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Q^atnell Hniuersitg iHibcaty 
 
Cornell University Library 
 PE 1150.S61 
 
 Simplified speiiing. 
 
 3 1924 027 251 341 
 
The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://archive.org/details/cu31924027251341 
 
SIMPLIFIED 
 SPELLING' 
 
 AN 
 
 APPEAL TO 
 
 COMMON 
 
 SENSE 
 
 cJ/. 
 
 le <J//' 
 
 rteJifi 
 ' Ji' 
 
SIMPLIFIED 
 SPELLING 
 
 Have you not heard hovu if has gone ivith 
 many a cause before now ? First, feiu men 
 heed it; next, most men contemn it; then all 
 men accept it — and the cause is -won. 
 
 William Morris. 
 
 THE SIMPLIFIED SPELLING SOCIETY 
 
 44 GREAT RUSSeLL STREET 
 
 LONDON, W.C, 
 
SIMPLIFIED SPELLING 
 
 // is the generations of children to come tvho appeal to us to 
 save them from the affliction ivhlch we have endured and for- 
 gotten. — Whitney 
 
 We do not know who was the first man to 
 write a word. For long centuries language 
 existed only as speech. The invention of 
 written signs to represent the spoken language 
 was a momentous advance in civilisation. It 
 made it possible to communicate thoughts to 
 those at a distance, far beyond the range of the 
 voice, thoughts that would survive even when 
 thie voice of the man that conceived them had 
 long been hushed by death. 
 
 This is not the place to discuss the gradual 
 development of writing ; how some nations 
 came to use a sign to designate a whole word, 
 and others used it for a syllable. The nations 
 that we know best preferred an alphabet in 
 which each sign represented one sound. It is 
 
4 SIMPLIFIED SPELLING 
 
 clear that there are fewer difFerent sounds than 
 different syllables in a language, and there- 
 fore that we need fewer signs if we let each 
 represent a sound only. 
 
 With such an alphabet, in which each sign 
 represents one sound, and each sound has its 
 own sign, spelling becomes a very simple 
 matter ; for if you know the sounds of a word, 
 you can at once write the corresponding signs. 
 For instance, if you know that the sign for the 
 sound b is the letter b, the sign for the sound e 
 is the letter e, and the sign for the sound d is 
 the letter rf, then on hearing the sounds of the 
 word bed you know that the spelling is bed. 
 
 If such an alphabet is in use, then all we 
 have to teach the child is the signs corre- 
 sponding to the sounds. 
 
 Defects of the Present Spelling 
 
 Let us consider whether our present English 
 spelling can be learnt in this simple and rational 
 fashion. Up to the point of b e d=bed (not 
 a very advanced point) all is plain sailing. But 
 
DEFECTS OF OUR SPELLING 5 
 
 take another word : The child hears the sound 
 of d^ the sound of e^ and again the sound of d. 
 The spelling therefore should be ded; but we 
 have to inform the child that this is not the 
 case, and that the word contains a silent a. On 
 the other hand, when the child sees the word 
 bead, we have to tell him that here the a is not 
 silent ; the two signs ea here have the same 
 value as ee in feed. The child is told that the 
 word toe is spelt with oe. But when he meets 
 the word toad he is told not to spell toed ; and 
 when he comes to poet we warn him against the 
 pronunciation pote. The child learns that road 
 has oa^ like toad; but when he proceeds to 
 write "The man road in a carriage, and the 
 boy road a boat," we have to explain that 
 although the sounds are the same in these three 
 words he must learn a diflFerent spelling for 
 each — road, rode, rowed. 
 
 The child learns that the vowel in bit is 
 written with the letter / ; but he is not allowed 
 to give the same pronunciation to the letter / 
 when he meets it iajind. In this word, he is 
 told, the letter / has the same value as in /. 
 
6 SIMPLIFIED SPELLING 
 
 As he uses this letter in find and /, he will 
 naturally want to use it in my, high, eye. But if 
 he does so, he is assured that this is wrong. 
 Nothing in the sound of the word eye shows 
 that it should be spelt differently from /. 
 
 The child is told that the sounds of the word 
 true are written true. A word is uttered 
 with another sound at the end, which he knows 
 is written th ; so he spells trueth, only to be told 
 that this is wrong and that here there is no e. 
 Having learnt the spelling of true, the child 
 hears a word in which the t is at the end 
 instead of the beginning, and proceeds to write 
 ruet ; wrong again. Having learnt that the 
 spelling is root, he hears a word containing the 
 same sounds, but with/ in front; so he writes 
 froot, and has to learn that he must write fruit. 
 Or, having learnt the spelling of root, he hears 
 a word very much like it, but ending in d instead 
 of /, and writes "he was rood." Once more 
 the poor child has gone wrong, through no 
 fault of his own. 
 
 Not even the consonants are represented in a 
 consistent way. The mere sound of the word 
 
SAME SOUND, MANY SPELLINGS 7 
 
 knit does not tell us that we must write it with 
 k ; the first sound of sit and of city is the same, 
 nothing shows that s is not right in both cases ; 
 nothing in the sound of the words literal and 
 litter indicates that in the second case a single t 
 does not suffice to represent the sound of /. 
 
 It is clear that in English the sounds do not 
 as a rule afford trustworthy guidance to the 
 spelling. There are a few words like j;V, bed^ 
 lot in which the spelling is satisfactory from 
 this point of view; but the great majority of 
 common words are not spelt according to any 
 easily understood system, or, indeed, according 
 to any system whatever. 
 
 How OUR Spelling became what it is 
 
 This was not always the case. Long ago, 
 when English ceased to be only a spoken 
 language and came also to be written, the spell- 
 ing represented the sounds in a fairly consistent 
 way. The k that people wrote in knave, the 
 gh in night, the w in write, were all pronounced j 
 so was the e at the end of name. In those days 
 
8 SIMPLIFIED SPELLING 
 
 children had little trouble in learning to spell. 
 After a time, however, the spelling no longer 
 represented the pronunciation in such a simple 
 and straightforward way; and for this there 
 were several reasons. 
 
 The pronunciation kept on changing. It is 
 always changing, though not always at the same 
 rate. When all the children of a country go to 
 school and are taught reading and writing in the 
 same way, their speech is less liable to change, 
 especially if the spelling shows them in an un- 
 mistakable way what the sounds are. In bygone 
 days when the schools were few and the mother 
 tongue was neglected there was nothing to pre- 
 vent the pronunciation from changing a great 
 deal, far more than the speech of the educated 
 does at present. But the spelling did not keep 
 pace with the pronunciation; people went on 
 writing certain letters even though the sounds 
 that they once represented had changed or had 
 disappeared. 
 
 For a time English was written by many who 
 came from Normandy and by their descendants. 
 They were accustomed to writing French, and 
 
THE SPOILING OF OUR SPELLING 9 
 
 when they wrote English they often represented 
 sounds in the same way as in French. The 
 word house used to be pronounced as we should 
 pronounce it if it were written hoos ; in French 
 this vowel sound is written ou (as in the French 
 word tout) ; and the spelling ou thus came to be 
 introduced in the word house^ taking the place 
 of the older u. 
 
 When books were first printed in England 
 the compositors often spelt the same word in 
 diiFerent ways ; there were no fixed rules. 
 Some had learnt their trade in Holland; and 
 memories of Dutch spelling survive in such 
 words as ghost, which should have no h in 
 English; h occurred in the Dutch word that 
 had ithe same meaning. 
 
 Before long the spelling became more or less 
 fixed. Only a few slight changes have been 
 made in the last centuries ; we no longer write 
 musick, and have given up honor in favour of 
 honour (on the advice of Dr Johnson). These 
 changes in the spelling, however, are insignifi- 
 cant if we compare them with the changes that 
 have taken place in the spoken language. The 
 
lo SIMPLIFIED SPELLING 
 
 breach between the sounds and their signs has 
 become wider and wider, until — as we have 
 seen — the sounds have ceased to be a guide to 
 us in spelling. 
 
 The Idea that Spelling shouid show the 
 Derivation 
 
 There is, however, another way in which our 
 spelling was rendered different from the spoken 
 language. 
 
 In the Middle Ages Latin was held in high 
 honour, and the mother tongue was treated 
 with contempt. When the scholars of those 
 days did condescend to pay some attention to 
 English, they had the feeling that it was a very 
 inferior language to Latin, which was used for 
 all higher purposes, for religious worship and 
 study, for education, and so on. They could 
 not help noticing that some English words were 
 connected with Latin words ; but they had 
 undergone a change. Any change from the 
 original Latin form was, in their eyes, manifestly 
 a change for the worse. So they set about 
 
THE PERVERSE PEDANT 1 1 
 
 restoring what they could. The Latin words 
 from which the French words are derived that 
 gave us debt and doubt contain a b, so the b 
 was written, — although no one pronounced it. 
 The word perfect had lost its c (Chaucer spells 
 it "parlit"); they put the c back, and after 
 a time people actually pronounced it. 
 
 In making these changes it is clear that 
 the true purpose of spelling — to represent the 
 sounds and nothing else — was ignored. The 
 written form of the word was now made a 
 means of indicating the derivation, and/it was 
 brought closer to the spelling of the word from 
 which it had developed. 
 
 Now the scholars of the Middle Ages knew 
 very little of historical grammar, and conse- 
 quently their activity with regard to the 
 spelling was often quite misdirected. They 
 wrongly thought that the word rime was derived 
 from the word which has given us rhythm^ and 
 changed it to rhyme. It was imagined that 
 soveran was connected with r«|-«, and so it was 
 changed to sovereign. 
 
 Nowadays the study of historical grammar 
 
12 SIMPLIFIED SPELLING 
 
 occupies the serious attention of many learned 
 scholars ; and they know much that was 
 unknown or unregarded in the Middle Ages. 
 They know that if we wanted to make words 
 show their derivation by restoring all letters 
 that have disappeared we should have a very 
 difficult task ; the words would become much 
 longer than they are. It would, indeed, be 
 impossible to tell where we should stop. Some 
 words, for instance, have come into English 
 from French ; the French word may go back to 
 a Latin word, which in turn may come from a 
 Greek word.^ How are we to indicate all this 
 in the spelling ? Are we to make it resemble the 
 French word, or the Latin word, or the Greek 
 word? Or shall we go beyond Greek? The 
 Greek word itself doesnot give us the oldest form ; 
 scholars suggest a still older form from which 
 they conjecture the Greek word was derived. 
 
 A language may be regarded from two points 
 of view : as a means of communicating thought 
 
 1 Thus our word blame, from French Mdme, ultimately 
 goes back to the Greek word that has also given us 
 blasphemy. 
 
PRACTICE AND THEORY 13 
 
 and as a subject of study ; just as you can use a 
 horse for riding and drawing vehicles, or study 
 it as a zoologist does. The medieval scholars 
 who burdened us with such spellings as debt 
 and sovereign were scholars and not practical 
 men. They thought they were improving the 
 language, by making it more valuable from the 
 philological point of view ; they did not realise 
 that they were complicating the spelling and thus 
 rendering the written language a less simple and 
 satisfactory means of communicating thought. 
 
 Furthermore, most of the misspellings afford 
 no indication of the past history of the language, 
 except to the learned specialist; and even if 
 they did give such information to an appreciable 
 number of people, no one wants to know or 
 remember precisely what muscles a horse is 
 using every time he rides or drives it. 
 
 Habit has blinded us to the Defects 
 OF OUR Spelling 
 
 We have now seen why the spelling has 
 gradually ceased to be a simple representation of 
 
14 SIMPLIFIED SPELLING 
 
 the living, spoken language. We cannot help 
 realising that it contains superfluous letters that 
 nobody pronounces, and many ways of repre- 
 senting the same sounds. Yet we continue to 
 use this spelling and make our children learn it, 
 at great expense of time and effort. 
 
 The fact is that most of us have forgotten the 
 time and effort it cost us when we were children. 
 When we come to think about the early years 
 of our school life, most of us have only hazy 
 memories, and very few of us are able to 
 criticise the methods that were employed by 
 our teachers. We learnt to spell, somehow, and 
 we went on spelling and reading words in the 
 same spelling, year after year. The present 
 form of words has become familiar to us — few 
 things, indeed, could be more familiar than the 
 form of the common words in our language. 
 Some of them- we read and write hundreds, 
 perhaps thousands, of times every day. 
 
