Heppner gazette. [volume] (Heppner, Morrow County, Or.) 1892-1912, 1904-11-10
REFORM IN SPELLING
Changes Suggested in the Use Of
Some Letters.
Efforts to simplify the Work of Plac-
ing Before the Reading Public
n Printed PaRs-SOme
Objections.

If a correspondent of the Sun is right,
the despised and buffeted spelling re-
formers may well hold up their heads
hopefully. They may get a recruit
which will compel people to follow their
ideas whether or no. states the Brook
lya Eagle. Heretofore the trouble with
even tie S1lest and most moderate sug-
sestiOns as to simplifying the spelling
Of our EnOtty tongue has been that no
man was constrained to accept them un-
less he felt like it, and that before the
reformed spelling of the simpllfers could
reach the public eye it was at the mercy
OF cOmpOsit0rs and prOofreader3. This
correspondent says that motion is on
foot tC change the / eybO1r( r he type
s2tUng machines in such way tnat these
machines, which set an increasingly
large proportion of the printed matter
every year, cannot return to the old
style even at the command Cf the men
who own them.
i he plan is to drop the letters "a" and
*" from the keyboards of the machines.
Writer'S would then be forced to spell
wOrCs IN which "a" appears with "cw"
AID those having an *" with "cs."
This sounds cweer. but this ecsample
should ecsplain the change. For the
two keys thus made available the re-
formers would invent two new letters.
One Of these would represent the sound
'sh," which is indicated by combina-
tions of two or three letters in various
words. The other letter would stand
for eth" The advantage of this would
be the saving OF space in printing The
substitution Of one letter for two, and in
words like conscience" for three, would
save, 1t is calculated, about Is lines in
column.
Saving space has become a matter Of
the first Importance in printing news
papers and newspaper spelling more
and more controls public usage. Such
change in the keyboards of typesetting
machines would, Of course, be opposed
by all the conservative forces which
now preserve the inherited spelling Of
English. But II there is demonstrated
economy behind the change it may ulti-
mately be brought about The steel
high building came in because brick or
stone walls thick enough to support a
dozen stories took up so much valuable
space in the lower stories as to make
skyscrapers on that plan improbable.
TWO keys In typesetter are smaller
matter than that. 1t Ia little hard,
however, to see how you can save a
great deal OF space by these two letters
when to get them you would have to
use two letters for every x" and 90
In the present alphabet. II the change
in the keyboard is made, however, the
whole country would adopt 1t. The tyr
amy Of the typesetters is illustrated
by the disappearance Of the accented
"e" In French words. In French "e"
with an accent Is virtually another let
ter.
There is no room on the keyboard,
however, for these characters, and
French names are habitually spelled in
most American papers without this
guide to pronunciation. until most read
ers come to think of them in this incor-
rect form. 1t is a mutilation but there
is no practical help for it. So if sub
stitutes for 9Th" and "sh" were adopt
ed, a change which would have been
impossible at any earlier stage in the
history of the language would be forced
into general use in few years If that
were done simpler spelling reforms
might be expected to follow in the gen.
eral shaking up of the language thus
mechanically compelled. Once started
upon crusade Of saving space, the re-
formers could plow thro the tongue
of Shakespear and Milton as tho a
dynamo propeld their thot. Perhaps
the reform train might be brot to full
stop at the brakemans Pokepsy or
SkaticOka