ATTITUDE OF THE EDUCATED
The unintelligent opposition of the intelligent! I have specified
this as the most formidable of the active forces hostile to reform of
English orthography. No duty is imposed upon those who have that end in
view more arduous than that of propagating knowledge among the educated
classes. It is hard to enlighten the ignorant man. But as regards this
particular subject, his mind is practically a blank page. As he has not
mastered the conventional spelling, he not only has no knowledge of it,
but he is aware that he has no knowledge of it. But in the case of the
educated man there is nothing of this open-mindedness. In his opinion
he knows already everything about the subject that can be known or that
is necessary to be known. It is only within a very recent period that
he has begun to suspect his limitations. Only within a recent period
has he exhibited any hesitation about exposing to the gaze of the
public the scantiness of the intellectual wardrobe with which he is
clad.
This imputation of ignorance of the subject has been much resented.
Nowhere has the resentment been keener than where the ignorance
is manifestly profoundest. To the fact itself not any opprobrium
necessarily attaches. No educated man considers it discreditable to
lack knowledge of the chemical constituents of the food he eats, or
of the things he sees and handles every day. If, indeed, because of
his familiarity with these objects, he fancies that he is competent
to form a judgment about their properties and draws conclusions as to
their use, then his course becomes objectionable. It is exactly so
in language. Pronunciation, and the proper way of representing it in
spelling, and the ways in which it has been represented at various
periods--these are subjects which demand long and severe study before
one has a right even to state facts. Naturally, still less has he a
right to draw conclusions. He who presumes to sit in judgment upon the
questions in controversy without having undergone this preliminary
training, no matter if he possess ability, has little reason to
complain if his pretensions meet with a good deal of contempt from
those who have paid even a comparatively slight attention to the
subject. That his utterances are received with favor by a public as
ignorant as himself is no evidence of his fitness to discuss the matter
in dispute. It is simply proof of the existence of that wide-spread
belief in the community, that because a person may have attained
deserved eminence in some field of literary activity, about which he
knows a great deal, he is therefore entitled to speak with authority in
some other field of which he knows little or nothing.
This unintelligent hostility of the intelligent is an obstacle
peculiarly difficult to overcome, because it is based upon the
combination of the minimum of knowledge with the maximum of prejudice.
These characteristics frequently meet, too, in those who on other
disputed subjects have the right to demand respectful attention to all
they choose to say. To this class belong many men of letters--not by
any means all of them, and far more of them in England than in America.
Some of these have made themselves conspicuous by the violence of their
utterances, some by the extent of their misapprehension of the question
at issue, and some by the display of a store of misinformation so vast
and varied that one gets the impression that no small share of their
lives must have been spent in accumulating it. To many persons it does
not seem to occur that before discussing English orthography it is
desirable to equip one’s self with at least an elementary knowledge
of its character and history. As the acquisition of this preliminary
information is not deemed essential, there is little limit to the
surprising statements made upon this subject and the more surprising
facts by which they are fortified. The annals of fatuity will in truth
be searched in vain for utterances more fatuous than some of those
produced in the course of the controversy aroused by the President’s
order. There is a strong temptation to substantiate this assertion by
illustrating it from sayings and writings of those who took a part in
it opposed to spelling reform. But it is not desirable to impart to
the discussion of the subject a personal character by selecting such
examples from the utterances of living persons. That the statement
of the ignorance of men of letters is not unwarranted, however, can
be shown as well by bringing in the testimony of the dead. In this
instance it will be taken from an author of the past generation, of
highest literary eminence.
Many will remember an essay of Matthew Arnold on the influence of
academies, that panacea for all literary and linguistic ills so
constantly held before our eyes. According to him they raised the
general standard of knowledge so high that no one could wantonly run
counter to its requirements and escape with impunity. The force of
critical opinion would control the vagaries and correct the extravagant
assertions of the most learned. In the case of our own tongue he
adduced an illustration of the injury wrought to the language by the
lack of such a central authority. It was taken from what he told us
was one of those eccentric violations of correct orthography in which
men of our race wilfully indulge. The offender was the London _Times_.
That paper for a good part of the nineteenth century was addicted to
printing the word _diocese_ as _diocess_.
