The San Francisco call., 1906-05-27
ENGLISH PROFESSOR
IS 4 DEFENDER Of
PHONETIC SPELLING
.Skeat Of Cambridge Favors
Reform Indorsed by
Mark Twain.
English Authority Ridicules the
Methods Now in
Vogue.
snecial pisnatch to- The can

LONDON, May 24.-Andrew Carnegie,
Mark Twain and the other leaders of the
recent agitation in the United States in
favor of phonetic spelling will be glad to
hear that they have an ally on this side
of the water in the person of Professor
w. W. Skeat of Cambridge University.
who is undoubtedly one of the greatest
living authorities on the English Ian
guage. Up to now, the American sug-
gestions regarding the reform of spelling
have been subjected to wholesale ridicule
in this country, but possibly some OF the
writers who made merry over them VIII
conclude to change their tune after read
ing the vigorous address in support of the
American arguments which was delivered
by Professor Skeat recently before a
gathering of the British Academy held
at Burlington House.
Besides being professor of Anglo-Saxon
at Cambridge, DIR. Skeat is the founder
and president of the English Dialect So
ciety, and the titles of his works on Eng
lish literature occupy something like ten
pages in the catalogue of the British Mu-
scum Library. So it was rather striking
to find him beginning his address to the
British Academy by declaring that all
of what he called the scientific argu-
ments" were on the side of those who
want to reform the spelling of English.
and that dense ignorance was the chief
characteristic of those who opposed it.
Etymology and phonetics. Professor
Skeat said, were the two sciences which
the British press, in particular. could not
understand to be such, and he went on
to assert that the English language. as
at present spelled. was full of the most
absurd contradictions, warranted neither
by history nor by common sense
NUMBER OF EXAMPLES.
Then he proceeded to give a number of
examples of useless letters in spelling
and declared that the final 'e" in have,
live, solve, adze, awe and axe-words
that he would spell hav, liv, solv, adj,
aw and ax-was the chief delinquent. 1t
had, Professor Skeat said. no right to its
place 1t had been introduced at the end
of .have" at the time when that word
was spelled ..haue." and its purpose then
was to distinguish the otherwise undis-
tinguishable ''u'' and ''v" Again, the
letter 90 in comfort, which historically
should be ..cumfort." in donkey, which
should be .dunkey," and in money. which
should be '.nluney, was another unjusti-
fable innovation. called into being be-
cause in script the Normans did not like
an m or m to follow .'u'' because
OIL the want of legibility.
Professor Skeat also provided a surprise
ny iluiSuiihS eiC iVOd eIidt the SnOfJenlnS
of .'labour' to labor was an American
innovation. Labor he said, was found
in the 504th line of '.The Pearl" which
was written before Columbus discovered
America, and. indeed. before he was
born. Similarly, he went on. there were
the best of pathological reasons for spell
ing arrive with only one r; affair
which was the French a faire"-with
only one f; attack as 'tatak''5 commence
without its double m. and lamb. limb
and plumber without their b. In conclu-
sior, the professor showed by pathological
science that the spelling of language was
altered originally to conform with pho
netic utteranee and contended that We