The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1893-09-15

'
phiIoI8rfst trains thoartilery Of criticism
upon tine grand old tongue, which, even
in it's infancy, was good enough for
Shakespeare. and which now, after the
lapse of several centuries, presents To
man the most perfect and polished medi-
UNI of thought and expression existing.
fortunately a language is not easily olson
certed or shuntcd OF its track. To all
such attacks our sturdy vernacUlar has
had one defiant challenge:
Come one came an
This rock shall fly
From its firm base
As soon as J.
Itisa remarkable feature connected with
the various spelling reform movements
that they have all failed, even that faith
cred hv the distinguished phOnOl0glst,
Alexander Ellis, and indorsed by the
leaders of linguistic sciencc-thc PalHo-
type-went the way of all such schemes.
and was finally repudiated by its orgiua-
tor himself
THE People DO THE REFORMING.
The fact is, when the people find that a
language needs reforming. they reform IL
themselves, little needing the dictums Of
learned societies in the matter. The
English Language suits the Engllsh-speak-
inc races il is adapted to all the require
mems OF the uloSL highly NA4blN Lttt III
the words of Mark Twain, II is "a Ian
guage that can stand the strain when you
want to saw something really worth say
ing" and the great mass Of people object
to paying a doctor bill where there IS no
disease That is Why spelling reform has
not succeeded
Everyone admits that the English Ian
guage contains Irregularities and incOn-
sistencies So does every other language
d tuition n the 81 hn1 4
of human society Nothing is free from
them; our laws, our theology our medi-
cine all are crude and imperfect. But
violent revolutionary measures are not
admissible improvements must be made
slowly. The laws of natural selection
and the survival of the tittest" operates
here as in the rest of natures vast do
main.
WHAT A WORD REALLY IS.
The great error of the spelling reform
ers lies in the assumption that spelling is
a logical process 1t is really an exer-
else of the memory. A word is appre-
hended as a whole, not as collection Of
individual Joints. When we write
word we do not consider il as composed
of letters is it TO US simply the picture of
an idea, and the accuracy of our spelling
depends upon the yividness of the image
in our memory. 1t is an axiom in psy-
GDOlOGN LLdt luG SIM pier luN ulLltS uhbdln
q more perfect development than the
complex It is reasonable to suppose that
in cases where the basal faculty of memo
ry is so poorly developed that the subject
spells cat with a X, the judgment can
have reached that stage of perfection
which is required to carry on the pro-
cesses of inductive and deductive reason
ing in a satisfactory manner2
5000 WAYS TO SPELL WORD.
To illustrate the argument take the
word scissors. which Alexander Ellis has
already made the subject of compute ton.
Ellis figured out that this word could be
spelled about 5000 different ways; but he
admitted only such signs for the sounds
of the word as were consistent with the
chronological analogy. But what does
that blockhead, the spelling reformer's
client. who cannot recall the way to spell
scissors. know about chronological anal
ogy2 Let us see in how many ways he
would spell one word according to the
ordinary brand of analogy on tap in his
brain-pan seven days in the week, Sun
say included.
The word scissors contains six element
AIRY sounds, to wit:
S-I-Z-E-R-S.
The first and the last are the simple
sounds of "a" The second is short, Il -
as heard in chin The third is the
simple sound of - The fourth is the
obscure sound of sc, - the win O. the wisp
of the English language. The fifth is
the simple sound of r.
LETTERS OF SIMILAR SOUND.
The frs and last sounds may be repre-
scented by any of the following letters and
combinations, as will be seen from the
example given:
BY sc, as in scissors.
BY C, as in circle.
BY &c, a IS ia eface.
BY ps, as in psalm.
BY s. as in single.
BY see, as in cOalesce.
BY sch, as in schlsn.
BY Sc, as IN cause.
BY IS, as IN mass.
BY ST. as in listen.
BY sth. as in isthmus.
BY sw. as in sword.
This gives "a sum total Of twelve ways
by which the sound Of 5 may be repre-
sented.
The second sound, that of short 81 -
may be expressed as follows:
BY /, as in scissors.
By al, as in captain.
BY e as in Hgean.
BY e, as IN English.
BY ca. as IN guinea.
BY ee. as in been.
10y tl. ds III SAIiC-t.
BY ey, as in monkey.
BY ia, as in parliament.
BY lie, as in seiye.
BY o. as in women.
BY oe Oenanthic.
BY OF. as in tortoise.
BY ois. as in chamOis.
BY u, as in busy.
BY Vi, as in guinea.
BY ny, as in plaguy.
BY v, as in abyss.
This yields sum total of nineteen sym
bOls which are used to express the sound
Of short ~
The third sound, that of simple 81, 3
may be expressed as follows:
by IS, as in scissors.
Bye, as in sutlicing.
BY &c, as in sacrifice
BY ca. as in car.
BY S, as in is
BY Sc. as in Chinese.
BY y. as in Xebec
BY 2, as in zodiac.
BY Ze. as in adZe.
BY ID, as in fuzz.
Thus - may be represented in ten diff
ferent ways
The obscure sound of sc" may be ex
pressed as follows:
BY o, as in scissors.
BY a. as in billiards.
BY aa. as in diTresis.
BY al. as in murrain.
BY e, as in banner.