This act aroused Arnold’s indignation. It is clear from his words that
resentment for the course of the London _Times_ in this matter had long
been rankling in his bosom. A lawless practice of such a sort could
not have been possible, he felt, in a country where speech had been
subjected to the beneficial sway of an academy. Only in a land where no
restraining influence was exerted upon the performances of the educated
class could such a violation of linguistic knowledge and literary good
taste be permitted. Here are his words:
“So, again, with freaks in dealing with language; certainly all such
freaks tend to impair the power and beauty of language; and how far
more common they are with us than with the French! To take a very
familiar instance. Every one has noticed the way in which the _Times_
chooses to spell the word ‘diocese’; it always spells it diocess,
deriving it, I suppose, from _Zeus_ and _census_. The _Journal des
Débats_ might just as well write ‘diocess’ instead of ‘diocèse,’
but imagine the _Journal des Débats_ doing so! Imagine an educated
Frenchman indulging himself in an orthographic antic of this sort, in
the face of the grave respect with which the Academy and its dictionary
invest the French language! Some people will say these are little
things. They are not; they are of bad example. They tend to spread the
baneful notion that there is no such thing as a high correct standard
in intellectual matters; that every one may as well take his own way;
they are at variance with the severe discipline necessary for all real
culture; they confirm us in habits of wilfulness and eccentricity which
hurt our minds and damage our credit with serious people.”
No one will question the earnestness with which these words are
spoken. The difficulty with them is that they are at variance with
the severe discipline necessary for all real culture--the discipline
which forbids us to discuss magisterially matters we know nothing
about. Consequently, they are of particularly bad example because
of the eminence of the writer. What are we to think of the opinions
of an author who could presume to express himself in this manner on
what he called correct orthography? Where did he get his knowledge
of that somewhat elusive substance? How was he enabled to pronounce
authoritatively on the proper spelling of a word about whose origin and
history he had not taken the slightest pains to inform himself? Arnold
supposed that the London _Times_ may have derived _diocess_ from _Zeus_
and _census_. Where did he himself think it came from?
Still, as these words of his have been more than once triumphantly
quoted as an unintended, and therefore all the more crushing, argument
against spelling reform by a leading man of letters, it may be worth
while to give a brief account of the actual facts in regard to the
appearance of _diocese_ in our speech, and the changes of form it
underwent--so far, at least, as dictionaries of various periods
have recorded the usage. By so doing one may gain some conception of
the amount of research necessary to pronounce positively upon the
orthographic history of even a single word. He will further learn
to recognize the wisdom of refraining from the expression of large
judgments upon the correctness or incorrectness of a particular
spelling which are based upon limited knowledge. To clear the ground,
it is to be said--though it seems needless to say it--that the first
part of the word _diocese_ has nothing to do with Zeus, though one gets
the impression that its genitive _Dios_ was in some way associated
with it in Arnold’s mind. It comes remotely from a Greek word meaning
the management of a household. After its appearance in our language in
the fourteenth century, various were the forms it assumed. Students
of Chaucer are well aware that his spelling of it was _diocise_. But
it occurs but once in his writings, and then as a ryme to _gyse_, the
modern _guise_. Later, under Latin influence, and for phonetic reasons,
it became commonly either _diocesse_ or _dioces_.
Between these two forms the language seems finally to have made a
sort of compromise by recognizing the claims of both. It dropped
the _e_ from the one or it added an _s_ to the other, just as one
is disposed to look at it. Though there were other forms, _diocess_
became accordingly the standard. Such it remained for a long
period. But its triumph was slow and, comparatively speaking, late.
_Diocesse_ is the form given, for example, in Minsheu’s _Guide to the
Tongues_, which appeared in 1617. In Edward Phillips’ dictionary of
1658, entitled _A New World of Words_, it is _dioces_. But in later
editions--certainly in that of 1696--_diocess_ is the spelling found.
Such also was the form of the word in Bullokar’s dictionary of 1684;
in the _Glossographia Anglicana Nova_ of 1719; and in Edward Cocker’s
English dictionary of 1724--the only editions of these works I have
had the opportunity to consult. On the other hand, in Coles’s English
dictionary of 1713, it is _diocese_. This is repeated in the edition of
1717. It is the earliest instance I have met of the modern spelling,
though others may exist.
Before the publication of the dictionary of Dr. Johnson in 1755, the
two principal works of this character which the early part of the
eighteenth century produced were that of Bailey, and that of Dyche
improved and completed by Pardon. The former was the first to appear.
It indeed seems always to have outranked in popular estimation its
successor and rival. It came out first in 1721. Before the end of the
century it had passed through a very large number of editions. At the
outset its spelling of the word under consideration was _diocess_.
