Waterbury evening Democrat., 1906-10-13

be forced to pronounce "semlconscious'
 as "see my conscious"
 Then there Is the march of preciosity
 Already I blush when old habit betrays
 me into calling clothes "close." have
 heard tenor pronounclng the T" ir
 Haendel's "Where'er You Walk" Ii
 Deptford has become "Depped Ford" ir
 spite of usage see no reason to doubt
 that debt will become "depped."
 am fond of the word ham," mean
 Ing country place larger than ham.
 let. I am still allowed to speak of
 East Ham" and West Ham" because the words are written separately, but
 when I speak of Lewis Ham," "Elt Ham" or Peters Ham" I am suspected of defect in my speech. almost as if had spoken of Cars Holton" (properly rhyming to "Walton') instead of "Ker Shalltn" The received accommodations nowadays are Louis sham" Peter sham" "El them" and so on, and peo. pie who support the bad spelling which is corrupting the language in this fash lon pretend to have special regard for 1t md prattle of the Bible and Shake speare. They remind me of the New York police commissioner who once ar- rested whole theatrical company for performing one of my plays and ex- plained on being remonstrated with that the sermon on the mount was good enough for him.
 The worst of 1t is this want of con- lclence in spelling has led to anarchy md indifference in the interpretation of spelling. London children are delib- erately taught to speak hldeously by teachers who speak that way them selves. have passed public element ary school and have heard class of children chorusing the alphabet as fol- lows: IT." ''ber-ee." 'ser-ee." "der-ee,' "er-ee," "afY." 'ger-ee." "iche," "awy." "ji.' "ki," "al,' "am," "an." "ow." 'per-ee.' "kioo." ''aw," "ass." "ter-ee." ''yer-eoo." 'ver-ee." "dabblyew." "ax." ''wawy." "zad."
 Already the west end. a section of and Oxford have acquired more than half this horrible pronuncia- ton, and they will soon acquire it com pletely They are lulled into false se- curity by the fact that the coarsely na- sal resonance of the costermonger dis tinguishes him socially from the OK ford graduate in spite of the identity of their mispronuncIation. But the snarl will no doubt conquer Oxford in time. When smart society says low. now," for ''oh, no," and dahntahn" for and calls "humbug with gun" ''hambag with agan" it Is not very far from complete mastery of the language of what 1t already calls Mile End rowd' and will soon call with na- i've perfection of accent "Mawl Elm Rowd." rir 5 n .eia s :. .,,r,,so- ,,is
 insist on this aspect of the case be- cause, while we seem incapable of yrasping the enormous advantage of making English the universal language both for writing and speech or of un- how our spelling obstructs hat consummation. most English men md women would almost rather die han be convicted of speaking like cos and flower girls. Our gov ,rnlng classes dropped half the conti- lent of North America from sheer care essness. Sooner than drop an 'h" hey would steep Europe In blood. It hits them purposely in their point.
 For this very reason. however. the re- orm cannot be effected by shortened polling. which Is indistingulshabl rom ordinary wrong spelling. Ifsnny nan writes me a letter In which through" is spelled thru" and above" "abuv" shall at once put him town as illiterate and In consequence 'lebeian, no matter what board or vhat potentate sanctions his orthogra- hy. Really phonetic spelling. is quite In this way. No lady or entleman will ever be persuaded to pell like the late Sir Isaac Putnam. rho was a very energetic bookseller nd very bad phonetlcian. but any ody might spell like Henry Sweet 'ithout compromising himself-lndeed. 'ith positive affirmation of having cen at Oxford. A practically correct honetic spelling justlfies itself at once 9 the eye as being the spelling of an ducated man. whereas shortcomings and 9 called simplincatlons suggest noth- lg but blundcrs.
 I therefore respectfully advise the resident and the board to take the ull by the horns without wasting fur her time and enlarge the alphabet un- l our consonnnts and vowels are for Il practical purposes separately rcpre- .nted and defined. By rhyming with rords In daily use we shall then get ord notation which may be strange [ frst-which does not matter-but 'hlch will be neither ludlcrous nor ap- arently ignorsnt-whIch does matter cry much Indeed. One other point Is of importance. The ew letters must be designed by an rtist with . fully developed sense of sauty in writing and printing. There Iust be no diacritical signs to spoil ,e appearance of the pages of new 1 -pe. It Is a mistake to suppose that 1 le Bible teaches us the sacredness of . eudo-efymological spelling. but It ,es teach us the comeliaess of a page , which there are no apostrophes and I } inverted commas
 Tee oa Wheels.
 Now that the American women have l