 Habit plays a great part in our lives. The 
 buttons on the back of our overcoats, once used 
 for buttoning back the full skirt, no longer serve 
 any useful purpose ; but we are content to keep 
 
SLAVES OF HABIT 15 
 
 them. They would be equally useless at the 
 end of the coattail ; but if we saw anyone with 
 buttons in this position, it would shock us ex- 
 tremely. We wear white ties with evening 
 dress ; they are of no use, but if at a party we 
 met a friend without a tie we should almost 
 hesitate to point it out, and if we did, he would 
 be very uncomfortable. Our eye has become 
 accustomed to seeing each word always spelt in 
 Its own peculiar way. It is accustomed to bed 
 and dead, to root and fruit, to write and right, 
 and a thousand other inconsistencies. It no 
 longer sees the grotesque appearance of these 
 words. 
 
 Probably you resent the use of the word 
 'grotesque.' You would prefer to call it 
 ' interesting ' or ' picturesque.' 
 
 Just try to imagine that you had been diiFer- 
 ently accustomed ; that you had learnt to spell 
 the language by some system that really 
 represented the sounds. Imagine that you had 
 grown accustomed to regularity and simplicity of 
 spelling. What would you have said to the man 
 who proposed to spell tougb and stuf, after and 
 
1 6 SIMPLIFIED SPELLING 
 
 laughter^ plough and cow as we actually spell 
 them? How would you have received the 
 suggestion that det and dout should be written 
 with b because the Latin words from which the 
 French words are derived which gave us the 
 English words contained a b — two thousand 
 years ago ? Suppose you had been accustomed 
 to write tho, would you not have thought the 
 man mad who proposed to add ugh to it? 
 Suppose you had been accustomed to write nee^ 
 nit and naw^ how grotesque would you have 
 deemed the idea of prefixing a i to the first and 
 second, and a ^ to the third ! Suppose you had 
 been accustomed to write wai and caut, would 
 you not have thought the spellings weigh and 
 caught as ludicrous as they are senseless ? You 
 would have said : " This man is trying to spoil 
 the language, to disturb what we have grown 
 accustomed to. We like to spell the words as 
 we pronounce them, we like their written and 
 printed form. What would be the gain if we 
 adopted these changes ? " 
 
GREAT WILL BE THE GAIN 17 
 
 What should we gain from a 
 Simplified Spelling? 
 
 But you have not been accustomed to a 
 regular, simple spelling. You have learnt the 
 spelling of words, not of sounds, and by dint of 
 constant practice, you are able without effort to 
 reproduce the conventional spelling. And the 
 proposal is put to you to change that spelling, 
 to acquire fresh habits. You are asked to con- 
 sider the living, spoken language, and to write 
 as you speak. Such a change in your habits 
 means some temporary discomfort, that is clear. 
 Naturally you ask : " What would be the gain 
 if we adopted these changes ? " 
 
 The Gain to our Children 
 
 It must be said at once that the chief gain 
 would not be yours : the change would above 
 all benefit those who have to learn the spelling 
 — far less, those who have learnt it. You are 
 asked to consider this question in its bearings 
 on the children in our schools, — not only now 
 but through all the centuries to come, — and 
 
1 8 SIMPLIFIED SPELLING 
 
 in its bearings on British subjects and foreigners 
 who have to learn our language. 
 
 Above all things consider our children, and 
 especially the children who attend the element- 
 ary schools. Go into these schools and convince 
 yourself of the vast amount of time and energy 
 spent by the teachers and the learners alike in 
 memorizing the spelling of words. It has been 
 shown above that the sounds do not guide the 
 child to the correct spelling; the spelling of 
 hundreds upon hundreds of words has to be 
 learnt. It is not too much to say, that from one 
 "and a half to two years of the child's school life 
 are taken up by this memorizing. Now suppose 
 that, instead of learning the spelling of individual 
 words, the child had only to learn how to dis- 
 tinguish the sounds of the language and to 
 produce them correctly ; that we then gave him 
 the sign or signs corresponding to each sound, 
 and bade him spell as he pronounced. The 
 scheme here presented can be learnt by a 
 grown-up person in less than half an hour ; let 
 us say that a child would take three months. 
 Does not that represent a notable saving? The 
 
MORE TIME, SOUND TEACHING 19 
 
 school life of these children is deplorably short ; 
 are we justified in continuing to waste their time 
 as we do at present ? 
 
 There is yet another gain for the child. At 
 present he is rarely taught to distinguish the 
 sounds ; but if we teach a spelling that depends 
 upon the sounds, we cannot neglect them. 
 What does this mean ? It means that teachers 
 and learners will become more observant ol 
 the spoken language, that they will pay more 
 attention to clear speech and all that this 
 implies — namely, good breathing, careful ar- 
 ticulation and expressive intonation. When we 
 listen to a man or woman who speaks clearly 
 we are pleased; we cannot help feeling that it 
 is too uncommon an accomplishment. Let the 
 speUing be closely connected with the sounds, 
 and the cultivation of the speaking voice is 
 bound to follow. 
 
 The Gain to all Learners of English 
 
 English is in many respects an easy language. 
 Its grammar is remarkably simple. Its only 
 
20 SIMPLIFIED SPELLING 
 
 great weakness lies in its spelling. Nothing 
 else stands in the way of its being the language 
 of international intercourse. Simplify the spell- 
 ing, and you make it easier for the French 
 Canadian, for our Dutch fellow-subjects in 
 South Africa, for the natives of India, to learn 
 the language of the Empire. Simplify the 
 spelling, and you increase the number of 
 foreigners able to read and to appreciate our 
 language. And what gain does that bring us .'' 
 It means that the words written in our langiSege, 
 expressing our thoughts and aims, will be ttiore 
 widely read and better understood ; it njeans 
 ever-increasing influence for our jou]3Pfal.ists, 
 novelists and dramatists, for our men of 
 learning and our men of practical genius. 
 
 The Gain in learning Foreign Languages 
 
 It is, however, not only the foreigner learning 
 English who would find his task lighter; the' 
 Englishman learning a foreign language would 
 also be benefited. One of the great difficulties 
 that besets our path when we learn a foreign 
 
FOREIGN LANGUAGES EASIER 21 
 
 language is the pronunciation. Now, of late 
 years many have been working hard to see how 
 the English child can best be taught the pro- 
 nunciation of a foreign language ; and they 
 have come to the conclusion that the child must 
 know something about the sounds of English 
 before he can be taught the sounds of French 
 and German in the best way. This is not 
 mere speculation ; practical experience in many 
 schools has led to -results which would have 
 been regarded as altogether unattainable fifteen 
 years ago. The Modern Language teacher 
 now has to spend much time in teaching his 
 pupils about English sounds. If our children 
 all learnt this when they were first taught to 
 read and write, they would find it far easier 
 than at present to learn the pronunciation of 
 foreign languages. 
 
 Our Present Neglect of the Spoken 
 Language 
 
 It is strange how the neglect of the spoken 
 language has rendered many quite ignorant of 
 
22 SIMPLIFIED SPELLING 
 
 the sounds that they utter so many times every 
 day. People express surprise when they 
 realise that the sound at the end of dogs is not 
 J, but z ; that the sound at the beginning of 
 thin is not the same as that in then ; that the 
 first sound oijet is d; that the usual pronuncia- 
 tion of the vowel in was^ had is not the same 
 as that of what and hat. It has not struck 
 them that they do not pronounce the p in 
 cupboard, the d in handkerchief, the / in castle ; 
 and that the endings of able and label, constant 
 and persistent, stationary and stationery are the 
 same in sound. 
 
 Perhaps no other nation of those in the first 
 rank is so ignorant of the sounds of the spoken 
 language, and at the same time so respectful 
 towards a spelling that is full of redundant 
 letters and inconsistencies. 
 
 Every man who has made a special study of 
 the English language will tell you that it is 
 a thoroughly bad spelling. Professor Skeat, 
 the most famous English scholar living, has 
 always been a pioneer of spellingjreform. 
 
AN OBJECTION ANSWERED 23 
 
 Would the Simplified Spelling obscure 
 THE History of Words? 
 
 It has probably occurred to you that if the 
 spelling should be simplified, the history of 
 words would be obscured. You have been 
 thinking about the possible objections to the 
 proposed changes, and this has struck you at 
 once. Is your apprehension justified ? 
 
 You say that you are interested in tracing 
 derivations, that words in their present form 
 tell you their story. How much they tell you 
 depends on how much you know of other 
 languages — French, German, Latin or Greek. 
 
 But what do the elementary school children 
 know of these languages? Clearly, in their 
 case, this argument against change would have 
 no weight. 
 
 How many of those who learn English 
 know more than one foreign language at all 
 well? 
 
 Let us assume that you know French, 
 German, Latin and Greek, and that you have 
 a sufficient knowledge of these languages to be 
 
24 SIMPLIFIED SPELLING 
 
 able to connect every English word with 
 kindred wprds in these languages. Look at 
 any passage in the simplified spelling at the 
 end of this book; you will confess that the 
 changes made have rarely rendered the connec- 
 tion obscure. Indeed, in some cases the con- 
 nection becomes more clear when the spelling 
 of a word has been simplified. Sent is closer to 
 Latin sentio than scent ; muther is closer to the 
 German Mutter than mother ; and, on the other 
 hand, riem does not suggest a wrong connection 
 with rhythm, as rhyme does. 
 
 Even granting that the simplified spelling 
 does sometimes obscure the derivation, you 
 must confess that your interest in the history 
 of words is one thing, and your ordinary use 
 of the spoken, written or printed word another. 
 While you are talking, or reading a newspaper, 
 or writing a letter, you are not at the same 
 time thinking about the history of the words 
 you use. You may occasionally let your 
 thoughts dwell on this aspect of language, but 
 then you look at words from quite a different 
 point of view. Would you stand in the way 
 
LANGUAGE STUDY UNIMPAIRED 25 
 
 of securing a great gain for the children of 
 coming generations, because of such considera- 
 tions as this ? 
 
 Remember, too, that even when the simplified 
 spelling is in general use, the present spelling, 
 the * old spelling ' as it will then be called, will 
 still be familiar to everybody; for the enormous 
 number of books now in existence will not have 
 been swept away. Everybody with any claim to 
 education will be able to read the ' old spelling.' 
 It will assuredly not command admiration or 
 respect ; but people will consent to read it, 
 because of the books printed in it. No one 
 will dream of writing it, because of the labour 
 involved in learning the bad 'old spelling.' 
 There will be students of the language then as 
 now ; let us hope there will be far more. To 
 them the ' old spelling ' will occasionally prove 
 useful; but not as often as might now be 
 thought. To the student of language a spelling 
 that deviates so far from the pronunciation 
 affords no very satisfactory aid in his researches. 
 The spelling of an earlier age proves to him that 
 knight and knave had a sounded k ; our spelling 
 
26 SIMPLIFIED SPELLING 
 
 with k gives no clue to the present pronunciation 
 of these words. 
 
 It is no exaggeration to say that for one 
 person who ever thinks of the derivation of 
 words there are a thousand who suffer from our 
 bad spelling ; and that one in a thousand does 
 not need tne misspellings to remind him of the 
 derivation. " The scholar does not need these 
 indications to help him to the pedigree of the 
 words with which he deals, and the ignorant is 
 not helped by them ; the one knows without, 
 the other does not know with them ; so that in 
 either case they are profitable for nothing." ^ 
 
 Would Confusion arise from Words 
 having the same spelling that are 
 now spelt differently? 
 
 Perhaps the words knight and knave suggest 
 another difficulty to you : if the k is no longer 
 written, how are we to distinguish these words 
 from night and nave\ The words write, right 
 
 1 Or, as Sai'nte Beuve neatly puts it : Pour une lettre de 
 <>lus ou de moms, la ignorants tie sauront pas mieux reconnaitre 
 rorigine du mot, et les hommes instruits la reconnmtront toujours. 
 
SAME SOUND, SAME SPELLING 27 
 
 and rite, the words road, rowed, and rode sound 
 alike ; will there not be confusion if the spelling 
 is the same ? 
 
 How would you answer the question: bear 
 (the animal) and (I) bear have the same sound 
 and the same spelling ; have you ever confused 
 them? Why not? Because the rest of the 
 sentence makes the meaning clear. The same 
 is true of knight and night and all the other 
 words that sound alike but differ in meaning. 
 When you talk about a knight you do not feel it 
 necessary to pronounce the k to show that you 
 mean knight and not night; and it is equally 
 unnecessary to write the k for this purpose. 
 The rest of the sentence leaves no doubt as to 
 the meaning. In a very few cases ambiguities 
 might arise ; how rare they are you will realise 
 if you try to construct such a sentence. 
 