So it remained in the half dozen editions that followed. But after
1730 _diocese_ took its place, and held it during the whole of the
eighteenth century. On the other hand, Dyche’s dictionary, which
began to be published in 1735, not only authorized _diocess_, but
clung to it in subsequent editions. Later in the century--certainly
in the seventeenth edition of 1794--it permitted the alternative
spelling _diocese_. This practice, indeed, can be met much earlier. For
instance, in the second edition of Benjamin Martin’s dictionary, which
appeared in 1754, both _diocese_ and _diocess_ are given.
It was the choice of _diocess_ by Doctor Johnson that turned the tide
for a while in one direction. For the rest of the century it settled
the spelling, so far as the practice of most men was concerned. He
was followed by nearly all the later lexicographers. This was true in
particular of Sheridan and Walker. These two were widely accepted as
authorities, especially the latter. The edition of Walker’s dictionary,
which came out in 1802, just after his death, but containing his latest
revisions, was long regarded by our fathers as a sort of orthographic
and orthoepic statute-book. It still showed _diocess_ as the only
way of spelling this particular word. So did the dictionary of James
Sheridan Knowles, which was first published in 1835. It continued to
retain this form of the word in the editions of 1845 and 1877. It
is found even in the edition of Walker, as revised by Davis, which
appeared in 1861. On the other hand, Smart’s revision of the same
work, or remodelling, as he called it, was largely responsible for the
prevalence and general adoption of _diocese_. This dictionary was first
published in 1836. It had a wide circulation, and for a long time its
successive editions were regarded as authoritative works of reference.
This survey of the matter is by no means exhaustive, but it is
sufficiently complete to render certain the results reached. It shows
that a long contest went on between the two forms of the word, and
that the later gradually triumphed over the earlier. It shows too that
_diocess_, though slowly going out of fashion, continued still in the
best of use long after Arnold had reached maturity. As always happens,
indeed, there was a certain body of conservatives who refused to accept
what was in their eyes the new-fangled monstrosity. The ancient usage
was good enough for them. Among these the London _Times_, owing to its
position in the newspaper world, occupied a specially prominent place.
It not impossibly felt that in standing by the time-honored _diocess_
it was resisting an insidious attempt to ruin the language.
All, therefore, that Arnold needed to do, before expressing his
opinions, or rather his prejudices, in the matter was to learn these
easily accessible facts. To use his own phraseology, it was incumbent
upon him to let his mind play about the subject until he had fully
informed himself upon it. His failure to do this led him to fall into
the mistake he did. A note to the later edition of his essays conveys
the glad tidings that the London _Times_ has at last renounced the
error of its ways, and has succumbed to the authority of fashion. Like
the rest of us, it now spells the word _diocese_. But the irrevocable
printed page will continue to stand and bear perpetual witness to the
blunder of its critic.
One is not, indeed, astonished at the lack of familiarity with the
facts just recorded on the part of a man of letters. They lie outside
of his particular province. They are not, indeed, generally known.
Nor are they in themselves so exciting as to attract the attention,
still less the study, of anybody, without some external provocation.
Ignorance of them is, therefore, nothing discreditable. Indeed, we
may almost expect it from those who have made the study of literature
their pursuit in contradistinction to that of language. It gives
one, however, a sort of shock to find that this same ignorance has
been occasionally exhibited by linguistic scholars of the previous
generation. A kind of sanction is given to Arnold’s assertion by the
remark of Richard Gordon Latham on this same word _diocese_. In his
revision, published in 1871, of Todd’s edition of Johnson’s dictionary,
he observed under it that it was “once ignorantly spelled _diocess_.”
No wonder that the _Times_ succumbed to this combined attack of
learning and letters marching under a common banner of inadequate
investigation and erroneous assertion.
I have gone at great length into the consideration of this particular
example, not entirely from the eminence of the author who chose to
furnish it. As much were these details supplied in order to make
manifest how patient and protracted must be the study which will
authorize any one to pronounce decisively upon a question of disputed
spelling. As long as the advocates of the existing orthography confine
themselves merely to the expression of their prejudices and opinions,
they are comparatively safe, even though their prejudices have no
foundation in reason and their opinions have behind them no trace of
investigation. The moment, however, they attempt to fortify their
notions by illustrations and argument, they are lost.
