“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 of _his_ language, I am tempted to slap his
wrist.”
In the presence of this portentous incarnation of 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 London _Times_ or _The Spectator_ and 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 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. Read _The Queen’s English_
of the late Dean Alford if you think it is not. (Incidentally, I
may mention my own humble volumes on _The 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 pronunciation be 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.”