 Sometimes the simplified spelling actually 
 makes the meaning clearer. If I write the 
 words : I read it, you do not know whether I 
 mean read for the present or the past ; in the 
 simplified spelling the past would be red, in 
 accordance with the pronunciation. A ' row of 
 
28 SIMPLIFIED SPELLING 
 
 houses ' would no longer be spelt in the same 
 way as ' making a row.'' The noun lead 
 would not have the same spelling as the 
 verb lead. 
 
 Our Attitude towards Reform 
 
 You have now come to understand that the 
 simplification of the spelling is a matter worthy 
 of your earnest attention. You know well that 
 it is easy to make fun of attempts at spelling 
 reform. The narrow-minded man, hidebound 
 by prejudice, resents any suggestion that what 
 is familiar to him might be changed with advan- 
 tage ; he likes to go on doing in his unthinking 
 way what he has always done. He objects to 
 change because change disturbs his comfort, 
 and because he recoils from the mental effort 
 required by a serious consideration of the changes 
 proposed. He tries to thwart all attempts at 
 improving the spelling, by pointing to this word 
 or that in its changed form, and appealing to the 
 prejudices of others; perhaps he even travesties 
 the efforts of reformers by suggesting imaginary 
 
PREJUDICE AND PROGRESS 29 
 
 and obviously absurd spellings as likely to meet 
 with their approval. 
 
 You, on the other hand, realise that if a real 
 simplification could be effected, its adoption 
 would have very important and far-reaching 
 results ; and you would like to know how we 
 can arrive at such a simplified spelling and how 
 we can secure its adoption. 
 
 The Problem of Spelling Reform 
 
 If we desire to improve the spelling, we can 
 set about it in several ways ; but the general 
 principle must be to bring it into closer 
 agreement with the sounds of the spoken 
 language. 
 
 At first sight it would seem to be the easiest 
 method to ascertain how many sounds we have, 
 and to assign a letter to each. We very soon, 
 however, meet with difficulties in the attempt 
 to do this. We recognise that there are more 
 sounds in English speech than there are letters 
 in our alphabet; so that we should require 
 new letters, or, at least, 'diacritics' (that is, 
 
30 SIMPLIFIED SPELLING 
 
 accents, dots, etc.) over or under the existing 
 letters. Additions to the alphabet are awkward, 
 because they mean fresh types in our printing 
 establishments, the re-modelling of typewriters, 
 linotype machines, etc., and changes in the 
 Morse alphabet (used in signalling, telegraph- 
 ing, etc.). 
 
 But there is a more serious objection. If 
 we use a strictly scientific phonetic alphabet, 
 we must choose one form of English speech 
 to the exclusion of all others. We must say 
 that the spelling shall represent English as it 
 is spoken in London, or in Glasgow, or -in 
 New York, or in Denver, or in Melbourne. 
 If there were a generally recognised standard 
 of speech, there would be no difficulty; but 
 there is no such standard. It is quite possible 
 that when the introduction of simplified spelling 
 has drawn general attention to the importance 
 of good speech, there will be a widespread 
 desire for a standard. Even now there is 
 some evidence of such a desire ; but it is not 
 yet strong enough to warrant us in saying : 
 this is the best English speech, and it is to 
 
HOW TO IMPROVE THE SPELLING 31 
 
 be taught in all schools, wherever English is 
 learnt. 
 
 Many kinds of phonetic spelling have been 
 devised. Some are used in dictionaries to 
 indicate the pronunciation of words ; others 
 have been used particularly for the purpose 
 of teaching foreigners the sounds of English. 
 If you look at any of these you will find that 
 they make extensive use either of diacritics 
 or of new letters or of inverted letters; and 
 that to write English in this way would change 
 the appearance of the language very much. 
 
 Another and more promising way of solving 
 the problem is to examine the current spelling ; 
 to consider in what ways each sound is spelt 
 at present; and then to choose that spelling 
 which appears to be the most common. This 
 will give us a spelling based on present usage, 
 containing only familiar letters and requiring 
 no diacritics. Sometimes, it is true, we may 
 find that two or three ways of spelling a sound 
 are equally common ; then we may choose 
 that spelling which is most convenient for 
 other reasons. Sometimes, too, we may find 
 
32 SIMPLIFIED SPELLING 
 
 it necessary to combine two letters (to use 
 a ' digraph ') in a way which is new : for 
 instance, our language has no convenient repre- 
 sentation of the sound hear in y'uion, meajure, 
 and for this we may use zb, showing the con- 
 nection of the sound with the sh of mej^. 
 
 The Representation of the Consonants 
 
 When we consider the consonants, we find 
 that there are many which, from our point of 
 view, are quite satisfactory ; that is to say, each 
 sound is usually represented in one way only. 
 The sound b is regularly spelt b ; the child finds 
 it easy to remember that when he hears bit, the 
 first letter of the word is a b. The same is true 
 of p, d, t; the consonants of bed, pet give no 
 trouble. The letters in the following words 
 that are in bold type are also used in a satis- 
 factory way : met, win, very, fan, zest, so, this,^ 
 hot, lot. All these letters we can adopt in our 
 
 1 Th stands for two sounds ; the th in this is not the same 
 as the th in thing. But there is no need to differentiate these 
 in the simplified spelling. 
 
CONSONANTS ^s 
 
 simplified spelling. This does not mean that we 
 can always use them where they occur in the 
 present spelling. The s of goes does not stand 
 for the sound s, but for the sound z ; goes does 
 not rhyme with dose, but -with, froze. We shall 
 therefore write goez. The consonant of of is not 
 f but V ; and we shall therefore write ov. The 
 w in sword, whole, write does not represent any 
 sound at all ; so it will be omitted. In uphill 
 the letters p and h have their ordinary value ; 
 but in phantom the ph represents/ The sound 
 is no guide to the present spelling. Fan spells 
 fan ; in a reasonable spelling fantom spells 
 the word now written with ph. (If those who 
 think ph ought to remain because it shows the 
 derivation from the Greek where consistent, 
 they would write phrenzy, phancy, not frenzy, 
 fancy, for these words also are of Greek origin.) 
 In nephew, on the other hand, most of us pro- 
 nounce the ph as 'u, and should there write v — 
 which ought to please our friends the deriva- 
 tionists, for this brings it closer to the French 
 neveu, from which it comes. 
 
 Some of the consonants are more troublesome. 
 c 
 
34 SIMPLIFIED SPELLING 
 
 Worst of all are the letters c, k, qu, x. Consider 
 their present uses : 
 
 cat, city, ocean, science, back, 
 coo^, baci^, ^naye. 
 5'«aint, qwaj. 
 eivtra, examine, anxious. 
 How can the learner tell from the sounds that 
 he must use c in cat and k in kitten? That in 
 cook the same sound is first to be written c and 
 then k ? That in taken he must write k, but c 
 in bacon ? 
 
 How is he to tell from the sounds that there 
 is an s in sit, but c in city ? s in sealing, but c in 
 ceiling ? 
 
 Why should he write ck when c or k would 
 suffice? Why cocks, but oxl Why eggs, but 
 examine ? 
 
 He hears the same sounds in kill and quill, 
 except that in the second of these the k is 
 followed by aw;, why should he not write 
 kw or cw? The sounds of key and quay are 
 the same ; how is he to tell that they differ 
 in spelling? 
 
 The answer to all these questions is that the 
 
CONSONANTS ^s 
 
 learner has to learn by heart the spelling of 
 individual words. It would assuredly be much 
 simpler to say: when you hear the sound 
 written c in cat, write c always ; when you hear 
 the sound written s in sit, write s always. To 
 those who are accustomed to the present spelling, 
 citen for kitten and cooc for cook no doubt look odd ; 
 but that is true of any change in the spelling. 
 
 The reasons for choosing c rather than k for 
 the representation of this sound are that c is 
 easier to write, and looks better than k (komik, 
 kake, kook, kolour, foks, etc., are not attractive) ; 
 and that c is much more common than k, 
 especially at the beginning of words. 
 
 The letters ng in sing represent one sound, 
 not two ; in anger they represent two sounds. 
 The same sound is written « in anger and anchor. 
 While it would be more consistent to write 
 angger and angcor or angcer (the h would, of 
 course, disappear), it seems unnecessary to 
 recommend a change from present usage in 
 such cases. The spellings anger and ancor may 
 give a little trouble to the foreigner, who may 
 be tempted to pronounce anger as though it 
 
^6 SIMPLIFIED SPELLING 
 
 rhymed with hanger and ancor, an-cor; but to 
 the child who knows both words by ear before 
 he ever sees them, there is no difEculty. 
 
 The sound of sh in shut is written in many 
 ways ; consider these words : sugar, machine, 
 notion, special, ocean, tension, conscience, com- 
 plexion, passion. Here we have nine different 
 ways of spelling the same sound. How is the 
 learner to tell that s is to be written in sugar ? 
 That ocean and notion, complexion and direction, 
 tension and attention are to be spelt as we 
 actually spell them ? Is it not a great simpli- 
 fication to say : when you hear the sound 
 sh, write sh ? 
 
 For the related sound that is written s in 
 measure and % in azure the letters zh are 
 suggested as the most suitable. 
 
 The sounds written ch in chat and j in jet 
 are really tsh and d%h ; but the present spelling 
 ch and j is more convenient. We write ch in 
 which and tch in witch ; it is simpler to say : 
 write ch always when you hear it. The sound 
 of J appears in jet, but also in gem, wager, 
 badger, badge, legion, spinach. The learner 
 
CONSONANTS ^ 
 
 cannot tell which of these spellings is correct 
 in any particular word ; he has to learn the 
 spelling of each word separately. It would 
 be far simpler to give the rule : write the 
 letter y when you hear the sound ofy. 
 We have now dealt with the sounds : 
 bet pet dip tip got cot 
 
 met net sing N.B. — linger thine 
 win van fan this thing 
 
 zest so vizhon sheen jest cheer 
 liv hapy 
 
 The only consonants that remain to be con- 
 sidered are y, r, and wh. 
 
 In the present spelling y is used for three 
 purposes. It represents a consonant in yet, 
 and it may well be retained with this value. 
 It also represents vowels, in physics, city and 
 in type ; the y in physic, city has the same 
 value as / in v/'sit, cit/zen, and the y in type, 
 why has the same value as ie in cnVs. We 
 shall meet with these sounds again when we 
 come to the vowels. 
 
 The letter r has various pronunciations in 
 diiFerent parts of the English-speaking world, 
 
38 SIMPLIFIED SPELLING 
 
 and it will be well to keep it where it occurs 
 in the present spelling, even in words where 
 some have ceased to pronounce it. 
 
 The letters wh are also variously pronounced. 
 In some parts there is no ^difference between 
 wh and w ; which is pronounced like witch, 
 where like wear, while like wile. As, how- 
 ever, so many speakers of English do make 
 a distinction, it will be well to keep wh where 
 it occurs in the present spelling. 
 
 From what has gone before, you will see 
 that the consonants on the whole present little 
 difficulty ; and that is a very important fact. 
 In our language they are more numerous than 
 the vowels ; and it is not difficult to read a 
 sentence in which only the consonants have 
 been written and the vowels have been left 
 out.'^ The consonants are a much more stable 
 element in language than the vowels. 
 
 '^ As an example, take the sentence : 
 
 and compare it with : 
 
 Th* tr**n st*rt8 *t thr** *cl*ck *n T**8d**s *nd 
 
 Th*r8d**s. 
 
CONSONANTS 39 
 
 Double Consonants and Silent Consonants 
 
 Before passing to the vowels, we must pay 
 a little attention to the double consonants and 
 the silent consonants. 
 
 When we say the word coattail we pronounce 
 the / at the end of coat and the / at the 
 beginning of tail. But the case is different in 
 written ; we only pronounce one t here. We 
 pronounce both p's in lamppost, but only one in 
 happy. In bigger we pronounce one g only, 
 just as in figure. In all we pronounce one /, 
 just as in awl. In muddy we pronounce one d, 
 just as in study. It is clear that where the 
 consonant is only pronounced once, it should 
 be written only once. 
 
 Silent consonants occur in a fair number of 
 words, for instance in light^ whole, gnat, knave, 
 write, lamb, autumn, science, sign, half, doubt, 
 answer, yacht. Where a letter represents no 
 sound at all, it cannot be retained in a simplified 
 spelling. 
 
