The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

-Now, quoth Didius, rising up, and laying his right hand with his fingers spread upon his breast -- -- -had such a blunder about a christian-name happened before the Reformation -- -- -- [It happened the day before yesterday, quoth my uncle Toby to himself] and when baptism was administer'd in Latin -- ['Twas all in English, said my uncle] -- -- -- many things might have coincided with it, and upon the authority of sundry decreed cases, to have pronounced the baptism null, with a power of giving the child a new name -- Had a priest, for instance, which was no uncommon thing, through ignorance of the Latin tongue, baptized a child of Tom-o'Stiles, in nomine patrie & filia & spiritum sanctos -- the baptism was held null.

-- -- -I beg your pardon, replied Kysarcius -- -- -in that case, as the mistake was only the terminations, the baptism was valid -- -- -and to have rendered it null, the blunder of the priest should have fallen upon the first syllable of each noun -- -- -- and not, as in your case, upon the last.