Manawatu Evening Standard. Circulation, 3,300 Copies Daily. FRIDAY, OCTOBER 19, 1906. REVISING THE SPELLING BOOK.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLI, Issue 8113, 19 October 1906, Page 4

Manawatu Evening Standard. Circulation, 3,300 Copies Daily. FRIDAY, OCTOBER 19, 1906. REVISING THE SPELLING BOOK.

President Roosevelt is not meeting with much success in his endeavour to reform the King's English. In a matter of this kind the Britisher's hereditary conservatism exhibits itself very conspicuously. It presents a front of triple armour plate. Spelling reform is no new subject. Long before the busy American President—having regulated the beef trust, railway rates, the rules of football, the sizes of private fortunes, race suicide and other questions —found leisure to consider the verbal atrocities of the English language, there 7 were ardent aggressors in the same field among British University leaders, to say nothing of the heroic Pitman, who lived in ridicule and died in happy confidence. Professors Max Muller, Sayce, Skeat and Meiklejohn, and Drs. Angus and Murray have all advocated improvements calculated to remove orthographic confusion and make the language less repellant to foreigners. Each has had his ideal ; they have all smoked their "enchanted cigarettes," and all equally failed. And so with the effort on which Sir Isaac Pitman lavished a great deal of energy and money. After his death nine years ago, the issue of books printed in the phonetic fashion, which he sought to introduce, was promptly stopped when his sons succeeded to the control of his publishing house. Mr Gladstone indicated the difficulty of bringing about any extensive change in the language in a letter that he wrote more than thirty years ago. "There is much," he remarked, "that might be done with advantage in reform of spelling in the English languages, but the main thing is that whatever may be proposed should be pro- . posed with the weight of great authority to back it." A similar opinion is generally expressed now by those English people who are disposed to see practical possibilities in ! the American movement. Some re- ! form would be acceptable in a language which includes such words as plough, rough, though, and hiccough; and it is suggested that improvements, not necessarily as numerous as those proposed in the United States, might be brought 1 about by an international commission adequately representative of all parts of the English speaking world. President Roosevelt alone might ] have secured some degree of popular ] favour in England for the innova- t tions which he has adopted had he j been content to introduce them with a less of his characteristic precipi- c tancy. The English people, in addi- t tion to being conservative, have a c

pride in their language, and | only the most tactful approach to the subject by an American could , have influenced them in any effec- ! tive sense. As events have turned out, they feel only that Mr Roosevelt, whom they sincerely like and . respect, has damaged his reputation j for sense and administrative judg- \ ment. Even among the Americans < themselves —who approve of many verbal short cuts and other novelties on principle—his hurry and the dogmatism it suggests have aroused up to the present far more hostility ' than approval. In England there is little excitement of the kind that has occurred in New York, where the reformers are luridly anathematised as "word murderers," "etymo- • logical bandits," "language butchers," and so on. Professor Skeat, of Cambridge, is the only recognised British expert who may be said to be on the warpath as a supporter of | the American outbreak. Temper- » ate opposition or scepticism is denounced by him as blatant r ignorance. On the technical side : of the question there is, however, 0 obviously a good deal that is open " to legitimate debate. It is argued, for instance, that phonetic spelling 1 will tend to obscure the origin of many words derived from Greek and Latin, that this will be a loss to * ourselves, and that it will render the language not more (as Mr Carnegie and others contend) but less easy for Continental peoples to acquire. Some of the American professors mention the same point. Moreover, while the spelling of some words might be altered slightly with advantage, the application of the phonetic principle to . others would only add to the existing coni. fusion. What are the reformers going to do with such words as right, write, rite and wright? Mr , Roosevelt's hobby does not make some of England's literary men en- -• thusiastic. Mi: Swinburne says phonetic spelling is "a monstrous and barbarous absurdity." Mr a Frederic Harrison describes it as "a vile fad." Mr Gosse remarks ,{ that, while some anomalies in English are ridiculous "we must care- > fully preserve the historical colour of our ancient language." And Mr Thomas Hardy says sarcastically that he is "struck with the advantage of having this refarm of English spelling taken in hand by \ an eminent American of Dutch extraction." t -=^===!===