40 SIMPLIFIED SPELLING 
 
 Short Vowels 
 The short vowels fortunately give little 
 trouble. You will accept without hesitation 
 the spelling of them as it occurs in glad^ bet, lily, 
 song, good and bud. If this use of a, e, i 
 (y finally 1), o, oo, m^ be made regular for the 
 short vowels, some changes will of course result. 
 The silent u will have to disappear from guest, 
 and you will write gest as you write best ; you 
 remember that we are giving g uniformly the 
 value it has in go, and gest will therefore not be 
 confused mthjest. You will write frend (cp. 
 lend), hed (cp. bed),forin (cp. florin), uther (cp. 
 utter), Jlud (cp. bud"). 
 
 Long Vowels and Diphthongs 
 The long vowels and diphthongs present far 
 more difficulty, for their spelling is very varied. 
 To give all the different ways in which these 
 sounds are at present spelt would take up a 
 great deal of space ; it will be sufficient for our 
 present purpose to give a few examples, and to 
 
 1 Some may prefer to write i in final positions also. 
 
 2 For a as in volume, see p. 45. 
 
VOWELS 41 
 
 indicate which spelling of these sounds appears 
 to be the most convenient. 
 
 Let us take as our first example the sound of 
 in go, which some pronounce as a long vowel, 
 others as a diphthong, others again as a diphthong 
 of another kind. The following words show 
 thirteen different ways of writing this : 
 
 Go, goes, road, rode, row, rowed, mauve, 
 bureau, yeoman, sew, brooch, though, soul. 
 
 They are, of course, not all equally common ; 
 but each of the spellings exemplified by go, goes, 
 road, rode and row occurs in many words. 
 
 As a second example we may take the long 
 sound of u in truth. The following words show 
 ten different spellings of this sound : 
 
 truth, true, rule, fruit, rheumatism, drew, mood, 
 through, move, shoe. 
 
 Our third example shall be the sound of ie 
 in cries. The following words show eleven 
 different spellings of this sound : 
 
 cries, dial, high, height, file, cry, type, aisle, 
 guide, buy, eye. 
 
 These examples serve to show that nowhere 
 is simplification more urgently needed than in 
 
42 SIMPLIFIED SPELLING 
 
 the case of the long vowels and diphthongs ; 
 at the same time it is obvious that the number 
 of changes will be the greatest. In the follow- 
 ing suggestions for a simplified spelling of these 
 sounds, the attempt has been made to produce 
 a system that is easy to learn and that takes 
 into account, as far as possible, what is most 
 common in the present spelling. The problem 
 has been very earnestly considered by persons 
 who are familiar with all its aspects, and after 
 prolonged deliberations the following scheme 
 has been evolved : 
 
 (i) Write aa in faather, ar in far. 
 (ii) Write at in maid, air in fair, 
 (iii) Write au in laud, or in lord, 
 (i) If we used the single a we should get 
 into difficulties; thus we are bound to drop 
 the silent / in calm, palm, etc., but we cannot 
 write cam, pam. We have the digraph aa in 
 the present spelling of the word 'bazaar.' 
 Although some make no difference in pronuncia- 
 tion between father and farther, many do ; and 
 the distinction must therefore be kept in the 
 spelling and the r retained in the latter word. 
 
VOWELS 43 
 
 Some do not say faast but fast (with the same 
 vowel as in fat) ; these would naturally write 
 this and similar words with one a only. 
 
 (ii) It is clear that the present made and 
 maid will haye the same spelling ; day will be 
 written dai, great will become grait ; there and 
 their will become thair^ bear and bare: bair. 
 On the other hand pail, P^''~i ^oid, pain, and 
 many other words will remain unchanged. 
 
 (iii) Haul, haunt, caught, etc., will retain their 
 au; but in other words a change will be 
 necessary. Thus we shall have baul, clau, braud, 
 baut, thaut. Or will remain mform, port, orb, and 
 many other words ; but more will become mor. 
 (iv) Write ee in feel, but write e 
 
 (v) Write ie in liet, but write / 
 
 (vi) Write oe in loed, but write o 
 
 (vii) Write uu in truuth, but write u 
 
 (viii) Write j'Wd' in yueth,butwrite^«, 
 
 (iv) We shall then be no longer troubled 
 by such diflSculties as speak and speech, which 
 will look much more closely related as speec and 
 speech ; feet andy^a/ will have the same spelling, 
 as also beet and beat, meet and meat. (As wasshown 
 
 before an- 
 other vowel 
 orattheend 
 of a word. 
 
44 SIMPLIFIED SPELLING 
 
 on p. 27, this can hardly ever lead to ambiguity.) 
 The single letter e is found to be sufficient when 
 a vowel follows, as in theory \ and when the sound 
 is at the end of a word, as in he, she^ we^ me, be. 
 
 (v) The sound of ie in cries has many differ- 
 ent spellings, as was shown on p. 41. No one 
 spelling is at present more common than any 
 other, unless it be the spelling of which wide 
 is an example. This kind of spelling, by means 
 of a mute e following a consonant, is for various 
 .reasons unacceptable. The spelling ie is the 
 one that fits best into a complete scheme of the 
 vowels, and as in the case of e^, the first letter 
 only need be written before vowels and at the 
 end of a word, e.g. dial^ /, mi, whi. 
 
 (vi) Much the same considerations lead to 
 the adoption of oe for the sound in goes. Here, 
 too, suffices before other vowels (as in heroic) 
 and finally (as in «o, jo, go). 
 
 (vii and viii) Quite the most difficult problem 
 in connection with the vowels was to determine 
 the best spelling of the sounds written ue in 
 true and cue respectively. The present spelling 
 is most confusing. For ue in true this was 
 
VOWELS 45 
 
 shown on p. 41 ; as for ue in cue, it is now spelt 
 in at least ten different ways : 
 
 cue^ cubic, cube, suit, eulogy, adieu, few, view, 
 beauty, ewe. 
 
 After many proposals had been considered it 
 was decided that uu was the most acceptable 
 spelling for the sound of u in truth, and that u 
 alone would suffice before another vowel (as 
 in ruin) and finally (as in tru) ; and that yue was 
 the best spelling for the sound of u in duty, yu 
 sufficing when a vowel follows (as in dyual) or 
 finally (as in dyu), — also in unstressed syllables 
 as in volyum) This was one of the very few 
 cases in which the present spelling did not afford 
 convenient means of designating the sounds. 
 
 (In some forms of English, the distinction 
 between the long sound (as in mood) and the 
 short sound (as in good) will at first give some 
 trouble, just as in other forms of English the 
 distinction between the sounds of laud and 
 lord, father and farther. It is probable that 
 distinctions made in the simplified speiling will 
 soon lead to a slightly modified pronunciation 
 in such cases.) 
 
46 SIMPLIFIED SPELLING 
 
 (ix) Write oi in coin. 
 (x) Write ou in count. 
 There could be little doubt about the spelling 
 of these diphthongs. It is true that at the end 
 of words the present spelling generally has oy 
 and ow; but to make this a rule would be a 
 useless complication. 
 
 (xi) Write ur in fur (i.e. in stressed positions), 
 (xii) Write er in sister (i.e. in unstressed 
 
 positions), 
 (xi and xii) Most speakers make no difference 
 in pronunciation between er in fern and ur in 
 burn, er in herb and ur in curb, ir in bird and 
 ur in absurd and or in word. The most 
 common spelling is ur, which has therefore 
 been selected; another reason was the close 
 relation of this sound to the u in but. There 
 can be little doubt that the er in sister should 
 be retained with its present value. 
 
 Vowels in Unstressed Syllables 
 The question how far the use of er should 
 be extended is most difficult to answer, for it 
 compels us to face the problem of the vowels 
 
VOWELS 47 
 
 in unstressed syllables. Take the following 
 examples : 
 
 able and label; idle and idol; mettle and 
 metal. 
 
 tailor and trailer ; alter and altar ; beggar 
 and bigger ; stationery and stationary. 
 
 balsam and venom; infamy, enemy and 
 economy ; infamous and blasphemous. 
 
 ocean and wo/ww ; musician and position. 
 
 barren and ^arow ; gotten and cotton. 
 
 distant and persistent ; distance and sentence ; 
 tenancy and clemency. 
 
 Read these words in a natural way; you 
 will find it easier to do this if you introduce 
 them into sentences. It is probable that you 
 will then realise that our spelling shows a 
 variety of vowel letters where in our ordinary 
 pronunciation only one vowel sound is heard. 
 This ' obscure ' or ' neutral ' vowel, as it is 
 called, is of frequent occurrence in English, 
 as also in French and German. In a purely 
 phonetic alphabet it is usually represented by 
 the sign a (an inverted e). 
 
 You may, however, have noticed that public 
 
48 SIMPLIFIED SPELLING 
 
 speakers who are very deliberate and precise in 
 their speech do make distinctions in some of the 
 cases of which examples have been given above ; 
 and there are many who believe that this is a 
 practice to be commended and worthy of general 
 imitation and extension. They maintain that 
 this adds to the beauty of the language, and 
 that the variety of the vowel letters, as found 
 in the present spelling of unstressed endings, 
 should be indicated in the pronunciation also ; 
 so that, for instance, the second syllable of 
 moment would be pronounced like meant (which 
 is, indeed, done by a good many) and that the 
 second syllable of idol, sailor should be pro- 
 nounced like doll, lore respectively. They also 
 maintain that in many cases it is desirable to 
 retain the present spelling of the vowel because 
 of the existence of derived words in which the 
 vowel is stressed and appears with its full 
 value, e.g. metal and metallic, idol and idolatry, 
 baron and baronial, ocean and oceanic. 
 
 Others, however, regard such a pronunciation 
 of the unstressed vowels as an unwarrantable 
 revival of what has long disappeared. They 
 
VOWELS 49 
 
 say that the reduction of the vowels in unstressed 
 syllables, far fi-om being a sign of deterioration, 
 is a sign of progress ; that what has taken place, 
 for instance, in German and other kindred lan- 
 guages, has its justifiable parallel in our own. 
 In other languages this development shows 
 itself in the spelling as well as in the spoken 
 language ; for instance, the e in German Bruder 
 leider Hauser goes back to various vowels, 
 which ceased to be differentiated in the spelling 
 when the ' neutral ' vowel had taken their place 
 in the spoken language. They also point to 
 the usage of the poets, who may surely be 
 regarded as not indifferent to the beauty of 
 the language, but who do not hesitate to 
 use such rhymes as splendid, attended (Words- 
 worth), ever, endeavour (Wordsworth, Byron), 
 sever, endeavour (Th. Moore), tender, splen- 
 dour (Shelley), motion, ocean (Wordsworth, 
 Coleridge, Shelley), sentence, repentance (Byron), 
 heaven, Devon (Tennyson), languors, angers 
 (Tennyson). 
 
 There is another vowel that appears commonly 
 in unstressed syllables, a vowel which resembles 
 
50 SIMPLIFIED SPELLING 
 
 the / ofpt. The following examples show the 
 present spellings of this sound : 
 
 city and citizen ; carry and carrier ; cap- 
 tain and satin; roses and posies; volley and 
 folly ; purest and purist ; postage, vestige, and 
 privilege. 
 
 The practical question for us is : How are we 
 to deal with the vowels in unstressed syllables 
 in our scheme of simplified spelling ? It is im- 
 possible to tell which of the two incompatible 
 views stated above will win the day ; time alone 
 can decide. In these circumstances it will be 
 wise to retain for the present any differences 
 which may survive, not only in the spelling, but 
 in very precise speech. Those who prefer a 
 spelling more in accordance with their natural 
 speech (by no means the same thing as ' care- 
 less ' or ' slipshod ' speech) should be at liberty 
 to use it. 
 
 The Simplified Spelling in Brief 
 
 We have now dealt with the sounds of the 
 English language and their representation by 
 
THE SPELLING IN BRIEF 51 
 
 means of a simple and reasonably consistent 
 spelling, of which this table gives a summary : 
 
 Consonant Sounds 
 bet pet dip tip got cot 
 
 met net sing A^^.^. — linger, thine 
 
 win whim van fan this thing 
 
 zest so vizhon sheen jest cheer 
 
 left riet yes hapy 
 
 Vowel Sounds 
 
 glad best lily song bud good volyum 
 
 faather star maid fair laud lord 
 
 I leed I liet floed / buun / yueth 
 
 < seing \ dial < going J juel ) dyual 
 
 'we 'mi vno ( thru ( dyu 
 
 joi mount curl sister 
 
 Realize that when the child has learnt to 
 distinguish the sounds, this little table gives 
 him the way in which they are to be spelt. 
 Then turn to any book now in use for teaching 
 our spelling and ask yourself which is the more 
 economical system. If it implied economy at 
 the expense of educational soundness, you would 
 rightly give it no further attention. That it is 
 educationally sound has been shown above ; but 
 it will be well to give here, in a few words, the 
 advantages of this system of simplified spelling . 
 
