The National tribune., 1907-01-03
Spelling Reform.

Editor National Tribune: May I say
Spelling?" I have noted with approval
your remarks on the subject. Re-
cent newspapers contained by Prof.
d. S. Jordan-one of the committee
headed by Prof. Matthews, who issued
the list of 300'-to the effect that he
resigned because he had not been con-
suited about that list and knew nothing
of it till seen in the papers, and did
not approve of it.
This convicts Prof. Matthews both
of bad faith in putting forth that list
as the product of the whole commit
tee and of silly arrogance in foisting
his personal notions on the public.
Now, as to the merits of the list it
self, it exhibits very poor judgment in
many ways:
1. A spelling reform should emanate
not from a self-elected few but from
National body; some appointed by
the universities, but most selected, say,
by the Governors of States of men not
professional teachers.
2. The 800 list has no system or guild
ing principle, but Is a mess of good,
bad and Indifferent: (a) an arbitrary
few Of the many, like center and honor.
which we have been using for a gener-
alton; (b) others. like program, which
are coming into general use; others, as
thoro, which ought to be adopted, and
are really the only good points in the
list: and (d) the change from ed to
in verbs, which is totally wrong; be-
sides (e) the insertion of gid for guild,
which is silly, as we already have an
other gild Of different meaning and
pronunciation. There are thousands of
words which need reform more than
| that one, such as cocoa for cocao,
milch for milk. etc.
A spelling reform is very desirable,
and 1 heartily favor it. Our language
is the best, most terse, vigorous and
yet simple on earth, and by long odds
the worst spelled. But Iet us use good
sense in the matter. Let me suggest
that
The first step is to formally indorse
all those sensible spellings in Webster,
such as center, honor, era and the like.
The second is In the use of such as
program, etiquet, ETC., mostly foreign
words which should have been pruned
at the start before being admitted to
Saxon society.
So far there is no opposition
Change "ough to 80" IN most and
'ph' to 'f'' in most, but not all words;
also begin certain other badly needed
changes.
Drop useless letters like sc" in Gin
finite"
Extend this pruning.
Then take up the led" in verbs, as
Crossed" and the zen" in others. as
written"
After an agreed time, say, five years,
extend changes to miscellaneous words.
and begin others. among which should
be the elimination of &C" having the
sound of 50 or "k." restricting it to
the sound of "ch." But above all let
:, xr;IA nd ,>Io k~ ,.yr
to-a real system. The hop, skip and
jump schemes of Tom here and Dick
yonder do only harm and discredit the
movement
Among those unwise ideas, that of
changing "ed'' to st" and zen" to IN"
are surely the worst.
We are supposed to be aiming at
simplicity and uniformity. Yet while
we have them now we are asked to
violate both by altering 'ed' in some
verbs to Ct
Anyone with even a moderate ear
for sound should know that st" is not
the proper sound for "ed:" it is not
''crosst' at all, but "corssd."
Similarly "writtn'' is not the pro-
nunciation of written" but is merely
writ" followed by a grunt. written"
is word of two syllables, not one To
omit the ''e'' is of a piece with thet
atrocity, calmly taught in some schools,
of calling "the" "thuh'' and giving a.
grunt for the word "and"
The only change needed-and that is
not at all pressing-is to omit the "e"
from ed" leaving the I'd" in all cases
and the "ed" in full when so pro-
nounced.
The "t' becomes stupid in such
words as raped if spelled "rapt,"
which is a totally different word. Let
it become "rapd.'
Furthermore, IL "ed' Is changed to
"t' in "crost" the "d' must remain in
many like "rained," which would be
reformed to "raind." while in such as
"pelted' the "ed" could not be dis
turbed. making three ways Of writingl
the participle, surely not much Of anil
Improvement.
BY all means let Us have Q National