This is the moral of the tale told of Arnold. There are circumstances
in which no amount of genius can make up for the lack of a little
accurate knowledge. It is not often given to an essayist to exemplify
himself a practice he vehemently condemns in the very paragraph
containing the condemnation. If academies really exerted the power
with which Arnold credited them; if they could exercise a controlling
influence over public opinion; if they could establish so broad a basis
of intelligence that men would be prevented from giving utterance to
crude and hasty dicta; if they could keep writers from palming off
upon the public the results of imperfect knowledge acting through the
medium of perfect prejudice--if these things were so, it is quite clear
that in this particular instance it would have been the utterances of
Matthew Arnold that would have been suppressed, and not the assumed
orthographical vagaries of the London _Times_. In Germany, where there
is no academy, but where there is a broad and lofty level of linguistic
intelligence, observations of a similar character would have met with
immediate and crushing exposure and censure. In England and America,
where there is a broad and deep level of linguistic ignorance, this
blundering statement has long been hailed by many as a proper rebuke to
the miscreants who are seeking to defile the sacred altar of English
orthography.
An extravagant outburst like the one just cited--it could easily be
paralleled from recent utterances--coming from a man occupying a far
higher position than any literary defender of the present spelling,
reveals what a fathomless abyss of ignorance and prejudice must be
filled up or bridged over before there can be even a calm discussion
of the subject by the mass of educated men. If we are unable to treat
with respect the utterances of great men who are capable of falling
into errors like the one just exposed, how can we be expected to be
impressed by the words of little men who cite these easily detected
blunders as an authoritative justification for their own hostility?
Because they deal with language as an art, they fancy they know
all about it as a science. There is no intention of conveying the
impression that men of letters are more remarkable than others for
erroneous assertions on this subject. As a class they are probably
less so. In their ranks, too, are to be found some of the most earnest
sympathizers with the movement for the simplification of the spelling.
These, too, stand in the first rank. It must not be assumed, therefore,
that those among them who have gained an unenviable notoriety by the
blunders into which they have fallen in opposing it are more ignorant
than other men. They have simply had furnished them by their position
unequalled opportunities to make their ignorance conspicuous.
Now, to any real student of the subject, it is evident that both
in French and in English the most conservative of courses has been
contemplated and taken, so far as any change in orthography has been
recommended. No attempt has been made to introduce phonetic spelling.
Any intention of that sort has been distinctly disclaimed by those
among us who have set the reform on foot. Yet it is a charge from
which they have been unable to escape. One of the most striking as
well as most entertaining features of the controversy that went on
was the persistent assertion of those concerned in the movement, that
they had no design or desire to introduce phonetic spelling; and the
equally persistent assertion of their assailants that it was the very
thing they were aiming to introduce. One side laid down precisely
what it sought to do. The other side denounced it for doing the
very thing it disclaimed doing. One side declared that it purposely
limited its efforts to the removal of some of the anomalies in our
present orthography, and the obstacles put by these in the way of its
acquisition. The other employed two methods of attack: on the one hand,
it inveighed against its opponents for going as far as they did; on the
other, it reproached them for their inconsistency in not going further.
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. It would do little more
than set us on the road to a thorough-going reform. No one, indeed,
who comprehends what is required, in a language so lawless as ours,
to bring about a perfect accordance between orthography and orthoepy,
is ever likely to underrate the difficulties which stand in the way
of the establishment of phonetic spelling, even were men as eager for
its adoption as they are now hostile to it. In the present state of
feeling, therefore, no one need distress himself about its immediate
coming.
But why should any one distress himself at all? Little is there more
extraordinary to witness in these days of assumed general enlightenment
than the horror which many estimable persons seem to feel at the danger
of being devoured by this dreadful ogre which they call phonetic
spelling. They have no idea what it is, but they know from its name
that it must be something frightful. Now, written language was designed
to be phonetic. Its intention, however incomplete its realization,
was to represent invariably the same sound by the same letter or by
the same combination of letters. This idea lies at the root of the
conception of the alphabet; otherwise the alphabet would have had no
reason for its existence. To picture to the eye the sound which has
fallen upon the ear, so that it should never be mistaken for anything
else, was the problem that presented itself to the man or men who
devised that invention which, imperfect as it is, still remains the
greatest and most useful to which the human mind has given birth. To
represent a sound by one character in one place and by another in
another would have seemed to them as absurd as it would to a painter
to have the figure of a horse stand for a horse in one picture, and in
another picture for a different animal. Of course, in this comparison
the symbol is in one case real, and in the other arbitrary; but the
underlying principle is the same.
