More twisty fun with "substitute"

[Jonathan Lighter]

A journalist and prolific novelist, Peter Berresford Ellis holds a Master's degree in Celtic Studies according to Wikipedia (which is rated by the prestigious journal _Nature_ as being nearly as reliable as the _Britannica_, a definite SOTA either way:

  http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v438/n7070/full/438900a.html  ).

  So deal with this specimen :

  1999 Peter Berresford Ellis _The Chronicles of the Celts_ (rpt. N.Y.: Carroll & Graf, 2002 as _Celtic Myths and Legends_) 5 : Linguists argue that...Goidelic is the more archaic branch of Celtic....From a Goidelic parent, Brythonic modified and evolved in several ways.

  The basic change was the famous substitution of "Q"...into "P." To give a simple example, the word for "son" in Irish is _mac_; in Welsh this became _map_....Thus the "Q" is substituted for the "P"....

  N.b. the intransitive use of "modify," not noted by OED.

  Then observe with care the construction "substitution...into."

  Finally, squirm as you read " the 'Q' is substituted for the 'P,' " when, as we established some months ago, Standard English would say exactly the opposite.

  JL




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