52 SIMPLIFIED SPELLING 
 
 Advantages of the Simplified Spelling 
 
 It is easy to learn. Try for yourself. Say a 
 sentence and then write it in simplified spelling. 
 If you do find difficulty, it is because you have 
 not been accustomed to distinguish the sounds 
 you utter, because in childhood your ear-training 
 was neglected. 
 
 It can be taught by rational methods. The 
 process will be this : The attention of the child 
 is drawn to the sounds he uses in speaking. 
 His organs of speech as well as his ears are 
 trained. Then he learns to represent the sounds 
 by letters. He does not learn the spelling of indi- 
 vidual words, which calls for excessive memoris- 
 ing. (There are other and far better ways of 
 practising the memory.) 
 
 The training of the ear and of the vocal organs 
 which is an essential part of learning the sim- 
 flified spelling is of great value. It is useful in 
 leading to clearer speech, and forms the basis 
 of all good work in elocution and singing. It 
 is the best preparation for learning shorthand. 
 It aiFords great help in mastering the pronuncia- 
 
ITS ADVANTAGES 53 
 
 tion of foreign languages. There is no doubt 
 that the simplification of spelling would very 
 soon lead to a great improvement in pronuncia- 
 tion. Slovenliness and vulgarity are fostered 
 by the lack of a clear and constant relation 
 between the written symbol and the spoken 
 sound. 
 
 One who has learnt the simplified spelling will 
 be able to read books in the '■old spelling' with 
 little trouble. Many words are the same. In 
 devising the simplified spelling care has been 
 taken to make the least possible change that 
 is consistent with efficiency. After a little 
 practice, it would be quite easy to read the 
 ' old spelling ' ; but no one would be expected 
 to write it, and it is this which requires so 
 much eiFort. 
 
 // is easy to print. As it contains no new 
 letters and no diacritics, existing founts of type 
 will serve perfectly.^ There is no need to effect 
 any change in typewriters, linotype machines, 
 etc. The alphabet used in telegraphy and in 
 signalling will remain the same. 
 
 It makes English the most serviceable language 
 
54 SIMPLIFIED SPELLING 
 
 for intercourse within the Empire and between 
 nations. No other language offers the same 
 combination of advantages as ours. It has a 
 very simple grammar and a very rich vocabulary ; 
 it is the key to a grand literature. Its only 
 serious drawback is — the spelling. 
 
 If we agree to make the spelling of English 
 as reasonable and straightforward as is that 
 of Spanish, or even of German, we shall confer 
 an inestimable boon on the children of untold 
 generations to come. We shall add to the 
 efficiency of all English-speaking peoples by 
 effecting an immense improvement in ele- 
 mentary education, by which every child, rich 
 or poor, will be the gainer. We shall ensure 
 the continued spread of the English language 
 throughout the world. 
 
 How You CAN Help the Movement for 
 Reform 
 
 When you look at the names of those who 
 are interesting themselves in the movement, 
 when you see that men like Sir James Donaldson, 
 
HOW YOU CAN HELP 55 
 
 Professor Gilbert Murray, Sir Frederick Pollock, 
 Sir William Ramsay, Professor Michael Sadler, 
 Professor Skeat, to mention only a few, are 
 keen members of the Simplified Spelling 
 Society, you may be inclined to say: I may 
 well leave the work to these men. That, 
 however, is not what they want at all. They 
 may be able to do more than you, but they 
 cannot dispense with your active support. Like 
 every other great movement, it appeals to all 
 educated men and women. We want your 
 personal interest, we want your help in the 
 campaign for simplified spelling. 
 
 You can help us a great deal. Think about 
 the questions involved, talk about them to your 
 friends, take an interest in the spoken language. 
 When you meet with ignorance and prejudice, 
 do your utmost to dispel these enemies to all 
 open-minded consideration of the problem. The 
 arguments that you will have to answer are 
 always the same. 
 
S6 SIMPLIFIED SPELLING 
 
 Brief Answers to the Arguments of 
 Opponents 
 
 The simplified spelling looks queer, ugly, etc. 
 
 Answer : Prejudice, born of habit. Familiarity, 
 in this case, breeds ill-placed admiration. Those 
 brought up on the simplified spelling will be 
 just as devoted to that, and with better cause.^ 
 
 Words of the same sound now spelt differently 
 would be spelt alike, which would lead to 
 confusion. 
 
 1 You may perhaps hear someone exclaim : '* Shake- 
 speare's spelling is good enough for me." We happen to 
 have no evidence as to Shakespeare's spelling — except that 
 he was not particular as to the spelling of his name ; here 
 is an example of Shakespeare's printers' spelling : 
 
 How fweet the moone-light lleepes vpon this banke, 
 Heere will we (it, and let the founds of muficke 
 Creepe in our eares, foft ftilnes and the night 
 Become the tutches of fweet harmonie. 
 
 Or again some one may say : " I should not like to see the 
 Bible in simplified spelling." Probably he would not, at 
 first ; and it is also probable that he would not like it in 
 the spelling of the sixteenth century. After all, it is the 
 meaning that matters ; and those accustomed to reading the 
 Bible in the simplified spelling would revere its teaching no 
 less than we do. 
 
HOW TO ANSWER OBJECTIONS s7 
 
 Answer: There is no confusion when the 
 words are spoken ; why should there be any 
 when they are written? The context makes 
 the meaning clear. Some words, now spelt 
 alike, would be differentiated. 
 
 A change of spelling would obscure the 
 derivation. 
 
 Answer : Granted, sometimes ; in other 
 cases it would make it clearer. In our 
 ordinary use of language we are not at the 
 same time studying etymology ; for the student 
 of etymology the ' old spelling ' will still be 
 available for reference. 
 
 // is good for children to work hard. 
 
 Answer : Of course it is ; and there are 
 plenty of subjects of great intrinsic importance 
 at which they can work hard. But where is 
 the intrinsic importance of writing tho, though 
 and frend^ friend ? To compel them to learn 
 all the redundancies and inconsistencies of our 
 spelling because of the hard work involved 
 is as sensible as to make them write with' 
 their feet rather than with their hands because 
 of the harder work entailed in doing so. 
 
58 SIMPLIFIED SPELLING 
 
 Brief answers have been given here ; but 
 all these objections have been dealt with on 
 earlier pages of this book, except the last, — 
 which is really too contemptible to call for an 
 extensive answer. 
 
 Adoption of the Simplified Spelling 
 
 You may also like to show that you are 
 a friend of progress by making use of the 
 simplified spelling in your letters or in print. 
 The more often people see words spelt in 
 the reasonable way, the more quickly will they 
 get accustomed to the idea of change. 
 
 Possibly, however, you may prefer to wait 
 until the scheme is more widely known before 
 adopting it in its complete form. In the 
 meantime you may be willing to adopt certain 
 obvious simplifications which form part of the 
 proposed scheme. The following rules are 
 suggested for provisional use : 
 
 I. Drop silent letters when this does not 
 involve a change of pronunciation; e.g. write 
 dout for doubt^ activ for active, definit for 
 
A SUGGESTION 59 
 
 definite^ program for programme, pich for pitch, 
 but not brit for bright. (Do not adopt brite, 
 which is contrary to the spelling ie suggested 
 for this diphthong in the scheme.) 
 
 2. Where a consonant is doubled in a simple 
 word (not in a compound), drop one letter when 
 this does not involve a change in pronuncia- 
 tion,"^.^, write batl for battle, teror for terror, 
 begining for beginning, but keep the two letters 
 in coattail, lamppost, interrupt, batted, latter. 
 (The forms bated, later in the present spelling do 
 not have this value, and confusion would arise.) 
 
 3. Write / in place of the ending ed of many 
 verbs, whenever t represents the pronunciation ; 
 e.g. past for passed, prest for pressed. 
 
 4. Substitute/ for />/%. 
 
 The Simplified Spelling Society 
 
 Finally, you can show your interest in the 
 movement by joining the Simplified Spelling 
 Society, the office of which is at 44 Great 
 Russell Street, London, W.C. However limited 
 your means may be, you will be able to sub- 
 
6o SIMPLIFIED SPELLING 
 
 scribe one shilling a year, which makes you an 
 Associate Member ; this subscription assures us 
 of your moral support, which we value highly. 
 If you can afford five shillings a year, this pay- 
 ment will make you a full Member, and will 
 help the Society to extend its work. It is no 
 easy task that we have taken in hand; our 
 appeal is to millions, scattered all over the 
 earth. We want to establish branches in every 
 important centre where English is spoken. We 
 want to gain the sympathetic help of every 
 newspaper. We want to dispel prejudice and 
 prepare the path for reform. A great under- 
 taking needs money, and we appeal without 
 hesitation for pecuniary help to those who can 
 afford it. But to all, rich and poor alike, we 
 appeal for the earnest consideration of the case 
 for simplified spelling which has been put 
 forward in these pages ; we believe that there 
 are few causes more worthy of support than 
 this, which aims at the prevention of waste in 
 our schools, at better educational methods and 
 at rendering more serviceable for all the English 
 language. 
 
SPECIMENS OF SIMPLIFIED SPELLING 
 
 The following pages contain a short story by 
 Dickens and the ballad of " John Gilpin." A 
 perusal of them will give a good idea of the 
 results of simplifying the spelling in the way 
 that has been suggested. Proper names have, 
 of course, been left unchanged. 
 
 The reader will experience little difficulty 
 in reading the simplified spelling; such diffi- 
 culties as may occur will probably be due 
 not so much to the spelling as to his un- 
 familiarity with some of the features of our 
 pronunciation. 
 
 Naturally he will at first receive shock upon 
 shock as he meets with words in strange guise, 
 but as he reads on, he will quickly grow 
 accustomed to the spelling, and he will probably 
 soon realize that this spelling suggests the 
 spoken language to him in a manner quite 
 unexpected and surprising. 
 
62 SIMPLIFIED SPELLING 
 
 If, after reading these pages, he attempts to 
 make use of the simplified spelling himself, he 
 will be astonished to see how easily he can 
 do so. It is no exaggeration to say that an 
 educated person can learn the simplified spelling 
 in half an hour. 
 
THE SCUULBOrZ STORY 
 
 Being raather yung at prezent — I am geting 
 on in yeerz, but stil T am raather yung — I hav 
 no particyular adventyurz ot mi oen tu faul bac 
 upon. It woodn't much interest enibody heer, 
 I supoez, tu no whot a scru the Reverend iz, or 
 whot a grifin she iz, or hou thai du stic it intu 
 pairents — particyularly hair-cuting and medical 
 atendans. Wun ov our feloez woz charjd in 
 hiz haaf's acount twelv and sicspens for tu 
 pilz — tolerably profitabi at sics and threepens 
 a pees, I shood thine — and he never tooc 
 them iether, but put them up the sleev ov 
 hiz jacet. 
 
 Az tu the beef, it's shaimful. It's not beef. 
 Regyular beef izn't vainz. Yu can chu regyular 
 beef. Besiedz which, thair'z graivy tu regyular 
 beef, and yu never se a drop tu ourz. Anuther 
 ov our feloez went hoem il, and hurd the family 
 doctor tel hiz faather that he coodn't acount 
 
 «3 
 
64 SIMPLIFIED SPELLING 
 
 for hiz complaint unles it woz the beer. Ov 
 cors it woz the beer, and wel it miet be ! 
 
 Houever, beef and Oeld Cheeseman ar tu 
 diferent thingz. So iz beer. It woz Oeld 
 Cheeseman I ment tu tel about ; not the maner 
 in which our feloez get thair constityueshonz 
 destroid for the saic ov profit. Whi, looc at 
 the pi-crust aloen. Thair'z no flaicines in it. 
 It's solid — liec damp led. Then our feloez get 
 nietmairz, and ar boelsterd for cauling out and 
 waicing uther feloez. Hu can wunder ! 
 
