Spelling Reform

New Zealand Tablet, 13 September 1906, Page 9

Spelling Reform

It is quite true that - people can pass through life quite comfortably without being acquainted with the Chinese-puzzle rules of English' spelling. _ Take good old Chaucer, for instance, who wrote long* before modern niuddleheads inflicted-our pr.esen.tj. orthography upon us. Artemus Ward once said of Chaucer : ' Some kind person has sent me Ch'awcer's- poems. Mr, C. had talent, but he couldn't- spel. No man has a right to be a litrary man onless he knows how. to spel.- It 'is a pity that. Ohawcer, who had geneyus, was so unedica- ' fed. He's the wuss * speller I know of '. ' The. Great Duke' of Marlborough was almost illiterate. -He • wrote bad English ', says Chesterfield, ' and spelled it - % still worse '. Marshal Saxe—who was not' less famous as a fighter—jdeclared when offered a seat among .the immortals in the French Academy : 'It Would become me as a ring would a cat ; I don't know how to spell '._ And the spelling of his missive (in Fxenclr, of course) was fearfully and wonderfully done- For our clever little men and-maids.at school-the specimen may serve as an awful example of how not to do things.- lUs veule '„ wrote Saxe,, ' me fere de la Cademie, cela miret come une bage aun chas '. But (says. .Bent) they consoled the rugged old fighter by telling .him l that Mar r shal Villars w*£s a member, in spite of not knowing how to read, to say nothing of- writing.' . _ j' ,

What is called ' good ' (that is, conventional) spelling is one of the little elegancies that stamp and catalogue a man. Unfortunately, the conventions .in English spelling are guided by a caprice that makes them an intolerable burden to childhood and youth, the despair of ' the foreigner, and the laug!iing»-stock ' of the scholar who has had a practical acquaintance with the benefits of the more regular and more phonetic systems that prevail in Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, German, and even in Maori. And thus it happens that' the little hall-mark elegancy of ' good ' i spelling* is almost as dimcult to acquire and to maintain as the_ long- finger-nail (or rather claw) that distinguishes the * blue blood ' of China, from the common herd. Slight improvements in some of our spelling methods have been introduced by American newspapers and publishing firms. But a vast , incubus of orthographic lunacy yet remains to be thrown ' off our social and literary life. Dryden said :—: — - ' It is the talent of our English nation, . Still to be plotting some new reformation. ' In 1877— when the writer of- these lines was, in -the hobbledehoy or chrysalis .stage of -youthful development •—the English nation (or, rather, a goodly number of .well-meaning but none too active persons belonging to it)- plotted a spelling reform. It ended as many attempted reforms end — in somnolent platitudes and drowsy resolutions. The movement died under chloroform^ The ■Americans have now taken the subject in hands, -.and with,-a practical good sense that promises a measure- of success. A Simplified Spelling Board has been formed. Carnegie has endowed it ; the newspapers, the colleges;', and the Government (through President' Roosevelt) are smiling bland approval ; and, generally, the new move-

ment for the reform of our crazy orthography has begun in a rose-colored atmosphere. /Prom the point of view of "''the .publisher \ says . thel* Sydney Morning ! Herald,' ' Henry Holt, a member of the executive commi'ttee of the Board; said that millions of dollars could" be saved by simplified spelling. - "It is estimated,?' lie said, "that the saving would lie 15,000,000 dollars/ (£3,000,000) a year in this country. I. think this', is " a conservative estimate.- The next step of the Board probably will be to make a definite estimate of the saving which can bc> obtained. I do not" think the 7 posed changes will startle the people. ~ Last, fall I - published a new edition of - a well-known German grammar. In the English part I used the twelve spellings adopted by the National Educational Association.-.1 h<ave. not heard a word from anyone about it. I am ready to go as far in V the use of simplified spelling as the Educational Association recommends. I do not think it would do to. change words which. appeal to the emotions -or reason. If I were writing la; letter of condolence I would not spell death ' deth.' " " - '