The Arkansaw traveler., 1886-02-27

ana verify thGy nave tAe4r reward. The moment we see in an article tn the ffss- a4Sss, CT the SafHy6sy, the myseMious forms of A'ai bsa Sa'adi, or SAnskx4t texts, or Mohammadan law, or other pretty words where the full s,ops Ro on top of the letters oE underneath them, instead of at the aide, and the commas arc playtully interspersed AmoaN the meandesing xyllAhlea. we know at oace tha, that is an article inteadsd to be skipped. and we skip it accordingly with great unanimity. Dr, w. w. Hun ter, the bete nolr of the old Indian civil Ian, is a mighty reSormer in this respect. He would have us spell Meerut Mirass, and Kurachee, kATachi. Nov, this sort ot purism is all very well in sechni- cal literature and in the Proceedings of the Royal As'atic Society nobody (cx- cept the experts) evex reads them, and so the barbArous largon of the supeEhne pedants does nobody any serious harm there. But when 1t comes to poisoning the mind of youth with Kwong -fu.tzl In, stead of the familiar Contucious, turning the Great Nogul of our innocent boy hood into an unpronounceabie Mugha. and dis6guring the delightful adventures of Haroun-al R aschid by pedantic pep pering of h's name with assorted dots, commas. and accents. we all feel that ac- curacy itself, precious as It doubtless Is, may yet be purchased at too great cost. What possible good can 1t do to sprinkle the Arabian Night" with somO6ody's lnprac6cable system ot traasliterattns < Arabic, with tho sole result that ingenu- ous youth will be detcrcd at 6rst sight by the unfamiliar appearaoce of the One eyed Calendar in his new dress, and give to tho hideoas hash of coasonants and vowels some sound far mose unlike the original Arabic than even the 6rst crude attempt of the early translator1
 The fact which all these good people seem to forget Is simply this, that Fog lish Is distinct and separate language, and that no Englishman not even a podant-cAn be impartiAly vers~d h Greek and Sanskrit, Cree and Ohjibway, Hittite and Assyrian, Chinese and Hot tentot, Welsh and Gaelic, all together. Lie is short, and Cardinal Me1Iotanti left no issue Greek and Latin, French and German, are quite as much as most of us find tune to cram into the threescore years and tea of human existence according to the psalmist. And indeed, we have all seen how this modern tranSliteratinX crare 6rst set in from small beginnings
 It was the Hellenists who started h: they thought it hne to talk about rhukydides, This was such brilliant success ioS tho man who originated the mania that somebody else bethought him of capping It by writing Thukydides. Once the bAl was thus set rolling, we went rapidly through all the variations of Thouky dides and Thoukudides, of # .chylus, Aischy- lss, Aischulus, and Aisc hulos, which lat. ter moustrosity have actually seen in printers ink, staining the virgin purity oi good white paper.
 The Hellenists having thus achieved a noble revolution. the Anglo-SAxons nex, prepared to have an innings. They dis carded the beautiful and Immoral kltsida ol our unvexed schooidays In tAvor of a colorless and unpronounceable 4. fthryth; they threw back" A the DArwini sn, say) from Lady Godiva to the terrific Godgifu aad they reverted from A Awdrey, short for Etheldseda, to the primitive barbarian of an East Anglan 4. ael- thryth. l dont deny that our early Bag fish ancestors themselves were bold dismayed these fearsome compounds ol discordant consonant; and what Is more, after paying due heed to tho minute in. structons oi Mir Ells Mir. Sweet arcadoe ambo T even, know how to pronounce them myself with tolcrable correctness, because happen to be personally inter- estsd In Athels and E,hcls- Bot don | expect othx people to shAre my hobby and do maintain that the proper place for such strange and un-Enghsh. looking words is In technical literature, that they are of use to Anglo-SAxon scholars alone, and that they merely tend to deter, dis may. mislead, and disgus, the ave~Age modern English reader. And whea |, comes to Pal and Copuc, to cunitorm inscriptions and Egyptian hierosiyphics. the attempt thus to force down our tnroats, like nasty bolas, the results of an alien and specialist research can have DO sdsct save that ot checking and preventing the diffusiso of knowledge. 1T yos want to make any subject popu,arly cempsehensl- ble and populASiy interesting. you must divest il sf all that is harsh, crude, techni- cal, and dsll: yos must translate It freely from the jasgou Of the specialist into the pare, simple, idiomatic English Of every day conversation.
 One word as to the general underlying prtsciple which pervadss all thcse nsnl- fcstations Of supes6ae English. They are all alike the result ofsakang too mach trouble about mere expression. Just as seif-conScioussess ln nasAer produces the affected airs aad graces, the poses and attitudes, the laughs and giggles, of Miss Jemima, 90 seif-consciousnew h modes of expression prodsces tho absurd oveI-particulAr nicesy sf the national schoolmaster and the educated pedAnt. Always inquirtng anxiousIy whether this, that, or the othes word or phrase Is abso- iutsiy csrTscs, secesAlng to thear own lights. such people go wrong through tAs vezy force of their desire to go night, often coupled with an inadequate sense of the deepest and inmsst usdssisyfng grammatical and genealogical meaning