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English Spelling and Spelling Reform This watermark does not appear in the registered version - http://www.clicktoconvert.com Presented to the UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO LIBRARY by the ONTARIO LEGISLATIVE LIBRARY 1980, 1; ENGLISH SPELLING AND SPELLING REFORM BY THOMAS R. LOUNSBURY, LL.D., L.H.D. Emeritus Professor of English in Yale University NEW YORK AND LONDON HARPER 6- BROTHERS PUBLISHERS MCM I X BOOKS BY THOMAS R. LOUNSBURY ENGLISH SPELLING AND SPELLING REFORM Post 8vo. net $1.50 THE STANDARD OF USAGE IN ENGLISH Post 8vo. net 1.50 THE STANDARD OF PRONUNCIATION IN ENGLISH Post 8vo. net 1.50 STUDIES IN CHAUCER. 3 Vols 8vo. 9.00 HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, N. Y. Copyright, 1909, by HARPER & BROTHERS. Published October, 1909. TO BRANDER MATTHEWS AS A TRIBUTE TO A FELLOW-COMBATANT IN A COMMON CAUSE, AND A TESTIMONIAL OF THE LONG- CONTINUED FRIENDSHIP OF YEARS This watermark does not appear in the registered version - http://www.clicktoconvert.com Table of Contents PREFACE .................................................................................................................................................2 CHAPTER I: CONFESSIONS OF A SPELLING REFORMER ............................................................4 CHAPTER II: ATTITUDE OF THE EDUCATED ..............................................................................16 CHAPTER III: THE ORTHOGRAPHIC SITUATION ........................................................................24 I THE PROBLEM .............................................................................................................................24 II MOVEMENT OF VOWEL-SOUNDS .........................................................................................26 III THE VOWELS ............................................................................................................................28 IV THE DIGRAPHS .........................................................................................................................33 V. THE CONSONANTS ...................................................................................................................39 CHAPTER IV: THE QUESTION OF HONOR ....................................................................................48 CHAPTER V: METHODS OF RELIEF ...............................................................................................64 CHAPTER VI: OBJECTIONS, REAL AND REPUTED .....................................................................84 I THE LOSS OF KNOWLEDGE OF DERIVATION.......................................................................85 II LIKENESS OF SPELLING IN WORDS WITH UNLIKE MEANINGS.....................................98 III EXISTING BOOKS RENDERED VALUELESS......................................................................100 IV IMPOSSIBILITY OF PHONETIC SPELLING.........................................................................102 CHAPTER VII: THE FINAL CONSIDERATION .............................................................................106 VERBAL INDEX .................................................................................................................................109 GENERAL INDEX ...............................................................................................................................119 PREFACE 'T'HE main ideas underlying the treatment here found of English orthography were embodied in an article which appeared in the Atlantic Monthly for June, 1907. The title it there bore was "Confessions of a Spelling Reformer." This it was the original intention to give to the present work. But with the changes which were required in recasting the article upon which it was based, with the great expansion of many of the points considered in it, more than all with the extension of its scope so as to include many new topics, the personal element which had characterized it none too prominently in the first place sank into almost complete insignificance. Hence followed the inappropriateness of the title. Here, accordingly, it has been confined to the opening chapter, and for it has been substituted that which the volume now bears. As published in the magazine, the article referred to was of a length so unconscionable that [vii] I have always been "Confident that the editor, however carefully he concealed his feelings, groaned inwardly at the space he obliged himself to give up to it. Still, long as it was, much which had been prepared for it was cut out before transmission. It was felt that there is a point beyond which the patience of the most long-suffering of editors will not stretch. A few passages which were then omitted were later made to do service in a presidential address given at the annual meeting of the Simplified Spelling Board. These have been restored here, though in a much enlarged form, to their old place. With them also has been reinstated a good deal of other matter which had been struck out before the article was forwarded for publication. I have also made use of several paragraphs which had appeared a number of years ago in contributions to the Century Magazine. In addition, it is to be said that one whole chapter in the volume has been printed before, though very much abbreviated, in Harper's Magazine. But in spite of the extent to which I have drawn upon matter previously published, fully two-thirds of the contents of the present treatise has never up to this time appeared in print. This is true in particular of what in my own eyes is the most [viii] important chapter in the book—that on the Orthographic Situation. This watermark does not appear in the registered version - http://www.clicktoconvert.com The subject of spelling reform is not, strictly speaking, a soul-stirring one, nor is any possible treatment of it likely to contribute to the gayety of nations. If any of the chapters contained in the present volume be of the slightest interest in itself, that on the orthographic situation is assuredly not the one. On the other hand, if there be anything of value in the work, that same chapter has, as I look at it, far the most value. There is in it, indeed, nothing original. The numerous facts it contains are to be found scattered up and down the pages of various volumes—particularly in the introductions to the larger dictionaries, and in orthographic and orthoepic essays produced at various periods. But so far as I know, this is the first attempt ever made to collect and combine and, above all, to put in a form, easily comprehensible by the general reader, the widely scattered facts which go to show the precise character and characteristics of English orthography, and to bring out with distinctness the real nature of the deep-seated disease under which it labors. At all events, whether or not I have been anticipated in the presentation of these facts, [ix] such knowledge of them as can be gained from this volume or from some better source is essential to the comprehension of the subject or to any proper consideration of it. Designedly and avowedly incomplete as is the survey of the subject here taken, it is sufficiently detailed to give any one who cares to understand it a fair degree of familiarity with the situation which confronts him who sets out to effect a genuine and not a spurious reform. It is furthermore sufficient to give him a fair conception of the sort of work that will have to be done before the anarchy which now prevails in our spelling can give way to even the semblance of order. Assuredly there was ample need of a work of this sort being prepared, and the only regret that need be entertained is that it has not fallen to some one better equipped than myself to prepare it. For I reiterate in this preface what I have said in the body of the work itself: that there is no one subject upon which men, whether presumably or really intelligent, are in a state of more hopeless, helpless ignorance than upon that of the nature and history of English orthography. No serious student of it can read the articles which appear in newspapers, the communications sent to them, or the elaborate [x] essays found in periodicals, without being struck by the more than Egyptian darkness which prevails. In nearly every one of these mistakes of fact not merely exist but abound. Most of the assertions made lack even that decent degree of probability which belongs to respectable fiction. Even in the very few cases where the facts are correct, the inferences drawn from them are utterly erroneous and misleading. Many of these articles, too, contain mistakes of apprehension so gross that one comes to feel that in the discussion of this particular subject the limits of human incapacity to understand the simplest assertion have been reached. Statements of this sort will be resented with all the venomousness of anonymous personal vituperation. They have not been made, however, without full examination of scores and scores of articles which have come out in opposition to spelling reform. No difficulty will be found, if the occasion demands, to substantiate their correctness beyond the shadow of a doubt. The various chapters contained in this volume follow one another in logical sequence. But I have also sought to make each of them, in a way, independent of the others, and therefore complete in itself. This has necessitated, in a very few cases, the repetition of statements [xi] important only for the immediate understanding of the particular subject. I may venture to add that I have taken great pains to make the numerous details scattered through the volume absolutely
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