So far as the original invention of the alphabet failed to secure the
individual representation of every sound then used, the invention was
itself incomplete and imperfect. So far, again, as the characters
of the alphabet have been diverted from their original design of
representing particular sounds, it is not an application of the
invention, but a perversion of it to inferior purposes, and to purposes
for which it is not really fitted. One general statement applicable to
all languages can be safely made. So far as written speech deviates
from the phonetic standard, it fails to fulfil the object for which it
was created. It shows to what an extent the English race has wandered
away in feeling and opinion from the original motives which led men
to seek the representation of the spoken word by written characters,
that its members have come to look upon the perfect accordance of
orthography and orthoepy as a result, not merely impracticable--which
is a thoroughly defensible proposition--but as something in itself
undesirable, as something fraught with ruin to the speech itself. The
written word was devised to suggest the sound of the spoken word. Yet
this ideal is more than discredited with us; it is treated as if it
were in some way peculiarly monstrous. Yet all there is of value in
our existing orthography is due to what still survives of the phonetic
element. This is a condition of things which will be brought out fully
when the orthographic situation comes to be considered.
The real life of a language consists in its sounds, not in the signs
intended to represent them. The one is the soul of speech; the other
can hardly be considered a necessary bodily framework, for the former
could and does exist without the latter. In earlier times, when
language was learned almost exclusively by the ear, this fact would
naturally force itself upon the attention of every reflecting man.
But with the spread of education, when acquaintance with a tongue
is acquired largely through the eye, the knowledge of the symbolic
representation of sounds has come to predominate in the minds of the
men of our race over the knowledge of the sounds themselves. While all
of us are familiar with the one, but few are with the other. Ask any
person of ordinary attainments the number of letters in the English
alphabet. He will unhesitatingly answer twenty-six; though the chances
are that he will be ignorant of the fact that some of the twenty-six
are really supernumerary. But extend the inquiry further. Go with
it to the vast body of educated men, excluding those whose pursuits
require of them more or less the study of phonetics. These being
excepted, ask any single person belonging to the most highly cultivated
class--opponents of spelling reform to be preferred--how many are the
sounds which the letters of the alphabet and their combinations are
called upon to represent. Ask him how many are the sounds which he is
in the habit of employing himself in his own utterance. The chances are
fifty to one that he will be utterly at a loss what to reply. He has
learned the symbols of things; he has not learned the things themselves.
That this should be so in the case of our own tongue is not
particularly surprising. It is, perhaps, inevitable. The attention
of the men of our race has been more than distracted from any
consideration of the subject by the character of our orthography.
Their minds have been thrown into a state of bewilderment. As a single
illustration, take the representation of the sound usually termed
“long _i_.” This third so-called vowel of our alphabet is not really a
vowel, but a diphthong. Its sound is most commonly represented by the
single letter itself, seen, for instance, in such a word as _mind_.
But some idea of the uncertainty and range attending its use, with
the consequent perplexity to its users, can be gathered from a few
selected examples. It is represented by _ai_ in _aisle_; by _ay_ in
_aye_; by _ei_ in _height_; by _ey_ in _eye_; by _ie_ in _lie_; by _oi_
in _choir_; by _uy_ in _buy_; by _y_ in _try_; and by _ye_ in _dye_.
Or, reverse the operation, and see how many sounds the same sign can
represent. Take the combination _ou_, and observe the differences of
its pronunciation in the words _about_, _young_, _youth_, _four_,
_fought_, _would_, and _cough_.
English orthography, therefore, instead of teaching the
English-speaking man the knowledge and distinction of sounds, takes the
speediest and most effectual means of preventing his attaining any such
knowledge. It not merely fails to call his attention to it, it forces
him to disregard it, to look upon it as an element not properly to be
considered. He does not come to forget, he has never learned to know
that there is a particular value that belongs or ought to belong to any
vowel or combination of vowels. When he grows up, he is naturally ready
to despise what he is unable to comprehend. The educated class has
with us come generally to look upon the alphabet as a mere mechanical
contrivance. They have so largely lost sight of the object for which
it exists, that in many cases they are almost disposed to resent the
proposition that they should employ it for the purposes for which it
was created. It would be thinking too meanly of human nature to believe
that men would delight in this condition of things did they once come
fully to appreciate it. But to that point few of them ever arrive.
Accordingly, ignorance of the real evil disposes them to look with
distrust upon any attempt to remedy it.
