Cameron County press. [volume] (Emporium, Cameron County, Pa.) 1866-1922, 1906-04-26
The Observer.


Since Mr.. Carnegie endowed the
Simplified Spelling Board the other
day, the newspapers and magazines
have been teeming with arguments for
and against the proposed reforms in
spelling. The protagonist of the spell
ing reformers is Mr.. Brauder Matthews,
who writes about the reform in the last
issue of TIE Outlook. In reply to the
stock argument of the opponents of
spelling reform, viz, that we need to
keep the old spellings in order to pre-
serve the historic identities of words,
Mr.. Matthews contends that the old
spellings are not old neither are they
chronological, but were born of the
caprice of ignorant and careless foreign
printers in the sixteenth century. At
that time no fixed rules of spelling
prevailed, but in time the printers had
their way, and more or less uniform
system ofspelling based upon the capri
cious usage of the printers became es
tablished. In the eighteenth centuryDr.
Johnson had an excellent opportunity
to do something to restore some of the
older and simpler forms of spelling,
but instead of doing that, he used his
opportunity to give greater currency
and authority to the irrational and
cumbersome spellings of the printers
Mr.. Matthews reminds us that there is
good Elizabethan authority for such
forms as ''sovran," controller" ''for-
rain," 'dett," "dout," Hand" de
lite," and lake" Had Dr. johnson
made an intelligent use of his oppor
tunity, he might have saved us from
the present way of spelling these
words, but as he happened to know
more about the Latin than about the
English language, he thought it nee
essary to endorse those forms of spell
ing which seemed to bear the greatest
resemblance to the Latin words from
which they are derived. Thus the "b"
in doubt and in debit suggests
''dubito" and 'debeo." In the case of
sovereign and "foreign' he wrongly
supposed that these words have some
connection with "regnum," and so
gave the weight of his endorsement to
the METEOROLOGICAL and utterly super
fious ''g'' which encumbers these
words. More can be said for the ''g" in
''deign," for that word is connected
with the Latin "dignus." But so is
''disdain." which we never spell "dis-
deign."
The Observer has just been looking
over an old book published in London
in 1868, to see what he could see in re-
gard to the way they spelled words at
that time. On one page, taken at
random, out Of 10 words only eight
are spelled differently from what they
would be spelled to day. Really only
five, for one of these occurs four times.
These spellings are "bee," '1yes,"
''aimes,' 'indes" and ''prophesie"
Other spellings picked out here and
there at random are: "Prophane,"
'theefe," "beleeve," "summe,"
''soyle," F" commandment" ''speakes,"
''grcsly," "howle," "worldlinesse,"
''four' (fooD, ''pittious," "tugge,"
''decaies, :" "threatning," "evill" Less
than five per cent of the words vary
from the present way of spelling them.
In general the changes in the spelling
Of the foregoing words have been in
the direction of greater simplicity.
Despite DR.. Johnson's influence, the
general tendency for the past two
hundred years has been towards great
er simplicity in spelling. The logic of
the situation is therefore with the re.
formers. Provided they do not ask
too much they are reasonably sure to
get what they ask Fifty years hence
it will appear as strange to see such
forms as aesthetic" "maaoeuvre,"
programme" cigarette" and "cata-
logue," as it is now to see ''publick,n y
"telegramme," or toilette"
One of these days the Observer will
stop writing though" and 'through".
That is, he will stop writing the final
ugh" That perhaps will make the
chief say "Ughp