The Mitchell capital. (Mitchell, Dakota [S.D.]) 1879-1918, 1906-03-23
IS: March has complied a history Of

A. NIGu ID OuOtCu Gil <10oI III. a PISS1-
dent OF the American Pathological as
ISOLATION made In 1874 which was
beginning of one Of b periods In which
friends Of revised photography were
particularly active. This is the way a
paragraph from that speech was print
ca. and 1t gives some idea of an
aiInost phonetic English might be:
ut ID of no use for US to try to char
acterixe with Citing epithets and ade-
quate teSms OF objurgation the mon
gtrous sptSS6 n of h English language.
The timg lost by 1t is a large part of
men. Count the hours that each man
wastes In learning to read at scool, the
hours which he wastes thru life from
the hlndrance to easy reading. The
houretwasted atsscool In lerning to spell,
the hours spent thru life in keeping
up and perfecting this knowledge of
spelling. in consulting dictionaries, a
work that never ends: the hours he
spends In writing silent letters, and
multiply this time by the number of
ohail8 have a total of millions of years
wasted by each generation.
Amateurs in Lnv With Il.
And yet literary amateurs fail in luv
with these sQuintings and lispings.
They try to defend them by pleading
their advantage in the study of ety.
mology. But q changeless ~orthografy
OS8tkOyo ~ AOl lSdl
study, wrttn records ar valuable to the
flologist Just In proportion as they ar
accurate records OF speech as spoken
from year to year"
Professor Lounsbury, when seen at
university, was as as
Professor March in his denunciation of
the so-called Inconsistencies of English
as she is spelled.
.sOf all civilized languages said he,
.'EnElish Is the worst spelled in Chris
tendon. Originally phonetic, it is a
combination OF two different systems.
1t has been SO modified that now the
English speaking peoples have lost
the phonetic sense. One Of the best
proofs of this is the ridiculous attempts
which writer's make when they attempt
to spell phonetically. / nave derived
much amusement from reading the
phonetic satires on the proposed sim
plsication of spelling, for they show
that the men who composed them had
not the faintest idea of o to express
sounds by means OF the printed charac-
tiers.
There are i'll English forty sounds.
and only twenty characters which
must be used In writing them. Many
of the letters are therefore used in diff
ferent ways. The sounds are the real
life OF h language, considering that
x As really ks. that 81 is 'cw,' that
w IL 9 double 'u,' and hat tx and &C.
and 81 are interchangeable. Some, of
M the characters which were once used
tOEsupply this very need have entirely
nov Tor such onnds as tn In; thin
n .th' In then although in earlier
texts they We're expressed by digraphs.
Nowsis Gone 70 the Dogs. .
Many changes nave in the centuries
ken place In the pronunciation of
English, and as a result we have SPELL
ings when stand for sounds which are
no longer employed. The phonetic
has been almost destroyed and
spelling has become a matter of au-
thOrtty--an arbitrary thing-an act of
MssmOry. n ~consonants lion have
remained faithful: the novels have
one to the dogs.
One OF b most astonishing things
III which has resulted from the present
agitation for a simplified spelling is
N the protest from English authors, who
cry IA against the proposed change as
sbRrtiarOus.' Here is Rider 81
saving that the language OF the bible
and Shakespeare Is good enough for
him. He will find the original spelling
~ the bible very different from that Of
present day, and that Shakes
s. s.earess works az originally spelled can
III hardly be ut all.
the language of the bible and Shakes
81 ysaarc. We find In Shakespeare such
Hpellings as 'thcater' for theatre and
center for centre. and the text
abound in numerous examples Of the
difference between the present ortho-
grnpily and tina Of his time.
lprerant "Msn Of Lsttsrs."
g3ssSsI no class OF men who are
snliGnorAnf OF the history and deriva-
80 their own language as the av-
Ss1jnGS 70 English scholars. for they