River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1904-08-11
A Silly Affectation.

never become popular with the
Republican. 1t may be good
thing, but to see the words
through" spelled thru, and
brought" b-r-o-t, and "bought"
bot, looks like hello" with the
last letter cut off, and the wings of
good old Noah Webster would SINCE
with anguish if he only knew about
it.-Lake City Republican.
AS rule the editors of news
papers are very little given to silly
affectations. They cannot afford
to indulge weaknesses which dis
gust the people, and which they
promptly punish. The offense
noted above, however, is so vena1
that the reader tolerates it with no
other reprisal than sigh of dis
gust.
We cannot understand how any
man who deals daily with the pub
lie intelligence can be SO supremely
absurd as to order into and retain
in a public print these methods of
mis-spel1ing particular words which
seem to owe their origin solely to
the dictation of individual caprice
and concentrated idiocy. A strong
argument can be made for spelling
reform. Theoretically, it is both
desirable and necessary; practically,
it has been found impossible thus
far to make a single step toward its
realization. The only reform of
our photography that has ever been
accomplished or ever will be has
been brought about gradually by
sort of common consent; such as
the omission of the letter "a" in
words like honor and the like, and
the dropping of the final *" from
words ending in ok" These
minor changes have been made
imperceptibly, without any flourish
of trumpets and without anyhody's
leadership. So will all the others
be.
The preliminary and thus far i'm
practicable condition of spelling re-
form is some sort of agreement
among the would be reformers. If
this had been easy, of course we
should have had it, together with
material changes in our language,
long ago. 1t is not easy. When
ever a man attempts to suggest
systematic alterations in spelling
he becomes the prey of the fantastic.
Two minds do not think alike, two
pairs of ears do not hear alike, and
the translation of sound into writ
ten symbols emphasizes and estab-
fishes these discrepancies. 1t is
evident, for instance, that 'thoro"
is a monstrous abortion. If we
grant that it is absurd to retain the
ancient and complicated spelling of
thorough we should certainly
hope to retain that rather than to
skip over to "thoro," which is not
phonetic or anything else but alb
surd, and has no history, sound or
sense behind it.
Here is a pitfal1. The instant
anybody attempts a practical essay
in spelling reform he makes con-
fusion worse COMPOUNDED. The
idea of a general agreement among
so-cal1ed spelling reformers was
given up long ago. The hope of
general effort along common lines
was seen to be as baseless as the
dream of the author of Volapuk
that his invention would become a
universal language. Slowly, word
at time, through the years, we be-
gin TO make our language a little
less complicated orthographically,
little easier to learn and to write,
trife closer approach to the pho
netic standard. This is done eau
tiously and without anybody being
able to say who originally suggest
ed or who principally promoted
the accepted alterations. The pro-
cess will go on in the same way.
But those publishers who adopt GER
tain crankisms in spelling and try
to force them upon the public sue
coed only in making holy show of
themselves. st. Paul Globe.
THE gold standard is an admit
ted fact" says Editor Henry Wat
terson. 1t is fact, all right, but
the Democrats at St. Louis refused
to admit it.
The only praise that Judge Park
err is getting from Eastern voters is