Dodge City times., 1890-05-23
two USELESS LETTERS.
Ws01d fAsif Hosa Bs Really fssttss fhaS
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 C has nc
sound of its own, under any conceiva.
ble circumstances. It is either 8 OF
(, depending upon its combination with
. vowel and its position in a 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 8. 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 8 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 men,
ory, nothing more.
Some one will say, however, What
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 may be substituted
for the hard sound. Perhaps the lette'
might be left on condition that it be
given the Italian sound. which is very
near to our sound of ch, but by itself
is utterly useless and valueless and
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 could be spared.
The letter q is worse than useless. 1t
is delusion. a snare and a fraud. 1t
has to have another letter with it, and
that always the same letter, before il
be used at all in English. The
+ iench 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 q 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
we'll 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 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 q very extensive one.
and is being constantly brought
up by such journals as the FOnetik Nuz
and similar publications. Every
theoretical consideration is in favor Of
the reform, but the spelling-book and
still hold their own, ana the
children learn to spell not merely
as their parents did, but because
they did. Some time there may come
q wave of public interest in the subject
and a general uprising in favor of
phonetic spelling, and than the lam
guage will certainly be simpliiied; but in
the meantime there can be no harm in
getting rid of and q, of which it may
be truly said that their room would be
better than ther company.-,San Fran
cisco Chronicle.