Thomas Raynesford Lounsbury

“ It is enough to know that it exists. A thorough-going reform of English orthography would therefore be one of the most gigantic of enterprises, even if men were fully informed about it and their hearts were set upon it. But a distinct majority of the educated class, though not educated on this subject, are opposed to it. Naturally the profounder their ignorance, the more intense is their hostility. It is no wonder, therefore, that many, in contemplating this dead-weight of prejudice that must be unloaded, have come to despair of the language ever being relieved in the slightest of the burden. ”

“ It is evident from this one fact that the desire to make the spelling conform as far as possible to the pronunciation—the one object for which spelling was devised—is far from being confined to the men of the English-speaking race. Even when it cannot succeed in its main object, it aims to bring about uniformity by sweeping away the anomalous. The movement for spelling reform now going on with us is, therefore, no isolated undertaking. It is simply part of a world-wide movement in the interests of law and order. There is an intellectual conscience as well as a moral one. ”

“ Accordingly, as difference in a hitherto unheard method of pronunciation has always affected men by the mere sound of it, so does now a new spelling affect them by the sight of it. It arrests the attention of all. Of some it excites the resentment; to others it almost causes convulsions of agony. Hence, those who advocate a pure phonetic spelling—in itself the only strictly rational method—are holding forth a counsel of perfection to a body of persons who are so steeped in orthographic iniquity that they have come to think it the natural condition of the race. ”

“ The conflict between the old that is going out and the new that is coming in cannot fail to produce more or less of annoyance. These disturbances, indeed, last only for a time; but to some they are very real while they do last. Those of us who believe that the permanent benefits accruing to the users of our tongue from a reform of our orthography outweigh immensely the temporary inconveniences and annoyances to which they will be subject, can well afford to bear with the hesitation of those who like the end in view, but dislike the time and toil that must be gone through in order to reach it. ”

“ It is, therefore, not surprising that the existing orthography should come to seem to such men not the comparatively late creation it is, but as something which has about it all the flavor of antiquity. As an inevitable result, there has been further imparted to it the odor of sanctity. Ignorance is recognized everywhere as a mother of devotion. Nowhere has there been a more striking manifestation of this truth than in the case of our spelling. ”

“ Even the far keener enjoyment of rendering him miserable by making evident to his reluctant but slowly dawning intelligence how much of an ignoramus, not to say idiot, he has shown himself in his acts and utterances—even this most poignant of pleasures loses its relish if indulgence in it can be secured only at the cost of much personal trouble. This is just as true of spelling reform as of any other movement. ”

“ He will recognize that the obstacles which stand in the way of the reform of English spelling are not merely greater in number but are harder to overcome than those which beset any other cultivated tongue of modern Europe. Incomplete as is the survey, it is a melancholy picture which it presents. To him who has not become so accustomed to disorder that he has learned to love it for its own sake, the view is distinctly disheartening. The present orthography fulfills neither its legitimate office of denoting pronunciation nor its illegitimate one of disclosing derivation. ”

“ We are often condescendingly assured by the opponent of spelling reform that its advocates forget that words have a history of their own. After indulging in this not particularly startling remark he almost invariably goes on to make clear by illustration that he himself has no conception of what it means. “Shall we,” asks a writer, after reciting this well-worn formula—“shall we mask the Roman origin of Cirencester and Towcester by spelling them Sissiter and Towster,” as they are pronounced? Now it may not be wise, for various reasons, to alter the orthography of proper names. ”

“ It is because I look upon this sentiment of association as the main bulwark of our present orthography that I have always taken the ground that it is only through a rising generation that any thorough-going reform can ever be accomplished. It is asking too much of human nature to expect a generation already risen to go a second time through the fiery ordeal of learning to spell. ”

“ Any one who has the slightest conception of what a reform of our spelling on pure phonetic principles means will absolve those now urging reform from putting forward any scheme of that sort. It requires, indeed, a singular innocence of all knowledge of this particular subject to make such a charge. Certain changes recommended would, indeed, have brought particular words nearer a phonetic standard. But if everything proposed were to be universally adopted—and even ten times more—the real disease which afflicts our orthography would be but partially alleviated. ”

“ This is the immensity of the efforts demanded to destroy the superstition as to the sanctity of this creation, not of scholars, but of printers, which we call English orthography. Even to do this preliminary work will require the time and toil of years of struggle.
The fact is perhaps not much to be regretted. There is nothing worth living for that is not worth fighting for. But the task is no light one. Not merely have ignorance and prejudice to be overcome, but, what is far worse, stupidities, against which, the poet tells us, even the gods fight unvictorious. ”

