The Democratic press. [volume] (Ravenna, O. [Ohio]) 1868-1901, 1890-02-26
TWO USELESS LETTERS.
Would Their Room Be Really Better Than
Their Company.

There are two letters in the English
| alphabet which are entirely useless in
their present form, as they represent
no sound which is not as well or better.
They are and q. The letter has no
sound of its own, under any conceiva-
BILE circumstances. 1t is either or
| k, depending upon its combination with
vowel and its position in q word.
For instance, take the word used few
| lines above-conceivable. Here are
two c's the sound of the first being that
| of k, and the sound of the second be-
| ing that of S. If the word were spelled
'konseivable'' the pronunciation would
be exactly the same, and the spelling
would be logical.
If it be objected that the letter has
| two sounds, the answer is that substi-
tuting it for would not make matters
any worse. If the Kissing sound of is
represented by C, the sound would be
retained if were put in the place of C.
We learn to read by the ear quite as
: much as by the eye, and giving the
correct sound of is feat of the mem
ory, nothing more.
Some one will say, however, stWhat
is to be done with the great number of
words in which is found in combina.
ton with h? How shall we spell
charity arch, and all the other words
of that kind?" The reply to this criti-
cism is that there should be a new
letter to represent the soft sound of ch,
while the letter k may be substituted
for the hard sound. Perhaps the letter
C might be left on condition that it be
given the Italian sound, which is very
near to our sound of ch, but C by itself
is utterly useless and valueless and q
source of confusion and ANNOYANCE.
When it is remembered that of all the
many 'shun' examinations there are
but two words in the language which
end in ''cion." it will be seen how
readily the C could be spared.
The letter q is worse than useless. 1t
is delusion, snare and fraud 1t
has to have another letter with it, and
that always the same letter, before il
can be used at all in English The
French use it as terminal letter, but
we do not, and wherever it is found in
English, whether at the beginning or in
the middle of word, it must be accom-
panied by Siamese twin, the letter u.
Of course it is obvious that the real
letter, that is the real representative of
sound, is not q, but gu, and there is
no sound OF gu which can not Just as
well be expressed by two other letters,
k and w. If we make this arrange
ment of letters, ''kwick," it spells
exactly the same as ''quick, and elimi-
mates the q entirely from the alphabet.
The letter q is an insult to the intelli-
gence of English speaking and writing
people. 1t is d useless, impudent in
terloper, and should be summarily
kicked out.
1t is not attempted in this article to
advocate spelling reform in general.
The subject is a very extensive one,
and is being constantly brought
up by such journals as the Fonetik Nus
and similar publications. Every
theoretical consideration is in favor of
the reform, but the spelling-book and
dictionary still hold their own, and the
children learn to spell not merely
as their parents did, but because
they did. Some time there may come
wave of public interest in the subject
and general uprising in favor of
phonetic spelling, and than the Ian
guage will certainly be simplified; but in
the meantime there can be no harm in
getting rid of C and q, of which it may
be truly said that their room would be
better than ther company.-San Fran
cisco Chronicle.