Waterbury evening Democrat., 1906-10-13
Method to Reform Spelling
 Urged by Irish Critic.
PRESENT PLAN ONLY sHoRTENs
Phonetics Arc Inevitable, He Claims, but Correct Phenetics Need More Letters-Declares Reform Cannot Bc Ehected by Shortened Spelling Which Looks Uneducated.

getically and wisely forced on our at.
 tention by President Ruzvelt If he will
 allow me to simplify him to that ex-
 tent has been received not only with
 the outburst of ignorance and folly
 which any sensible proposal may now
 ndays count on. but with false deli
 cacy which has led genuine phonetic
 experts to withhold serious technical
 criticism. It Is bad enough to have
 men of letters passionately defending
 such recent absurd and, transient
 alteration as our pseudo -etymological
 spelling on the ground that 1t Is the
 spelling of, the Bible and Shakespeare (a libel gross enough to make Tyndale
 and Shakespeare turn In their gravesl
 but 1t Is far worse to have the defects
 of the scheme passed over in polite
 silence by the people who know au-
 thorltatively that, though the president
 does not overrate the enormous impor-
 tance of spelling reforms, his methods
 cannot be regarded as an advance on those of Artemus Ward and Josh Bill ings.
 I tried to express this myself by con- pairing his action to the reform calen- dar by Mohammed., who divided the year Into twelve ltjhar months. with results on the caravan season arrange ments from which Arabian commerce has not recovered to this day. but l find that most of your contemporaries regard Mohammed's arrangement as an excellent one and accordingly report me as enthusiastically in favor of the presidential scheme.
 !, Pending some really authoritative comment by Henry Sweet, whose pro- posals of 1881 are hardly to the point today, or by a home expert of his school. let me point out few obvious shortcomings in the scheme. To begin with. itis not really sinlplifled spelling. It is shortened spelling, which Is quite a different matter, as the short spelling may leave foreigner or a child quite us much in the dark as to the sound of a word as the long one. and 1t anxious ly disclaims any pretense to be phonet- ic. Now. 1t is doubtless wise when a reform Is introduced to try to persuade the British public that 1t Is not a re- form at all. but appearances must be kept up to some extent at least. and the fact Is that board which dis claims phonetic spelling puts itself out of court.
 Unphonetlc spelling Is as impossible a ngment as secular education. Unless we adopt the system of Chinese ideo- graphs and learn by heart separate arbitrary symbol for every word In the dictionary we must spell phonetically. We may corrupt and confuse our spell ing by etymologic fads. spelling "det" with "b" and "foren" with an zig" just as we might spell man" 'mapn" or "mkyan." to show that we are de- scended from the apes or monkeys. But we shall not spell man" "ape" nor shall we ever spell "cat' dog" If we did the only result would be that we should presumably spell dogma" ''cat- ma" We cannot get away from pho netic spelling because spelling Is as necessarily and inevitably phonetic as Is damp.
 To say that English and French spelling are not phonetic Is absurd. All that 1t means Is that the French and English spell much worse than the f. .arr,oua onA I$arla,. bntn~ rol. S;rcfx conceited and inhibitive people who take an uppish delight in making difficult. not 10 mention their love of excuses for punishing 
 But in the long run phonetics have their revenge. When we begin by re- fusing to spell as we pronounce we end l by having to pronounce as we spell. l to show the French ori- | yin of the word "obliee." refused to ,peIl 1t phonetically. and generation I ,f superior persons despIsed those who I lid not say ''obleeee" and were them | 'elves despised by the still more select ,ircle who said 'obleezh.- But who fares ssy "obleege- now except Joseph Surface on the stage1
 The history of the word "envebope- els the same story. 'Ongvelcpe- and -annvelope- have had their day. We pelled It -envelope.- 2 and now we have Q pronounce it envelope The Amer can reformers want us to spell ''cata- ogue- ~catalog" The word Is In such | common use that its pronunciation has ,een additionally maintained in spite f the spelling. But what of -epiIox' ind ''prolog-f The>e two words. which most Engiishmen never utter or hear Itsered In their lives and the rr-t use ,erhaps once in twenty years. gre on hose rare occasions mispronounced line times out of ten ss -epiIosg- snd I 'Prolosx-
 As the working classes become more Itefafe and please themselves by drag- f inr Into ordinary conversation more i nd more long words that they have ever heard proncuncci they intruiuce rsys cf their own Of prpoozncsnx hen. fcsnded Becesssrfly ca peInne 'Psogrsnne.- . vnlg.risn vhicA of- l <.ss s1e eys co -Psrss- pFv.suscea II Inv h ngnsA sGs11B tDe CT. hns |