In truth, as a consequence of the confusion which exists in the written
speech, the English race, as a race, has no acquaintance whatever with
sounds. It has largely lost the phonetic sense. One whole important
domain of knowledge, which ought to have come to it through the
spelling, has entirely disappeared from recognition without their
being aware of it. Examples of the prevalent lack of any conception
of the distinction of sounds and of their proper representation are
brought constantly to the attention of those engaged in the work of
instruction. But the comments and communications which appear in the
course of any controversy on spelling reform, especially those intended
to be satirical, furnish the most striking illustrations of this
all-prevailing, all-pervading ignorance. There is rarely furnished a
more edifying spectacle than the attempt made, in some cases by men of
very genuine ability, to write what they call phonetically. In every
discussion there are sure to come up with unfailing regularity certain
examples that indicate the density of the darkness in which the minds
of men are enveloped. Several years ago a series of articles appeared
in a Western periodical attacking the reform of the orthography. In one
of them occurred this observation: “We are asked,” said the author,
“to spell _are_ without the _e_, because the letter is not pronounced.
Very well: then drop the _a_, for that is not pronounced either.” In
the same spirit the writer went on to say that fanatical advocates of
change should denote the words _see_ and _sea_ simply by _c_--“spelling
only the letter sounded.”
Here was a person producing a series of articles on orthography who was
so utterly unacquainted with the primary elemental facts of orthoepy as
to fancy that the sound of r and of c by themselves is the same as the
name we give to those letters; who did not know that the name cannot be
pronounced unless a vowel precedes the _r_ in one case and follows the
_c_ in the other. Exactly the same examples were adduced in the course
of the latest controversy. It is perfectly clear that not one of those
who made use of them had the slightest conception of what was essential
to convey the representation of a given sound. Any arbitrary symbol,
pronounced in a particular way, seemed to them all-sufficient. Their
action evinced hardly higher intelligence than would have been shown by
considering the word _five_ as phonetically represented by the Arabic
numeral 5, which in all languages conveys the same meaning, and in all
languages has a different pronunciation. One characteristic there is
which denotes most distinctly the infantile state of knowledge that
still continues to prevail on the whole subject. By most men any bad
spelling is invariably termed phonetic spelling. That is all the idea
of the latter they have. The spelling of Chaucer would in their eyes be
indistinguishable in character from that of Josh Billings.
More than once have advocates of spelling reform been rebuked for the
arrogance manifested by them in their references to the inaccurate
assertions and loose thinking which largely make up the chatter of the
uninformed on this subject. On the contrary, much of this gabble seems
to me to have been treated with singular leniency. Especially has this
been the case when it comes from men who have shown knowledge on other
subjects and ability in other directions. These have too often missed
opportunities, which were fairly obtrusive, of remaining silent on this
matter. But no such forbearance is due to the rank and file of the
noisy intruders into a controversy they do not understand. There was
a writer who gravely informed us that it is an insuperable objection
to a change in our orthography, that it would make necessary a new
formative period in the history of the language. For fear that the full
force of this terrible indictment should be overlooked, he proceeded
to put the words containing it in italics. What possible conception
could exist in the mind of such an objector as to what constitutes a
formative period in the history of a language? Does spelling reform
introduce new words? Does it give new meanings to old ones? Does it
destroy existing inflections? Does it add any to their number? Does
it vary in the slightest the order of words in the sentence? Does it
cause the least modification of the least important rule of syntax? A
new spelling meaning a new language! Fancy a boy refusing to wash his
face, on the ground that if the dirt were removed he would not be the
same boy. Fancy a man objecting to putting on a new suit of clothes,
on the ground that by so doing he could never be again what he was
before; that the integrity of his character and the continuity of his
traditions would be destroyed; that he would no longer be the same
man to those who had known him and loved him. This is not a travesty
of the argument which has been advanced. It is the argument itself,
applied not to the dress of the body, but to that of the speech. The
men who hold such opinions are really in the same grade of intellectual
development as regards language, as in literature are those who fancy
that beginning a line with a capital letter is the one essential thing
which constitutes poetry.
But of all the educated opponents of spelling reform, I have to confess
that the most entertaining to me are women. As devotion to the present
orthography is a matter of sentiment and not one of reason, it is
perhaps not strange that some of the most violent opponents of the
present movement are to be found among the members of that sex with
which appeals addressed to the feelings are peculiarly potent. It
must not, however, be assumed for a moment that this characterization
is meant to apply to all women. On the contrary, among them can be
found not only many of the most earnest advocates of reform, but an
especially large proportion of the most intelligent and clear-headed.
This observation is particularly true of those of them who are
connected directly or indirectly with the profession of teaching. To
the hands of women, indeed, the business of the instruction of the
very young is almost entirely committed. They make themselves familiar
with the character of the orthography from the side of both theory and
practice. They have, in consequence, forced upon their attention, as
have few men, the absurdities and anomalies of our present spelling,
the unnecessary and utterly irrational obstacles it puts in the path
of the learner; the time and toil which must be spent, or rather
wasted, in mastering rules to which the exceptions are as numerous as
the examples, and in which exceptions abound to the exceptions. The
intelligent among them naturally come to know whereof they speak, and
to have decided opinions born of experience and observation.
