereto.

The combined ingenuity of the world has not surpassed this sentence as containing all the letters and most only once: "Quiz, Jack; thy frowns vex. - G. D. Plumb."

If the riches of the Indies, says Fenelon, or the crowns of all the kingdoms of Europe, were laid at my feet in exchange for my love for reading, I would spurn them all.

The ancient Scandinavians employed an alphabet of letters formed principally of straight lines, which has been called Runic from an Icelandic word runa, meaning a furrow or line.

Charles V used to say that he would talk Spanish to the gods, Italian to ladies, French to men, German to soldiers, English to geese, Hungarian to horses, and Bohemian to the devil.

Cipher as a method of secret writing was known as early as the time of Julius Caesar. It consisted of a transposition of the letters of the alphabet. The most complicated ciphers known can be translated by modern experts.

Taboo is a Polynesian word, signifying something set apart, either as sacred or accursed, clean or unclean, but in any case as a thing forbidden. All the law and morality of the Polynesians had their origin in the taboo or system of religious prohibitions.

The writing in use among the Arabs between the sixth and eleventh centuries, and, supposed to have been invented at Cufa, is called Cufic writing. Cufic coins are those of the Mohammedan sovereigns and are of great use in throwing light on the history of the East.

The longest words in the language, taken from the "Century Dictionary:" Suticonstitutionalist, Incomprehensibility, Philoprogenitive-ness, Honorificibilitudinity, Anthropophagenarian, Disproportionable-ness, Velocipedestrianistical, Transubstantiationableness, Palatopharyn-geolaryngeal.

The term Colophon applies to the inscription or monogram on the last page of a book, which in old times contained the author's and printer's names, date of publication, and so on. It is derived from the Greek phrase "to add a colophon," to put the finishing stroke to an engagement by a cavalry attack.

Outside of medical and technical terms the word "unexceptionable-ness" is, according to some lexicographers, the longest English word. "Incomprehensibility" has the same complement of letters, nineteen, but four of them are "i," and it would occupy less space in type than its sesquipedalian brother.

Americanisms are words or phrases peculiar to the United States. Many of them, however, are the renewal of old English words that have become obsolete in the mother country. Others have sprung into existence through the new conditions consequent in the rapid development of our western territory.

A sonnet is a poetic form, of Italian origin, used to express a single thought or single wave of emotion. The Petrarchan sonnet consists of fourteen lines, divided into an octave of two rhymes, and a sestet of two or three rhymes. The Shakspearian sonnet consists of six alternate rhymes clinched by a couplet.

In 1879, Johann Martin Schleyer, a Swabian pastor and latterly a teacher in Constance, invented the universal language called Volapuk.

Of the vocabulary about one third is of English origin, while the Latin and the Romance languages furnish a fourth. The grammar is simplified to the utmost. The most practical disciples limit their aims to making Volapiik a convenience for commercial correspondence, a kind of extended international code.

An anagram is the formation of a new word, phrase or sentence out of anothor by a transposition of the letters. To be effective the anagram must have the element of sarcasm, surprise or revelation involved. ' 'Love to ruin" is an anagram for revolution, "sly ware" for lawyers, "a man to wield great wills" for William Ewart Gladstone.

Mac (contracted M')is a Gaelic prefix occurring frequently in Scottish names, as Macdonald, M'Lennan, and the like, meaning "son," "tribe" or "kin." It corresponds to the son in names of Teutonic origin, as Davidson; the Fitz in Norman names, as Fitzherbert; the Irish O, as in O'Connell; and the Welsh Map, shortened into ' p or 'p, as Ap Richard, whence Prichard.

We find in a historical incident the true etymology of the term La-conisms. When Philip of Macedon wrote to the Spartan magistrates, "If I enter Laconia I will level Lacedaemon to the ground," the ephors wrote back the single word "If." Similarly, in 1490, O'Neill wrote to O'Donnel, "Send me the tribute, or else -;" to which O'Donnel returned answer, "I owe none, and if - ."