Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-08-25
A Good Spelling Reform Beginning.

President Roosevelt's Endorsement of the
reformed spelling insures an official recog-
milton of the movement which should go far
toward establishing its success. He Is. of
course. limited in his Jurisdiction and his
order to the public printer embraces only
the literary emanations from the White
House But with the Presidents public
papers appearing in the new style. accord
Ing to the recommendations of a commit
tee of distinguished scholars. 1t Is easy to
believe that other government offices will
follow suit and that in a short time the
entire government will be placed upon this
sensible photographic basis. From that to
the universal adoption Of the reformed
spelling will be but a short step.
The Presidents approval of the amended
spelling does not embrace the wide range
OF alterations which many people are like
ly at first statement of the case to believe.
There will be no startling changes In the
appearance of his state papers. The adopt
ed list of words contains many revised
forms which have already drifted into pop
ular use. The dropping of the English 'u'
In such words as ''vigor." "arbor." ar
dor" color" etc. has long been dis
tinguishing feature of the American SPELL
ing. More distinct is the change to such
words as "accurst." 'affixt,' "clipt' and
the like. the terminal ed being sup
planted by the phonetic Ct With more
basis in current usage is the dropping OF
the terminal ugh" from such words as
Through" though and thorough In
the same way the substitution OF ''f' for
'ph' has already found favor with many
writer's of standing.
Most of the changes have long been ad-
vocated by the believers In the necessity Of
q revision of the dictionary. on the score
of simplicity without confusion. The chief
appeal of this new list. now adopted by
the President. is on the score of common
sense. The object of language being to
transmit thought. only custom and conven-
ton stand in the way of amendment The
chief danger, always to be considered. lies
in opening wide the doors to amendment, to
permit and encourage individual judgment
to play upon thesproblem. The only safe
course is to follow the advice and re-
spect the warnings of scholars, men who
recognize both the authority of the Ian
guage as well as it's shortcomings When
a committee of the distinction of that head
ed by Brander Matthews offers list Of
changes IT can no longer be said that there
Is a menace of linguistic chaos in any ad-
vance toward spelling reform.
A striking commentary upon the changes
of time is afforded by the prospect that
the Matthews list of reformed spelling will
speedily be recognized. by the people of
the United States. A few decades ago
such an alteration could have been effected
only by the slow process of example and
imitation, covering many years. The lam
guage today is a striking evidence of the
elaboration with which its users have ac-
cepted opportunities to render it more con-
sistent and useful. Its very denominations
of uncouth terminals and meaningless COM
bnations are tokens of the conservatism,
amounting virtually to cowardice, Of the
English-speaking people Now, thanks to
the general diffusion of knowledge to the
rapid communication of ideas. and to the
universal use of print the work of the SIM
plified spelling committee Is doing in a
few years what would a century ago have
been impossible save by a tedious course
of suggestions. appeals and courageous ex-
amples.
The English language is composite, con-
sisting mainly of borrowings and adapta-
lions from many sources 1t should stand
as the best of all. and it will be in a fair
way to become the universal language of
diplomacy and trade when once it Is solidi-
fled and reformed and simplified according
to the laws of common sense.