Weekly national intelligencer. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1841-1869, 1852-06-12
THE NEW MODE OF SPELLING.
Prom TIE ALBANY STATE RxoIsrEa.

STATE REGISTER
To the Editors Of The Rsyister sashasass
constant reader of your paper, and subscriber to Il
from the beginning asks your indulgence for noticing the
new mode Of spelling you have adopted Theatre has
for some time been transformed BY you into theater
and this morning shocked to find .saber for sssa-
bre" Why, sir, at this rate shall lose our
mother tongae.
This subject has been SO admirably handled by Mr.
Trench, in that capital book the study of Words
that send extract which ask you publish well
for your own consideration ss that Of yox readers His
remarks, as will be perceived are equally applicable to
Greeeys new mode Of spelling, to the phonetic sys-
tenn If any Scholar Of taste and judgment after
reading these remarks of Mr. Trench can GLOW himself
to fall into this barbarous practice he may rely upon it
heis ready for any lam that folly fanatcism may pro-
ec To give your readers taste for the repast now set
before Them allow me to quote the following: seNow
they words are often translucent with their ea as an
alabaster vase is lighted up by lamp placed within it,
many cases would this inner light be quenched.
by stripping word Of it's associations
"PHoNErIc SPELLING
: can conceive method Of efectually defacns
and barbarzng English tongue no scheme that would
go SO far to empty it, practically at least and for us Of
oil the boarded w.t. wisdom, Imagination, and history
which it contains, cut the vital nerve which connects
its present with the past the ntroducos Of the scheme
OF phonetic spelling, which some have been zealously
advocating among us the principle Of which is that all
words should be spelt according as they are sounded
that the writing should be in every subordnated to
the speaking.
The sct assumption that it ought 50 to be is the per
vadmg error running through the whole system But
there no necessity that it should every word on the
ten and you have right To- ssoEifce one Of these or
to subordinate it wholly TO the other IA word exists
as truly for the eye for the ear and in highly adj
yanced state Of society, where reading is almost as uni
o. for ha6 Await for
the Last That in the wrn word moreover the per-
and continuity Of language and Of learning and
with all this is affirmed in words, letters stera-
ture, unlettered, in other languages by words
entirely corresponding to these
The gains consequent on the introduction of such
change as is proposed would be insignifcantly small
while the losses would be enormously great The gains
would be the saving of certain Of labor in the
learning to SPELL an amount of labor, however absurdy
exaggerated by the promoters of the scheme This Ia
bor whatever it would be in great part saved as the
would at put in possession of the spell
hng II indeed spelling or orthography could then be
said to exist But even this insignificant gain would not
long remain seeing that pronunciation is itself continual
y alterng custom is lord here for better for worse
and multitude of words pronounced ina differ
ent manner from that Of hundred years ago. that
very long, there would again be chasm between the
spelling and pronunciation of words unless indeed the
former were to vary, do not well how it could
consistently refuse to do with each variation the latter
each its barbarous or capricious ate
rations which thus it must be remembered, would be
changes not in the pronunciation only but in the word
itself for the word would only exist word
the written being mere shadow of this When these
had multiplied little, and they would indeed multiply
exceedingly, the barrier against them which
now exists was removed what the languages would ere
long become it is not easy to guess.
This fact however, alone sufficient to show how little
the scheme of phonetic spelling would these
inconvenience which it proposes oemedy is only the
smallest objection to it. The far deeper and serious
one is that in nnumerabe instances it would obterate
rnQr IF htrfh and
which, not ALL yet many of words bear upon
their very fronts ready upon very slight inter
rogaton to declare to Words have an ancestry
and the ancestry of words Of is often very noble
part of them making them capable of great things be-
cause those from whom they descended have done
great things before them but this would deace their es
cutcheon, and bring them all to the gnoble level
Words are now nation grouped into tribes and families
some smaller, some larger this change would 60 far
reduce them to promscuous and barbarous horde Now
they often translucent with their idea alabaster
vase is lighted up by lamp placed within it; in how
many cases would this inner light be then quencheds
They have now body and SOUL and the soul looking
through the body oentmes then nothing but the body
not seldom nothing but the Of the would re-
MAN. Both these objections urged long ago by Ba-
CON- who characterizes this socaled reformation that
writing should be consonant to speaking branch Of
subtety; and especially urges that thereby
the derivaons Of words especially from foreign Lam
guages, are utterly defaced and extnguished.'"