Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1906-10-05


Already 1 blush when old habit betrays
me into calling clothes CLOSE" L have
heard tenor pronouncing the ~ in
Haenders Wherever You Walk" II
Deptford has become "Depped Ford" In
spite of usage 1 see no reason to doubt
that debt will become "depped."
am fond of the word .ham." mean
ing a country place larger than a ham
let. L am still allowed to speak OF
East Ham and west Ham" because
the words are written separately, but
when I speak of ..Lewis Ham, ELS
Ham" or Peters Ham, am suspected
of defect in my speech, almost as if
had spoken of Gears Holton" properly
rhyming to "Walton'D instead of "Ker
Shalltn'' The received recommendations
nowadays are Louis sham,' Peter
sham," lei them" and so on, and peo-
pie who support the bad spelling which
is corrupting the language in this fash
ion pretend to have special regard for
it and prattle of the Bible and Shake
| Speare They remind me of the New
York police commissioner who once ar
| rested q whole theatrical company for
performing one of my plays and eX-
| planned on being demonstrated with
| that the sermon on the mount was
| good enough for him.
| The worst of il is this want of con-
science in spelling has led TO anarchy
and Indifference in the Interpretation
of spelling. London c1fldren are DELHI
erateIy taught to speak hideously by
teachers who speak that way them
| selves | have passed public element
1l.,e rNA
children chorusing the alphabet as fol-
| lows: ~ "ber-ee," ser ee,'' der ee,"
"er-ee." aft" ''ger-ee," .'iche." ANY"
iii" Xxi" al am AN ''ow,"
perez" "kioo," Jaw" "ass,'' ''ter-ee,"
'yer-eoo," VERGE" ''dabblyew," AK"
"wawy," '.Zad."
Already the west end a section of
London. and Oxford have acquired
more than half this horrible prOnuncia-
ton, and they will soon acquire it COM
pletely. They are lulled into false Sc
curity by the fact that the cOarsely ma
sal resonance of the costermonger dis
tinguishes him socially from the Ok
ford graduate in spite of the Identity
of their INSTRUMENTATION. But the
snarl will no doubt conquer Oxford in
time When smart society says low,
now" for "of, no." and dahntahn" for
downtown" and calls ''humbug with
gun" "hambag with agan" it is not
very far from complete mastery of the
language of what it already calls Mile
End rowd'' and will soon call with ma
tive perfection of accent "Mswl Enn
Rowd.''
1 insist on this aspect of the case be-
III
grasping the enormous advantage of
making English the universal language
both for writing and speech or of I'M
Outstanding how our spelling obstructs
that contamination. most English men
and women would almost rather die
than be convicted of speaking like cos
termongers and flower girls. Our gov
erning classes dropped half the conti
nent of North America from sheer care
lessness Sooner than drop an N"
they would steep Europe in blood. 1t
therefore hits them purposely in their |
vulnerable point.
For this very reason. however, the re-
form cannot be effected by shortened |
spcllirs. which is indistinguishable |
from ordinary wrong spelling. If any |
man writes me letter in which |
through is spelled thru and |
"above" "abuv' 1 shall at once put him
down as illiterate and in consequence |
plebeian, no matter what board or
what potentate sanctions his orthogra
ply Really phonetic spelling is quite
unmistakabIe in this way. No lady or
gentleman will ever be persuaded to
spell like the late Sir Isaac Pitman.
who was very energetic bookseller
and a very bad phonetcian, but any
body might spell like Henry Sweet
without compromising himself-indeed,
with positive affirmation of having
been at Oxford. A practically correct
phonetic spelling justifies itself at once
to the eye as being the spelling Of an
educated man. whereas shortcomings and
so called simplifications suggest moth
ing but blunders
1 therefore respectfully advise the
president and the board to take the
bull by the horns without wasting fur
Their time and enlarge the alphabet I'M
til our consonants and vowelS are for
all practical purposes separately repre-
scented and defined BY rhyming with
words in daily use we shall then get a
word notation which may be strange
at first-which does not matter-but
which will be neither ludicrous nor ap-
ignorant-which does matter
very much indeed
One other point Is of Importance The
new letters must be designed by an |
artist with fully developed sense of
beauty in writing and printing. There
must be no diacritical signs to spoil ,
the appearance of the pages of new
type. 1t is mistake to suppose that ,
the Bible teaches us the sacredness of ,
pseudo chronological spelling, but it
does teach us the comeliness of page .
On which there are no apostrophes and ,
40 inverted commas ,