 Oeld Cheeseman wun niet wauct in hiz sleep, 
 poot hiz hat on oever hiz nietcap, got hoeld ov 
 a fishing-rod and a cricet-bat, and went doun intu 
 the parlor, whair thai natyuraly thaut from hiz 
 apeerans he woz a goest. Whi, he never wood 
 hav dun that if hiz meelz had been hoelsum. 
 When we aul begin tu wauc in our sleeps, I 
 supoez thai'l be sory for it, 
 
 Oeld Cheeseman wozn't second Latin Maaster 
 then; he woz a felo himself. He woz furst 
 braut thair, very smaul, in a poest shaiz, bi a 
 wooman hu woz alwaiz talcing snuf and shaicing 
 him — and that woz the moest he rememberd 
 
THE SCUULBOrZ STORY 65 
 
 about it. He never went hoem for hiz holidaiz. 
 Hiz acounts (he never lurnt eny ecstraz) wer sent 
 tu a Banc, and the Banc paid them ; and he had a 
 broun syuet twies a yeer, and went intu buuts at 
 twelv. Thai wer alwaiz tu big for him, tu. 
 
 In the Midsumer holidaiz, sum ov our feloez 
 hu livd within waucing distans, yuest tu cum bac 
 and cHem the treez outsied the plaiground waul, 
 on purpos tu looc at Oeld Cheeseman reeding 
 thair bi himself. He woz alwaiz az mield az 
 the te — and that's prety mield, I shood hoep I 
 — so when thai whisld tu him, he looct up 
 and noded; and when thai sed, "Halo, Oeld 
 Cheeseman, whot hav yu had for diner ? " he 
 sed " Boild muton " ; and when thai sed, " Ain't 
 it solitary, Oeld Cheeseman ? " he sed, "It's a litl 
 dul sumtiemz " ; and then thai sed, " Wei, good 
 bi, Oeld Cheeseman ! " and cliemd doun again. 
 Ov cors it woz impoezing on Oeld Cheeseman 
 tu giv him nuthing but boild muton thru a 
 hoel vacaishon, but that woz just liec the sistem. 
 When thai didn't giv him boild muton, thai gaiv 
 him ries pooding, pretending it woz a treat. 
 
 And saivd the boocher. 
 E 
 
66 SIMPLIFIED SPELLING 
 
 So Oeld Cheeseman went on. The holidaiz 
 braut him intu uther trubl besiedz the loenlines; 
 becauz when the feloez began tu cum bac, not 
 wonting tu, he woz aulwaiz glad tu se them ; 
 which woz ' agravaiting when thai wer not at 
 aul glad tu se him, and so he got hiz hed noct 
 against waulz, and that woz the wai hiz noez 
 bled. But he woz a faivorit in jeneral. Wuns 
 a subscripshon woz raizd for him ; and, tu ceep 
 up hiz spirits, he woz prezented befor the holi- 
 daiz with tu whiet mies, a rabit, a pijon, and a 
 byuetiful pupy. Oeld Cheeseman cried about it 
 — espeshaly suun aafterwerdz, when thai aul et 
 wun anuther. 
 
 At laast, Oeld Cheeseman woz maid second 
 Latin Maaster. He woz braut in wun morning 
 at the begining ov a nyu haaf, and prezented 
 tu the scuul in that capasity az "Mr Cheeseman." 
 Then our feloez aul agreed that Oeld Cheeseman 
 woz a spi and a dezurter, hu had gon oever tu 
 the enemy'z camp, and soeld himself for goeld. 
 It woz no ecscyues for him that he had soeld 
 himself for very litl goeld — tu pound ten a 
 cworter and hiz woshing, az woz reported. It 
 
THE SCUULBOrZ STORY (>^ 
 
 woz desieded bi a Parliment which sat about 
 it, that Oeld Cheeseman'z mersenary moetivz 
 cood aloen be taicen intu acount, and that he 
 had " coind our blud for dracmaz." The Parli- 
 ment tooc the ecspreshon out ov the cworel seen 
 between Brutus and Cassius. 
 
 When it woz setld in this strong wai that 
 Oeld Cheeseman woz a tremendus traitor, hu 
 had wurmd himself intu our feloez seecrets on 
 purpos tu get himself intu faivor bi giving up 
 everithing he nyu, aul curaijus feloez wer in- 
 vieted tu cum forwerd and enroel themselvz in 
 a Soesiety for maicing a set against him. The 
 Prezident ov the Soesiety woz Furst Boi, naimd 
 Bob Tarter. Hiz faather woz in the West 
 Indies, and he oend himself that hiz faather woz 
 wurth Milionz. He had grait pouer amung our 
 feloez, and he roet a parody, begining, 
 
 " Hu maid beleev tu be so meec 
 That we cood hardly hear him speec, 
 Yet tumd out an Informing Sneec ? 
 Oeld Cheeseman." 
 
 — and on in that wai thru mor than a duzen 
 vursez, which he yuest tu go and sing, every 
 
68 SIMPLIFIED SPELLING 
 
 morning, does bi the nyu maaster'z desc. Aul 
 this prodyuest a grait efect on Oeld Cheeseman. 
 He had never had much hair ; but whot he had, 
 began tu get thiner and thiner every dai. He 
 gru pailer and mor worn ; and sumtiemz ov an 
 eevening he woz seen siting at hiz desc with a 
 preshus long snuf tu hiz candl, and hiz handz 
 befor hiz fais, criing. But no member ov the 
 Soesiety cood pity him, even if he feh incliend, 
 becauz the Prezident sed it woz Oeld Cheese- 
 man'z conshens. 
 
 He had oenly wun frend in the wurld, and 
 that wun woz aulmoest az pouerles az he woz, 
 for it woz oenly Jane. Jane woz a sort ov 
 wordroeb wooman tu our feloez, and tooc cair ov 
 the bocsez. She had cum at furst, I beleev, az 
 a ciend ov aprentis — sum ov our feloez sai from a 
 Charity, but / doen't no — and aafter her tiem woz 
 out, had stopt at so much a yeer. So litl a 
 yeer, perhaps I aut tu sai, for it iz far mor 
 liecly. Houever, she had poot sum poundz in 
 the Saivingz Banc, and she woz a very nies 
 yung wooman. She woz not cwiet prety, but she 
 had a very franc, onest, briet fais, and aul our 
 
THE SCUULBOrZ STORY 69 
 
 feloez wer fond ov her. She woz uncomonly 
 neet and cheerful, and uncomonly cumfortabl and 
 ciend. And if enithing woz the mater with 
 a felo'z muther, he aulwaiz went and shoed 
 the leter tu Jane. Jane woz Oeld Cheeseman'z 
 frend. The mor the Soesiety went against him, 
 the mor Jane stood bi him. She yuest tu giv 
 him a goodhyuemord looc out ov her stilroom 
 windo, sumtiemz, that seemd tu set him up for 
 the dai. She yuest to paas out ov the orchard 
 and the cichengarden (aulwaiz cept loct, I 
 beleev yu !) thru the plaiground, when she miet 
 hav gon the uther wai, oenly tu giv a turn ov 
 her hed, az much az tu sai, " Ceep up yuer 
 spirits ! " tu Oeld Cheeseman. Hiz slip ov a 
 room woz so fresh and orderly that it woz wel 
 noen hu looct aafter it whiel he woz at hiz 
 desc ; and when our feloez sau a smoecing hot 
 dumpling on hiz plait at diner, thai nyu with 
 indignaishon hu had sent it up. 
 
 Under theez surcumstansez, the Soesiety re- 
 zolvd, aafter a cwontity ov meeting and debait- 
 ing, that Jane shood be recwested tu cut Oeld 
 Cheeseman ded ; and that if she refyuezd, she 
 
JO SIMPLIFIED SPELLING 
 
 must be sent tu Coventry herself. So a 
 depyutaishon, heded bi the Prezident, woz 
 apointed tu wait on Jane, and inform her ov 
 the voet the Soesiety had been under the pain- 
 ful nesesity ov paasing. She woz very much 
 respected for aul her good cwolitiz, and thair 
 woz a story about her having wuns wailaid the 
 Reverend in hiz oen study, and got a felo 
 of from seveer punishment, ov her oen ciend 
 cumfortabl hart. So the depyutaishon didn't 
 much liec the job. Houever, thai went up, and 
 the Prezident toeld Jane aul about it. Upon 
 which Jane turnd very red, burst intu teerz, 
 informd the Prezident and the depyutaishon, in 
 a wai not at aul liec her yuezhyual wai, that 
 thai wer a parsel ov malishus yung savajez, and 
 turnd the hoel respected body out ov the room. 
 Consecwently it woz enterd in the Soesiety'z 
 booc (cept in astronomical siefer for feer ov de- 
 tecshon), that aul comrayunicaishon with Jane 
 woz interdicted ; and the Prezident adrest the 
 memberz on this convinsing instans ov Oeld 
 Cheeseman'z undermiening. 
 
 But Jane woz az tru tu Oeld Cheeseman 
 
THE SCUULBOrZ STORY 71 
 
 az Oeld Cheeseman woz fauls tu our feloez — 
 in thair opinion, at aul events — and stedily 
 continyud tu be hiz oenly frend. It woz a 
 grait egzaasperaishon tu the Soesiety, becauz 
 Jane woz az much a los tu them az she woz 
 a gain tu him ; and being mor inveterait 
 against him than ever, thai treeted him wurs 
 than ever. At laast, wun morning, hiz desc 
 stood emty, hiz room woz peept intu, and 
 found tu be vaicant, and a whisper went about 
 amung the pail faisez ov our feloez that Oeld 
 Cheeseman, unaibl tu bair it eny longer, had 
 got up urly and dround himself. 
 
 The misteerius loocs ov the u-ther maasterz 
 aafter brecfast, and the evident fact that Oeld 
 Cheeseman woz not ecspected, confurmd the 
 Soesiety in this opinion. Sum began tu discus 
 whether the Prezident woz liabl tu hanging 
 or oenly transportaishon for lief, and the 
 Prezident's fais shoed a grait angziety tu no 
 which. Houever, he sed that a juury ov hiz 
 cuntry shood fiend him gaim ; and that in hiz 
 adres he shood poot it tu them to lai thair 
 handz upon thair harts and sai whether thai 
 
72 SIMPLIFIED SPELLING 
 
 az Britonz apruuvd ov informerz, and hou 
 thai thaut thai wood liec it themselvz. Sum 
 ov the Soesiety considerd that he had beter 
 run awai until he found a forest whair he miet 
 chainj cloethz with a woodcuter and stain hiz 
 fais with blacberiz; but the majority beleevd 
 that if he stood hiz ground, hiz faather — 
 belonging az he did tu the West Indies, and 
 being wurth Milionz — cood bi him of. 
 
 Aul our feloez harts beet faast when the 
 Reverend caim in, and maid a sort ov a Roman, 
 or a Feeld Marshal, ov himself with the ruuler, 
 az he aulwaiz did befor delivering an adres. 
 But thair feerz wer nuthing tu thair astonish- 
 ment when he caim out with the story that 
 Oeld Cheeseman " so long our respected frend 
 and felo pilgrim in the plezant plainz ov nolej," 
 az he cauld him — O yes ! I dair sai ! much ov 
 that ! — woz the orfan chield ov a disinherited 
 yung laidy hu had marid against her faather'z 
 wish, and huuz yung huzband had died, and hu 
 had died ov soro herself, and huuz unfortyunait 
 baiby (Oeld Cheeseman) had been braut up at 
 the cost ov a grandfaather hu wood never consent 
 
THE SCUULBOrZ STORY Tj, 
 
 tu se it, baiby, boi or man : which grandfaather 
 woz nou ded, and surv him riet — that's mi 
 pooting in — and which grandfaather'z larj pro- 
 perty, thair being no wil, woz nou, and aul 
 ov a suden, and for ever, Oeld Cheeseman'z! 
 Our so long respected frend and felo pilgrim 
 in the plezant plainz ov nolej, the Reverend 
 wound up a lot ov bothering cwoetaishonz bi 
 saiing, wood "cum amung us wuns mor " that 
 dai fortniet, when he dezierd tu taic leev ov 
 us himself, in a more particyular maner. With 
 theez wurdz, he staird seveerly round at our 
 feloez, and went solemly out. 
 
