Evening star., 1926-12-15
Reforming of Alphabet Fails
To Win Aid of Skeptical Public

savant overlooks the drawback that
his beautiful reform might give in
Vulnerable writer's just that much ad-
ditional time to write a proportion
ately increased amount Of trash for
other people to read
Granting all the theoretical ad-
vantages Of the suggested rearrange-
ment," says the Manchester Union,
"one must raise the objection, from
the practical point of view, that the
plan has been made an untimely Of
fering. Midsummer is a much better
season to discuss what perhaps ought
to be. but hasn't a Chinaman's chance
of being. In late November, with
Congress and presumably hard Win
ter just ahead, we've got to concen-
trate on doing the best we can with
the material at hand" The Morgan
town New Dominion adds that "the
trouble Is that it's this generation
which is called upon to take action;
and the present generation always
holds back such reforms, either from
a notion that alphabets and spelling
are sacred things or from pure lazi-
ness"
''Inasmuch as this plan Is advanced
AOA ACdoOh0 VI ~ dCbACNA CCOhOAAJ,
concludes the Kalamazoo Gazette, "it
may attract more general considera-
ton than 1t would If set forth on
purely academic grounds. Neverthe-
less. the chances Of it's being favor
ably received by the English-speak-
ing public are extremely slight. Some
day we may have simplified alpha
bet very much like the one DIR. Dewey
suggests, but in all probability 1t will
be the product of gradual, piecemeal
simplification." The Miami Daily
News points out that "the chief cloud
on the horizon at this time seems to
be the tremendous expense that
would be involved In rewriting all
English dictionaries and redasting all
the type used in English-speaking
countries"
mo mean sum to save" Is the Oak
land Tribune's idea Of the billion dol
lars economy, but it states that 'long
years of tinkering with the language
have so far yielded very little to sim
plified spelling enthusiasts" and in
sists that 'if change comes, 1t will
come naturally and not artiflcially."
The Portsmouth Sun, however, de.
clareS that las q matter Of fact and
as it is now, we are using, without
thinking about 1t. Is vowels or more
instead Of 5, but instead Of having
signs for the distinctions In the a. e.
1, o and u we have to carry the modi-
fed pronunciation in our minds. 1t
would be easier to learn the signs for
the five or six shadings of the "a for
example, than to struggle in each in
stance, by memory, with the sound
as it varies in the words artistic
father fat fare and ask"
Everybody admits that the saving
from a thoroughgoing reform of
spelling would be large" states the
Springfield Republican. Isaac Pit
man, nearly a century ago. was try
ing to dazzle his countrymen with al
Turing estimates of what they would
save by adopting his 'fonetik' sys-
tenn, but imagination in those days
did not go beyond millions. In an
other century 1t may run into tril-
lions, and then something will really
have to be done about it. We may
be able to afford a billion a year for
bad spelling, but a thousand billion
would be extravagant. 1t makes one
dizzy to think of the billions likely
to be wasted on superfiuous letters
before DR.. Dewey's reform is put into
effect"
The Muncie Star suspects that the
educators to whom the plan was pro
posed possibly were not quite clear
as to how a longer alphabet would
decrease the space taken by words,
and 1t adds: eff there were any wom-
en- among those educators. they might
have recalled the invention OF the
sewing machine that promised to be
a labor saver to women; and. forth
with, women on its appearance began
to sew more furiously than ever be
fore, and have since produced scores
of yards of stitching to one In the
old 1ava -