But experience and observation of this sort have not been forced
upon the majority of even educated women. Acquaintance with the real
nature of our orthography is not, in their eyes, a matter of intrinsic
importance. Accordingly, in the case of those who feel intensely on
this subject and exhibit a virulent hostility toward reform of the
spelling, we can observe the peculiar mental effervescence which is
produced when the maximum of emotion is allowed to operate upon the
minimum of knowledge. With them the question is not at all one of
argument. It is entirely one of taste, as they regard taste; though
occasionally there seems to be an honest even if unfounded belief
that arguments have been employed. It is their sensibilities that are
outraged, not their reason. 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 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.
No pleasure, indeed, can be conceived more delightful than in listening
to the discussion of this subject by its female opponents. As this
is largely a book of personal confessions, I may be permitted to say
that I like to hear them talk and to read what they write. They feel
about reform of the spelling as did in another way certain of their
high-born sisters who have left behind memorials of their experiences
when the great cataclysm of the French revolution took place. It was
apparently not the scenes of horror and massacre that shocked these
scions of noble families; not the victims carted in tumbrils to the
guillotine; not the fusillades which swept the streets and stained the
pavements with the blood of those who felt fighting for the old régime.
Nor was it the question of right or wrong, of relieving oppression,
of establishing justice. Not one of these things seems to have made a
particular impression upon their minds. What really affected them was
something altogether different. The revolution was in such bad taste.
Men like Danton and his associates did not behave in a gentlemanly
way. They were not really nice. Just so--if we can compare small things
with great--is the impression one gets of the attitude of many women
who are hostile to the new spellings proposed. Such may be nearer the
pronunciation. They may be nearer the derivation or some other old
thing for which nobody cares. But these new spellings are not really
nice.
This devotion of woman to the fixed orthography is largely a modern
sentiment. There was little of it in the past, either in theory or
practice. In fact, high position and sex were once largely regarded
as entitling those belonging to either to be exempt from orthographic
trammels. Richardson represents Charlotte Grandison as describing one
of her lovers as “spelling pretty well for a lord.” But in this same
particular several of the most noted women in the past have also been
defective. There was nothing then of the superstition of the sacredness
of the orthography which now prevails. They apparently did not deem it
possible to secure the leisure to make themselves as attractive as they
wished to be, were they compelled to waste their time in memorizing
the exact spelling of words whose forms they had the sense to see
exhibited no sense. As time went on their indifference not unfrequently
came to disturb those of their lords and masters who were getting to
be punctilious on this point. Swift, who in one way or another was
always in a state of anxiety about the English language, had frequent
occasion to chasten Stella on the subject. “I drink no aile (I suppose
you mean ale),” he writes to her under date of September 29, 1710. “Who
are these wiggs,” he asks again on October 8, “who think I am turned
Tory? Do you mean Whigs?” “Pray, Stella,” he says, in April of the
following year, “explain those two words of yours to me, what you mean
by _Villian_ and _Dainger_.” “R_e_diculous, madam?” he expostulated, on
another occasion; “I suppose you mean ridiculous: let me have no more
of that; it is the author of the _Atlantis’_ spelling.”[15] One infers
from this remark that the then noted Mrs. Manley was as notorious for
the scandalous form in which her words appeared in her manuscript as
she was for the scandalous meaning they conveyed when appearing in
print.
One could fill page after page with the extraordinary views on spelling
reform which have come from men and women of education and sometimes
of genuine ability. The controversy, indeed, which has been going on of
late has brought out more sharply than ever before the existence of the
singular situation which prevails in regard to it. The highly trained
expert opinion is practically all on one side; the large preponderance
of educated lay opinion is apparently on the other. Several eminent
men have taken part in the discussion in opposition to change. But in
all their ranks cannot be found a single one who would be recognized
by special students of English as entitled to speak with authority.
Not a single one of the latter class has come forward in opposition.
Some of them are very possibly indifferent; but so far as they have
spoken--and many have spoken--they have pronounced in its favor. If
there is among them one who entertains hostility, he is sufficiently in
awe of his professional brethren to deem it wise to keep his opinion
to the sanctity of private intercourse. No applause of the multitude
could make up to him for the condemnation that would be his from his
peers. By ranging himself among the opponents of spelling reform he
would be well aware that he would distinctly lose caste. He would be
placed in a dilemma on one of whose two horns he would be impaled. He
would be looked upon as guilty either of lack of knowledge or of lack
of judgment.
