Morris tribune. [volume] (Morris, Minn.) 1880-2000, 1899-12-23
MILLIONS WASTED.
Such IS THE CLAIM OF THE AMERI-
CAN ASSOCIATION.

They Are Now Trying to Get . Bill
Through Congress 10 DO Away will
Letters That Are Not sounded-A Spell
ing Reform.
Spelling reform must come, says the
American Pathological association. And
It says SO emphatically. While the
country is being asked to exercise it.
self and grow heated over the discus.
sion Of reforms in police departments
alderMaHic boards, street car compan-
les, trust legislation and the question
Of the eternal feminine, too little at
tention is being paid to the subject OF
spelling reform, in which not small
class of citizens, not select few from
q certain walk In life, not the members
Of an individual community, but every
man, woman and child in the United
States, is decidedly interested. The
74,500,000 persons in this Repub-
lie, says the officers of the asso-
citation, are all directly affected by the
proposition to reform the manner Of
spelling many Of the words in daily
use.
The association is trying to get a
bill through congress which shall cor
rect what it describes as an evil. The
statement is made that the irregular
spelling of the English language causes
loss of two years of the school time
of each child and is mainly the cause
of the alarming illiteracy of our peO-
pie; that it involves an expense OF
hundreds of millions of dollars an
nually for teachers and for writing and
printing 81 perfuous letters. and that
1t is an obstacle in many ways to the
progress of the education of those
speaking the English language and to
the spread Of the language among 9TH
or nations.
"The changes of preterits and past
participles Of our verbs suggest anoth-
er and perhaps more interesting rule.
In the early English the preterits Of
our regular verbs are two syllables
longer than they are now. In the Wy
clifte Bible 'axids' (asked), 'blesside'
(blessed), 'kisside' (kissed), 'filide'
(flled), 'passide' (passedD, and walk
ide' (walkedJ, are familiar examples
of preterits of three syllables now of
one; 'answeride,' 'perischide,' 'apper-
ide,' and 'worschipide' of four sylla-
bles formerly, but now of two. The
weak vowels in 'ide' were
freely dropped. Some early verbs
have 'ade,' some ode some 'ude,' some |
EIDE and in some the vowel before de
Is absent - 'lufade ode = ude - EIDE !
Qoved); 1yfode-ede,' 'lifde' (lived);
DENIED 'demde' deemed; de- was
the significant part of the suf1x, and |
the law of least effort led to the weak
ening and dropping of the unaccented !
vowel before it.
"It is of no use to try to character /
lie with fitting epithets and adequate
terms of objurgation the monstrous
spelling OF the English language. The
time lost by it is a large part of the
whole school time of the mass of men.
Count the hours that each man wastes
n learning to read at school, the hours
which he wastes thru life from the
lindrance to easy reading; the hours
wasted at scool in Tearing to spell; the
hours spent thru life in keeping up
md perfecting this knowledge of SPELL
ng, in consulting dictionaries-a work
hat never ends: the hours that he
spends in writing silent letters, and
this time by the number of
PERSONS who speak English, and we
hall have total of millions of years
wasted by each generation. The cost
# printing the silent letters of the En-
.lish language is to be counted by mill
ions of dollars for each generation,
nd yet literary amateurs fall in luv
With these sQuintings and lispings.
they try to defend them by pleading
heir advantage in the study of ety.
nology, but changeless orthografy
the material for etymologi-
al study, and writn records ar valuabl
o the biologist just in proportion as
hey ar accurat records of speech as
poken from year to year."
Here is a sample bill, which, in one
orm or another. the association is try.