 Thair woz preshus consternaishon amung 
 the memberz ov the Soesiety, nou. Lots ov them 
 wonted tu rezien, and lots mor began tu tri 
 tu maic out that thai had never belongd tu it. 
 Houever, the Prezident stuc up, and sed that 
 thai must stand or faul tugether, and that if 
 a breech woz maid it shood be oever hiz 
 body — which woz ment to encuraj the Soesiety : 
 but it didn't. The Prezident further sed, he 
 wood consider the pozishon in which thai 
 stood, and wood giv them hiz best opinion 
 
74 SIMPLIFIED SPELLING 
 
 and advies in a fyu daiz. This woz eegerly 
 looct for, az he nyu a good deel ov the wurld 
 on acount ov hiz faather'z being in the West 
 Indies. 
 
 Aafter daiz and daiz ov hard thincing, and 
 drauing armiz aul oever hiz slait, the Prezident 
 cauld our feloez tugether, and maid the mater 
 cleer. He sed it woz plain that when Oeld 
 Cheeseman caim on the apointed dai, hiz furst 
 revenj wood be tu impeech the Soesiety, and 
 hav it flogd aul round. Aafter witnesing with 
 joi the tortyur ov hiz enemiz, and gloeting 
 oever the criez which agony wood ecstort from 
 them, the probabiUty woz that he wood inviet 
 the Reverend, on pretens ov conversaishon, 
 intu a prievit room — sai the parlor intu which 
 pairents wer shoen, whair the tu grait gloebz 
 wer which wer never yuezd — and wood thair 
 reproech him with the vairius fraudz and 
 opreshonz he had endyuerd at hiz handz. At 
 the cloez ov hiz obzervaishonz he wood maic 
 a signal tu a Priezfieter conseeld in the pasaj, 
 hu wood then apeer and pich intu the Reverend, 
 til he woz left insensibl. Oeld Cheeseman 
 
THE SCUULBOrZ STORY 75 
 
 wood then maic Jane a prezent ov from fiev 
 tu ten poundz, and wood leev the establishment 
 in feendish triumf. 
 
 The Prezident ecsplaind that against the 
 parlor part, or the Jane part, ov theez arainj- 
 ments he had nuthing tu sai, but, on the part 
 ov the Soesiety, he counseld dedly resistans. 
 With this vyu he recomended that aul availabl 
 descs shood be fild with stoenz, and that the 
 furst wurd ov the complaint shood be the 
 signal tu every felo tu let fli at Oeld Cheese- 
 man. The boeld advies poot the Soesiety in 
 beter spirits, and woz yunanimusly taicen. 
 A poest about Oeld Cheeseman'z siez woz poot 
 up in the plaiground, and aul our feloez practist 
 at it til it was dinted aul oever. 
 
 When the dai caim, and plaisez wer cauld, 
 every felo sat doun in a trembl. Thair had 
 been much discusing and dispyueting az tu hou 
 Oeld Cheeseman wood cum; but it woz the 
 jeneral opinion that he wood apeer in a sort 
 ov triumfal car draun bi for horsez, with the 
 livery survants in front, and the Priezfieter in 
 disgiez up behiend. So aul our feloez sat 
 
^^ SIMPLIFIED SPELLING 
 
 lisening for the sound ov wheelz. But no 
 wheelz wer hurd, for Oeld Cheeseman wauct 
 aafter aul, and caim intu the scuul without eny 
 preparaishon. Prety much az he yuest tu be, 
 oenly drest in blac. 
 
 "Jentlmen," sed the Reverend, prezenting 
 him, "our so long respected frend and felo 
 pilgrim in the plezant plainz ov nolej, iz dezierus 
 tu ofer a wurd or tu, Atenshon, jentlmen, 
 wun and aul ! " 
 
 Every felo stoel hiz hand intu hiz desc and 
 looct at the Prezident. The Prezident woz 
 aul redy, and taicing aim at Oeld Cheeseman 
 with hiz iez. 
 
 Whot did Oeld Cheeseman then, but wauc 
 up tu hiz oeld desc, looc round him with a 
 cweer smiel az if thair woz a teer in hiz i, arid 
 begin in a cwaivering mield vols, "Mi deer 
 companionz and oeld frendz ! " 
 
 Every felo'z hand caim out ov hiz desc, and 
 the Prezident sudenly began tu cri. 
 
 " Mi deer companionz and oeld frendz," sed 
 Oeld Cheeseman, "yu hav hurd ov mi good 
 fortyun. I hav paast so meny yeerz under this 
 
THE SCUULBOrZ STORY 77 
 
 ruuf — mi entier lief so far, I mai sai — that I 
 hoep yu hav been glad tu heer ov it for mi 
 saic. I coed never enjoi it without ecschainjing 
 congratyulaishonz with yu. If we hav ever 
 misunderstood wun anuther at aul, prai mi deer 
 boiz let us forgiv and forget. I hav a grait 
 tendernes for yu and I am shuur yu return it. 
 I wont in the fulnes ov a graitful hart tu shaic 
 handz with yu every wun. I hav cum bac tu 
 du it, if yu pleez, mi deer boiz." 
 
 Sins the Prezident had begun tu cri, several 
 uther feloez had broecen out heer and thair; 
 but nou, when Oeld Cheeseman began with 
 him az furst boi, laid hiz left hand afecshonatly 
 on hiz shoelder and gaiv him hiz riet ; and 
 when the Prezident sed, "Indeed I doen't 
 dezurv it ; upon mi onor I doen't," thair woz 
 sobing and criing aul oever the scuul. Every 
 uther felo sed he didn't dezurv it, much in the 
 saim wai ; but Oeld Cheeseman, not miending 
 that a bit, went cheerfuly round tu every boi, 
 and wound up with every maaster — finishing of 
 the Reverend laast. 
 
 Then a sniveling litl chap in a corner, hu 
 
78 SIMPLIFIED SPELLING 
 
 woz aulwaiz under sum punishment or uther, 
 set up a shril cri ov " Sucses tu Oeld Cheese- 
 man! Hoorai!" The Reverend glaird upon 
 him, and sed, ^^ Mr Cheeseman, sur." But, 
 Oeld Cheeseman protesting that he liect hiz 
 oeld naim a grait deel beter than hiz nyu 
 wun, aul our feloez tooc up the cri ; and, for I 
 doen't no hou meny minits, thair woz such a 
 roring ov Oeld Cheeseman, az woz never 
 hurd. 
 
 Aafter that, thair woz a spred in the diening- 
 room ov the moest magnifisent ciend. Foulz, 
 tungz, prezurvzj fruuts, confecshoneriz, jeliz, 
 neegusez, barly shoogar templz, trieflz, cracerz 
 — eet aul yu can and pocet aul yu liec — 
 aul at Oeld Cheeseman'z ecspens. Aafter 
 that, speechez, hoel holidai, dubl and trebl sets 
 ov aul manerz ov thingz for aul manerz ov 
 gaimz, donciz, poeny shaizez and driev yuerself, 
 diner for aul the maasterz at the Seven Belz 
 (twenty poundz a hed our feloez estimaited it 
 at), an anyual holidai and feest ficst for that dai 
 every yeer, and anuther on Oeld Cheeseman'z 
 burthdai — Reverend bound doun befor aul the 
 
THE SCUULBOrZ STORY 79 
 
 feloez tu alou it, so that he cood never bac out 
 — aul at Oeld Cheeseman'z ecspens. 
 
 And didn't our feloez go doun in a body and 
 cheer outsied the Seven Belz ? O no ! 
 
 But thair'z sumthing els besiedz. Doen't 
 looc at the necst story teler, for thair'z mor 
 yet. Necst dai, it woz rezolvd that the Soesiety 
 shood maic it up with Jane, and then be 
 dizolvd. Whot du yu thine ov Jane being gon^ 
 tho ! " "Whot, gon for ever ? " sed our feloez, 
 with long faisez. " Yes, tu be shuur," woz aul 
 the aanser thai cood get. Nun ov the peepl about 
 the hous wood sai enithing mor. At length, 
 the furst boi tooc upon himself tu aasc the 
 Reverend whether our oeld frend Jane woz realy 
 gon ? The Reverend (he haz got a dauter at 
 hoem — turn-up noez, and red) replied seveerly, 
 "Yes, sur, Miss Pitt iz gon." The iedea of 
 cauling Jane Miss Pitt ! Sum sed she had been 
 sent awai in disgrais for talcing muny from 
 Oeld Cheeseman; utherz sed she had gon 
 intu Oeld Cheeseman'z survis at a riez ov ten 
 poundz a yeer. Aul that our feloez nyu woz, 
 she woz gon. 
 
8o SIMPLIFIED SPELLING 
 
 It woz tu or thre munths aafterwerdz, when, 
 wun aafternuun, an oepen carij stopt at the cricet 
 feeld, just outsied boundz, with a laidy and 
 jentlman in it, hu looct at the gaim a long tiem 
 and stood up tu se it plaid. Noebody thaut 
 much about them, until the saim sniveling litl 
 chap caim in, against^ aul ruulz, from the poest 
 whair he woz scout, and sed, " It's Jane ! " 
 Boeth Elevenz forgot the gaim directly, and ran 
 crouding round the carij. It woz Jane ! In such 
 a bonet ! And if yu'l beleev me, Jane woz 
 marid tu Oeld Cheeseman. 
 
 It suun becaim cwiet a regyular thing when 
 our feloez wer hard at it in the plaiground, tu 
 se a carij at the lo part ov the waul whair it 
 joinz the hi part, and a laidy and jentlman 
 standing up in it, loocing oever. The jentlman 
 woz aulwaiz Oeld Cheeseman, and the laidy 
 woz aulwaiz Jane. 
 
 The furst tiem I ever sau them, I sau them in 
 that wai. Thair had been a good meny chainjez 
 amung our feloez then, and it had turnd out 
 that Bob Tarter' z faather wozn't wurth Milionz ! 
 He wozn't wurth enithing. Bob had gon for ^i 
 
THE SCUULBOrZ STORY 8i 
 
 soeljer, and Oeld Cheeseman had purchast his 
 discharj. But that's not the carij. The carij 
 stopt, and aul our feloez stopt as suun az it 
 woz seen. 
 
 "So yu hav never sent me tu Coventry aafter 
 aul ! " sed the laidy, laafing, az our feloez 
 swormd up the waul tu shaic handz with her. 
 " Ar yu never going tu du it ? " 
 
 " Never ! Never ! Never ! " on aul siedz. 
 
 I didn't understand whot she ment then, but 
 ov cors I du nou. I woz very pleezd with her 
 fais, tho, and with her good wai, and I coodn't 
 help looting at her — and at him tu — with aul 
 our feloez clustering so joifuly about them. 
 
 Thai suun tooc noetis ov me az a nyu boi, so 
 I thaut I miet az wel sworm up the waul mieself, 
 and shaic handz with them az the rest did. I 
 woz cwiet az glad tu se them az the rest 
 wer, and woz cwiet az familiar with them in a 
 moement. 
 
 " Oenly a fortniet nou," sed Oeld Cheeseman, 
 " tu the holidaiz. Hu stops ? Enibody ? " 
 
 A good many fingerz pointed at me, and a 
 good meny voisez cried "He duz !" For it woz 
 
82 SIMPLIFIED SPELLING 
 
 the yeer when yu wer aul awai ; and raather lo 
 I woz about it, I can tel yu. 
 
 " O ! " sed Oeld Gheeseman. " But it's soli- 
 tary heer in the holidai tiem. He had beter cum 
 tu us." 
 
 So I went tu thair delietful hous, and woz az 
 hapy az I cood posibly be. Thai understand hou 
 tu conduct themselvz tuwordz boiz, thai du. 
 When thai taic a boi tu the plai, for instans, 
 thai du taic him. Thai doen't go in aafter it's 
 begun, or cum out befor it's oever. Thai no 
 hou tu bring a boi up, tu. Looc at thair oen. 
 Tho he iz very litl az yet, whot a capital boi he 
 iz ! Whi, mi necst faivorit tu Mrs Gheeseman 
 and Oeld Gheeseman iz yung Gheeseman. 
 
 So, nou I hav toeld yu aul I no about Oeld 
 Gheeseman. And it's not much aafter aul, I am 
 afraid, iz it ? 
 
THE DIEVERTING HISTORY OV 
 JOHN GILPIN 
 
 SHOING HOU HE WENT FARTHER THAN HE 
 
 Bi William Cowper 
 
 John Gilpin woz a sitizen 
 
 Ov credit and renoun, 
 A trainband captin eec woz he 
 
 Ov faimus London toun. 
 
 John Gilpin'z spouz sed tu her deer : 
 " Tho weded we hav been 
 
 Theez twies ten teedius yeerz, yet we 
 No holidai hav seen. 
 