This is a state of things that could not well exist in the case of
any other subject than language. Nor, indeed, could it well happen
with any other race than the English, where on both sides of the
Atlantic ignorance of our tongue and of its history has been sedulously
cultivated for centuries. Accordingly, the raggedest of penny-a-liners
or the callowest of story-tellers considers himself as much entitled
to speak with authority on the subject as he who has devoted years of
study to its consideration. Of course, this is a state of things that
cannot continue permanently. In the long run the opinions of the few
who know will triumph over the clamors of the many who do not know.
Indeed, a distinct advance has already been achieved. The subject is
no longer treated with indifference. It calls forth hostile criticism,
ridicule, vituperation. Furthermore, certain things can no more be
said which were once said with smug satisfaction. We are now a long
way beyond that provincial faith in Worcester which permitted, fifty
years ago, so eminent a man of letters as Oliver Wendell Holmes to
remark that Boston had for one of its distinctions “its correct habit
of spelling the English language.” In these days an author of his
high grade would be saved by his inevitable association with English
scholars from perpetrating an observation so singularly crude. Views
of such a sort now find their home only in the congenial clime of the
remote rural districts. For slow as has been the progress in this
matter, it has been steady. In the immediate future it is destined to
advance at a much more rapid rate. The leading universities of America
are regularly sending out a small body of trained special students
of our speech. In the face of this steadily increasing number of
experts whose opinions are based upon adequate investigation and full
knowledge, sciolists will in time conclude for their own safety to
learn a little before they talk much.
Yet, neither now nor in the past has the advocacy of spelling reform
been confined to the specialists in English study. It has embraced
scholars of all lands who paid attention to our language or to some
form of its literature. Long ago Grimm pointed out that the greatest
obstacle to the predominating influence of the English tongue was
the character of its orthography. But without going so far back, let
us select as types of advocates of reform three representative men
of the generation which has just passed away. They are Professor Max
Müller, of Oxford; Professor Child, of Harvard; and Professor Whitney,
of Yale. Of course, these scholars were cranks--“crazy cranks,” if
you will. Much learning had made them mad--insanity from that cause
being something from which the critics of their orthographical views
feel the sense of absolute immunity. Of course, we know further that
professors are a simple, guileless folk, constantly imposed upon by
arguments whose speciousness is at once seen by the clearer vision of
the men engaged in the struggle and turmoil of practical life. To them
unhappily has never been given the easy omniscience which is enabled to
understand the whole of a subject without mastering a single one of its
details. Still, as a member of this unpractical fraternity, and sharing
in its intellectual limitations, I cannot get over the impression
that there are difficulties connected with English orthography which
even the very youngest newspaper writer cannot settle summarily, and
questions which he cannot answer satisfactorily offhand.
In truth, the real nature of our spelling and the real difficulties
connected with its reformation are not in the least understood by the
vast majority of the educated class. Otherwise it would be impossible
for men, sometimes of genuine ability, to give public utterance to the
views they entertain. One has only to read articles in magazines and
communications sent to the newspapers to gain a view both vivid and
depressing of the wide-spread ignorance that prevails. It is manifest,
indeed, that the nature of these difficulties is not always understood,
even by those who are earnest in their desire for reform of some kind.
Accordingly, before the subject can be discussed intelligently, some
knowledge of the general orthographic situation must be secured. The
irrepressible conflict that goes on in our speech between spelling and
pronunciation can never be really appreciated, save by him who has
mastered a portion at least of the details in which that conflict has
reached its highest degree of intensity.
To set these details forth is anything but an agreeable task. The
subject of sounds and the methods taken to represent them cannot, by
the wildest stretch of the imagination, be termed exhilarating. But
some notion of it must be gained by him who seeks to get any conception
of what must be deemed the main trouble affecting English orthography.
This is the reason, and to some must be the excuse, for presenting
the results of a piece of drudgery as wearisome as it is thankless.
The dose I shall try to make as palatable as possible; but there is no
disguising the fact that it is a dose. But it is only by swallowing it,
or something akin to it, that men can get any conception of the real
evils that afflict English spelling, and of the methods that must be
taken to palliate them; for in the present state of public opinion,
it is hopeless to attempt to cure them. To a consideration of the
orthographic situation the next chapter will therefore be devoted.
FOOTNOTES:
[15] Swift. _Journal to Stella_, December 14, 1710.