“ I confess to liking the attitude of these opponents of spelling reform, and to receiving gratification from their extremest utterances. They are entirely free from the sham in which men indulge, of pretending to be influenced in their beliefs on this subject by logical principles. Sojourning in that upper rarefied air of sentiment in which [Pg 85] common-sense staggers and reason swoons, there is an indefinable charm in the irrationality they display in resolutely ignoring facts they find inconvenient to consider and arguments they disdain to comprehend. ”

“ We like the present orthography because we are used to it. When once the point of intimate familiarity with the form of a word has been reached, it makes thenceforward no difference to us how wide is the divergence between the pronunciation and the spelling which is ostensibly designed to represent the pronunciation. As little difference does it make if the form with which we have become familiar not merely fails to indicate the origin of the word, but on the contrary suggests and even imposes upon the mind a belief in an utterly false derivation. ”

“ But are these believers in man’s impenetrable stupidity willing to carry out the doctrine they profess to its logical conclusion? For the sake of preventing this assumed confused state of mind, are they willing to change the spelling of words which have precisely the same form but a pronunciation distinctly different? It will be found that the very men who clamor for the retention of different spellings for words pronounced alike are just as insistent upon the retention of words with similar spellings which are pronounced unlike. ”

“ In the matter of orthography, rarely do editors or publishers have any conscience. The works of the past, even of the immediate past, are presented to us not in the spelling of the past, but in that of the present.
Hence, there is no occasion for surprise that such pitiful exhibitions of ignorance are so [Pg 24] constantly displayed by men from whom we should naturally expect better things. The large majority of even cultivated readers do not see the words used by any great author of the past in the way in which he himself spelled them. ”

“ Phonetic spelling is not a destructive but a conservative agency. Just as the creation of literature holds a language fast to its moorings, just as it renders it stable by arresting all speedy verbal or grammatical change, so the establishment of phonetic spelling would operate upon orthoepy. The exact pronunciation would be imposed upon the word by its very form. No one could mistake it, no one would be tempted to disregard it. From it there would never be variation save when a change in the sound imperatively demanded a change in the spelling to indicate it. ”

“ Political machinery, so constantly used to effect reforms, is consequently barred. In every English-speaking country the general government cannot well take any action, except under the impulse of a popular demand too wide-spread and too powerful to be resisted. There is, furthermore, in this country a special difficulty. In America it is not the action of the general government that is of importance, but the independent action of the several states. Even if reform were carried through in some of them, there would always be danger of discordant measures being taken in others. ”

“ In fact, language presents not merely many examples of words with the same spelling which have different meanings, but sometimes of those that have exactly opposite meanings. Yet that condition of things produces no confusion. Does any one hesitate about what course to pursue when told, on the one hand, to “stand fast” or on the other to “run fast?” Does he ever in actual life confound the word cleave, when it means to adhere with the cleave which means to destroy adherence by splitting? When you dress a fowl, you take something off it or out of it ”

“ In considering the construction or reconstruction of a bridge or building, every one is willing to defer to the judgment of experts. When, however, it comes to the consideration of spelling, there is no one who does not have the comfortable consciousness that on this question his opinion is distinctly more valuable than the conclusions reached by the wretched cranks who have taken pains to master the subject, and are necessarily hampered in the views they entertain by the knowledge they have been unfortunate enough to acquire. ”

“ In truth, the comparison just made is sufficient of itself to lay this ghastly specter of an argument which haunts so persistently the imagination of many opponents of phonetic spelling. It is with our pronunciation as with our timepieces. None of our watches run precisely alike. Few if any can be called unqualifiedly correct. For all that, with the aid of these imperfect and never precisely agreeing instruments, we manage to transact with little friction and delay the daily business of a life in which [Pg 325] we have constantly to wait upon one another’s movements. ”

“ Consequently, the alterations, however much an object of dislike, cause nothing of that intense hostility which attends any scientific and, therefore, sweeping reform.
In this respect our race stands in sharpest contrast with that foreign one with which its connections have been closest—which has often been its enemy and occasionally its ally. The French mind, unlike the English, is by nature severe and logical. It cares little for precedent. It fixes its eyes upon principle. It is disposed to follow any reform it accepts to its remotest conclusion. ”