OUR SACROSANCT ORTHOGRAPHY
“NO,” said the Melancholy Author, “I do not understand British criticism of American attempts at spelling reform. The claim of our insular cousins to a special ownership and particular custody of our language is impudent. English is not a benefaction that we owe to living Englishmen, nor a loan to be enjoyed, under conditions prescribed by the creditors. When our ancestors ‘came over’ they did not sign away any rights of revision of their own speech; and if a man come not honestly by his mother-tongue I know not what he may be said legitimately to own. I am not addicted to intemperate words, and harsh retaliation does not engage my assent, but when I see an Englishman reaching ‘hands across the sea’ to punish what he chooses to call an infraction of the laws ofhislanguage, I am tempted to slap his wrist.”
In the presence of this portentous incarnationof justice the Timorous Reporter trembled appropriately and was silent in all the dialects of his native land and Kansas.
“What would they have,” continued the great, sad man—“these ‘conservatives’? A language immune to change? That would be a dead language and we should have to evolve a successor. Ours has never been a changeless tongue; nothing is more mutable, even in its orthography. As it existed a few centuries ago it is now unintelligible except to a few specialists, yet every change has encountered as fierce hostility as any that is now proposed. Compare a page of ‘Beowulf’ with a page of the LondonTimesorThe Spectatorand see what incalculable quantities of ‘crow’ the luckless ‘guardians of our noble tongue’ have had to swallow. Do you wonder, young man, that they are a dyspeptic folk? And did not Dr. Samuel Johnson formulate a great truth in the dictum that ‘every sick man is a scoundrel’?”
“Surely,” ventured the Timorous Reporter, “you would not apply so harsh a word to the great English reviewers, nor to our own beloved Professor Harry Thurston Peck!”
“To be consistent these gentlemen should not demand that the spelling remain as it is,for its present condition is the result of innumerable defeats of themselves and their predecessors by hardy ‘corruptors.’ It is pusillanimous of them not only to accept a situation that has been forced upon them but to proclaim it sacred and fight for its eternal maintenance. They should be making heroic efforts to restore at least the spelling of Hakluyt and Sir John Mandeville. It is not so very long since a few timid innovators began (as secretly as the nature of the rebellious act would permit) to leave off the ‘k’ in such words as ‘musick’ ‘publick’ and so forth. Instantly
The wonted roar was up amid the woods,And filled the air with barbarous dissonance—
The wonted roar was up amid the woods,And filled the air with barbarous dissonance—
The wonted roar was up amid the woods,And filled the air with barbarous dissonance—
The wonted roar was up amid the woods,
And filled the air with barbarous dissonance—
the self-appointed ‘guardians of our noble tongue’ rose as one old lady and swore that rather than submit they would run away! That sacred ‘k’ is no more, but they are with us yet, untaught by failure and unstilled by shame. It is the nature of a fool to hate a thing when it is new, adore it when it is current, and despise it when it is obsolete.”
Pleased with his epigram, the Melancholy Author so accentuated the sadness of his countenance as to invite a sincere compassion.
“We hear much from the scholar-folk about the importance of preserving the derivation of words, not only as a guide to their meaning, but because from the genealogy and biography of words we get instructive side-lights on the history and customs of nations. That is all true: philology is a useful and fascinating study. ReadThe Queen’s Englishof the late Dean Alford if you think it is not. (Incidentally, I may mention my own humble volumes onThe Genesis and Evolution of ‘Puss’ as the Vocative Form of ‘Cat.’) But derivation is really not a very sure guide to signification. For example, what do I learn of the meaning of ‘desultory’ by knowing that it is from the Latin ‘desultor,’ a circus performer that leaps from horse to horse? In many instances the origin of a word is misleading, as in ‘miscreant,’ which, etymologically, means nothing worse than ‘unbeliever.’ Of course it is interesting to hear in it a lingering echo of an ecclesiastic damning in a time when nothing worse than an unbeliever was thought to exist.
“But, as the late Prof. Schele de Vere pointed out, the roots of words are better disclosed in their sound than in their spelling. By phonetic spelling only can their pronunciationbe made nearly uniform—if that is an advantage. If this is not obvious, human intelligence is a shut clam.”
The creator of this beautiful figure celebrated it at the sideboard and resumed his illuminating discourse.
“To those who deem it worth while to be happy, the study of derivations is, indeed, a perpetual banquet of delights, but it is important to remember that language is not merely, nor chiefly, a plaything for scholars, but a thing of utility in the conduct of life and affairs. To its service in that character all obstruent considerations should, and eventually do, give way. It may please, and to some extent profit, to know that ‘phthisis’ comes from the Greek ‘phthio’—to waste away—but if in order that one may see this, as well as hear it, I must so spell it as to deny to certain letters of the alphabet their customary and established powers I protest against the desecration. Our orthography has no greater sanctity than have the vested rights of the vowels and consonants by which we achieve it. Why do not ‘the whiskered pandours and the fierce hussars’ of conservatism stand forth as champions of that noble Roman, the English alphabet?
“Yes, I concede the importance of being able to trace the origin of words, for words are thoughts, and their history is a record of intellectual progress, but in very few of them would a simplified, even a consistently phonetic, spelling tend to obscure the trail by which they came into the language. And as to these few, why not learn their origin from the dictionaries once for all and have done with it? The labor would be incomparably less than that of learning to spell as we do.”
Impressed but not silenced, the thirsty soul at the fountain of wisdom cautiously advanced the view that the reformed spelling is uncouth to the eye.
“It is most dispiriting,” said the oracle, in the low, sad tones that served to distinguish him from the bagpipes of Skibo castle, “to hear from the beardless lips of youth a folly so appropriate to age and experience. To the unobservant, any change in the familiar looks disagreeable. The newest fashion in silk hats looks ridiculous; a little later the old style looks worse. To me nothing is uncouth: the most refined and elevated sentiment loses nothing by its expression in as nearly phonetic spelling as our inadequate alphabet will permit.For my reading you may spell like Josh Billings if you will not write like him.”
“From all that you have been kind enough to say,” said the Timorous Reporter, with a sudden access of courage that alarmed him, “I infer that in your forthcoming great work,The Tyrant Preposition, you will employ the Skibonese philanthropography.”
“Not I. Courage is an excellent thing in man: the soldier is useful; but each to his trade. Mine, sir,” he concluded, with a note of pride underrunning the grave, sweet monotony of his discourse, “is writing.”