A System of Logic

John Stuart Mill

Book 4, Chapter 5, Footnote #01
Another example of ignorant pedantry


Though no such evil consequences as take place in these instances are likely to arise from the modern freak of writing sanatory instead of sanitary, it deserves notice as a charming specimen of pedantry engrafted upon ignorance. Those who thus undertake to correct the spelling of the classical English writers are not aware that the meaning of sanatory, if there were such a word in the language, would have reference not to the preservation of health, but to the cure of disease.


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Sol, Book 4, Chapter 5 On the Natural History of the Variations in the Meaning of Terms