 " Tumoro iz our weding dai, 
 And we wil then repair 
 
 Untu the Bel at Edmonton, 
 Aul in a shaiz and pair. 
 
 83 
 
84 SIMPLIFIED SPELLING 
 
 " Mi sister, and mi sister'z chield, 
 Mieself and children thre 
 
 Wil fil the shaiz ; so yu must ried 
 On horsbac aafter we." 
 
 He suun replied, " I du admier 
 Ov woomanciend but wun, 
 
 And yu ar she, mi deerest deer, 
 Thairfor it shal be dun. 
 
 " I am a linendraiper boeld, 
 Az aul the wurld duth no, 
 
 And mi good frend, the calender, 
 Wil lend hiz hors tu go." 
 
 Cwoth Mrs Gilpin, " That's wel sed ; 
 
 And for that wien iz deer, 
 We wil be furnisht with our oen, 
 
 Which iz boeth briet and cleer." 
 
 John Gilpin cist hiz luving wief ; 
 
 Oerjoid woz he tu fiend 
 That, tho on plezher she woz bent, 
 
 She had a fruugal miend. 
 
JOHN GILPIN 85 
 
 The morning caim, the shaiz woz braut, 
 
 But yet woz not aloud 
 Tu driev up tu the dor, lest aul 
 
 Shood sai that she woz proud. 
 
 So thre dorz of the shaiz woz staid 
 
 Whair thai did aul get in ; 
 Sics preshus soelz, and aul agog 
 
 Tu dash thru thic and thin. 
 
 Smac went the whip, round went the wheelz, 
 
 Wer never foec so glad ; 
 The stoenz did rati underneeth, 
 
 Az if Cheapside wer mad. 
 
 John Gilpin, at hiz horse'z sied 
 
 Seezd faast the floing main, 
 And up he got, in haist tu ried. 
 
 But suun caim doun again ; 
 
 For sadltre scairs reecht had he, 
 
 Hiz jurny tu begin. 
 When turning round hiz hed he sau 
 
 Thre customerz cum in. 
 
86 SIMPLIFIED SPELLING 
 
 So doun he cairn ; for los ov tiem, 
 
 Altho it greevd him sor, 
 Yet los ov pens, ful wel he nyu, 
 
 Wood trubl him much mor. 
 
 'T woz long befor the customerz 
 
 Wer syueted tu thair miend, 
 When Betty screeming caim dounstairz, 
 
 " The wien iz left behiend ! " 
 
 " Good lac ! " cwoth he ; " yet bring it me, 
 
 Mi lethern belt liecwiez, 
 In which I bair mi trusty sord. 
 
 When I du ecsersiez." 
 
 Nou, Mistres Gilpin (cairful soel !) 
 
 Had tu stoen botlz found, 
 Tu hoeld the licor that she luyd, 
 
 And ceep it saif and sound. 
 
 Eech botl had a curling eer, 
 
 Thru which the belt he dru. 
 And hung a botl on eech sied, 
 
 Tu maic his balans tru. 
 
JOHN GILPIN 87 
 
 Then oever aul, that he raiet be 
 
 Ecwipt from hed tu to, 
 Hiz long red cloec, wel brusht and neet 
 
 He manfuly did thro. 
 
 Nou se him mounted wuns again 
 
 Upon hiz nimbi steed, 
 Ful sloely paising oer the stoenz, 
 
 With caushon and good heed. 
 
 But Sending suun a smuuther roed 
 
 Beneeth hiz welshod feet, 
 The snorting beest began tu trot, 
 
 Which gauld him in hiz seet. 
 
 So fair and softly, John he cried, 
 
 But John he cried in vain ; 
 That trot becaim a galop suun, 
 
 In spiet OY curb and rain. 
 
 So stuuping doun, az needz he must 
 
 Hu can not sit upriet, 
 He graaspt the main with boeth hiz handz, 
 
 And eec with aul hiz miet. 
 
88 SIMPLIFIED SPELLING 
 
 Hiz hors, hu never in that sort 
 
 Had handld been befor, 
 Whot thing upon hiz bac had got 
 
 Did wunder mor and mor. 
 
 Awai went Gilpin, nee or naut ; 
 
 Awai went hat and wig ; 
 He litl dremt, when he set out, 
 
 Ov runing such a rig. 
 
 The wind did bio, the cloec did fli, 
 Liec streemer long and gai, 
 
 Til, luup and buton fauling boeth, 
 At laast it flu awai. 
 
 Then miet aul peepl wel dissurn 
 
 The botlz he had slung ; 
 A botl swinging at eech sied, 
 
 Az hath been sed or sung. 
 
 The dogz did bare, the children screemd. 
 
 Up flu the windoez aul ; 
 And every soel cried out, "Wel dun! " 
 
 Az loud az he cood haul. 
 
JOHN GILPIN 89 
 
 Awai went Gilpin — hu but he ; 
 
 Hiz faim suun spred around : 
 He cariz wait ! he riedz a rais, 
 
 'T iz for a thouzand pound ! 
 
 And stil az faast az he dru neer, 
 
 'T woz wunderful tu vyu, 
 Hou in a tries the turnpiec men 
 
 Thair gaits wied oepen thru. 
 
 And nou az he went bouing doun 
 
 Hiz reecing hed ful lo, 
 The botlz twain behiend hiz bac 
 
 Wer shaterd at a bio. 
 
 Doun ran the wien intu the roed, 
 
 Moest pitius tu be seen, 
 Which maid hiz horse'z flancs tu smoec, 
 
 Az thai had.baisted been. 
 
 But stil he seemd tu cary wait 
 
 With lethern gurdl braist ; 
 For aul miet se the botlnecs, 
 
 Stil dangling at hiz waist. 
 
go SIMPLIFIED SPELLING 
 
 Thus aul thru mery Islington 
 
 Thoez gambolz he did plai, 
 Until he caim untu the Wash 
 
 Ov Edmonton so gai ; 
 
 And thair he thru the wosh about 
 
 On boeth siedz ov the wai, 
 Just liec untu a trundling mop, 
 
 Or a wield guus at plai. 
 
 At Edmonton hiz luving wief 
 
 From the balcony espied 
 Her tender huzband, wundering much 
 
 Tu se hou he did ried. 
 
 " Stop, stop, John Gilpin ! heer'z the hous ! " 
 
 Thai aul aloud did cri ; 
 " The diner waits, and we ar tierd " ; 
 
 Sed Gilpin " So am I ! " 
 
 But yet hiz hors woz not a whit 
 
 Incliend tu tary thair ; 
 For whi ? hiz oener had a hous 
 
 Ful ten mielz of, at Ware. 
 
JOHN GILPIN 91 
 
 So, liec an aro swift he flu, 
 
 Shot bi an archer strong ; 
 So did he fli — which bringz me tu 
 
 The midl ov mi song. 
 
 Awai went Gilpin, out ov breth, 
 
 And sor against hiz wil. 
 Til at hiz frend the calender'z, 
 
 Hiz hors at laast stood stil. 
 
 The calender, amaizd tu se 
 
 Hiz naibor in such trim, 
 Laid doun hiz piep, flu tu the gait, 
 
 And thus acosted him : 
 
 "Whot nyuez? whot nyuez? yuer tiedingz tel ! 
 
 Tel me yu must and shal — 
 Sai whi bairheded yu ar cum. 
 
 Or whi yu cum at aul ? " 
 
 Nou Gilpin had a plezant wit 
 
 And luvd a tiemly joec ; 
 And thus untu the calender 
 
 In mery giez he spoec : 
 
92 SIMPLIFIED SPELLING 
 
 " I caim becauz yuer hors wood cum, 
 
 And, if I wel forboed, 
 Mi hat and wig wil suun be heer ; 
 
 Thai ar upon the roed." 
 
 The calender, riet glad tu fiend 
 
 Hiz frend in mery pin, 
 Returnd him not a singl wurd. 
 
 But tu the hous went in. 
 
 When strait he caim with hat and wig ; 
 
 A wig that floed behiend ; 
 A hat not much the wurs for wair, 
 
 Eech cumly in its ciend. 
 
 He held them up, and in hiz turn 
 
 Thus shoed hiz redy wit : 
 " Mi hed iz twies az big az yuerz. 
 
 Thai thairfor needz must fit. 
 
 "But let me scraip the durt awai 
 That hangz upon yuer fais ; 
 
 And stop and eet, for wel yu mai 
 Be in a hungry cais." 
 
JOHN GILPIN 93 
 
 Sed John, " It iz mi weding dai, 
 And aul the wurld wood stair 
 
 If wief shood dien at Edmonton, 
 And I shood dien at Ware." 
 
 So turning tu hiz hors, he sed : 
 
 " I am in haist tu dien ; 
 'T woz for yuer plezher yu caim heer, 
 
 Yu shal go bac for mien." 
 
 Aa, lucles speech, and buutles boest 
 
 For which he paid ful deer ; 
 For, whiei he spaic, a braiing as 
 Did sing moest loud and cleer ; 
 
 Whairat hiz hors did snort, az he 
 
 Had hurd a lion ror, 
 And galopt of with aul hiz miet, 
 
 Az he had dun befor. 
 
 Awai went Gilpin, and awai 
 Went Gilpin'z hat and wig : 
 
 He lost them suuner than the furst ; 
 For whi ? thai wer tu big. 
 
94 SIMPLIFIED SPELLING 
 
 Nou Mistres Gilpin, when she sau 
 Her huzband poesting doun 
 
 Intu the cuntry far awai, 
 She poold out haaf a croun ; 
 
 And thus untu the yueth she sed, 
 That droev them tu the Bel, 
 
 " This shal be yuerz, when yu bring bac 
 Mi huzband saif and wel." 
 
 The yueth did ried, and suun did meet 
 
 John cuming bac amain ; 
 Huum in a tries he tried tu stop 
 
 Bi caching at hiz rain ; 
 
 But not performing whot he ment, 
 
 And gladly wood hav dun. 
 The frieted steed he frieted mor. 
 
 And maid him faaster run. 
 
 Awai went Gilpin, and awai 
 Went poestboi at hiz heelz ; 
 
 The poestboi'z hors riet glad tu mis 
 The lumbering oy the wheelz. 
 
JOHN GILPIN 95 
 
 Sics jentlmen upon the roed, 
 
 Thus seing Gilpin fli, 
 With poestboi scampering in the reer, 
 
 Thai raizd the hyu and cri : 
 
 " Stop theef ! stop theef ! A hiewaiman ! " 
 Not wun ov them woz myuet ; 
 
 And aul and eech that paast that wai 
 Did join in the persyuet. 
 
 And nou the turnpiec gaits again 
 
 Flu oepen in short spais ; 
 The toelmen thincing az befor 
 
 That Gilpin ran a rais. 
 
 And so he did, and wun it tu, 
 
 For he got furst tu toun ; 
 Nor stopt til whair he had got up 
 
 He did again get doun. 
 
 Nou let us sing, long liv the Cing 
 
 And Gilpin, long liv he ! 
 And when he necst duth ried abraud, 
 
 Mai I be thair tu se ! 
 
 TURNBULL AND SFEAR5| PRINTERS, EDINBURGH 
 
Simplified Spelling Society 
 
 PRESIDENT 
 Professor GILBERT MURRAY, LL.D., D.Litt., F.B.A. 
 
 VICE-PRESIDENTS 
 HENRY BRADLEY, M.A., Ph.D. 
 
 Professor JAMES W. BRIGHT, Ph.D., Litt.D., LL.D. 
 The Right Hon. JAMES BRYCE, D.C.L., LL.D., F.R.S. 
 ANDREW CARNEGIE, LL.D. 
 THOMAS R. LOUNSBURY, LL.D., L.H.D. (President of the 
 
 Simplified Spelling Board, U.S.A.). 
 THOMAS J. MACNAMARA, M,P., LL.D., M.A. 
 Sir JAMES A. H. MURRAY, M.A., LL.D., D.C.L., D.Litt., 
 
 Ph.D. 
 Sir WILLIAM RAMSAY, K.C.B., LL.D., D.Sc, M.D., &c. 
 MICHAEL E. SADLER, C.B., M.A., LL.D., Vice-Chancellor 
 
 of the University of Leeds. 
 The Rev. Professor SKEAT, Litt.D., LL.D., D.C.L., Ph.D. 
 
 (Past President). 
 
 COMMITTEE 
 
 WILLIAM ARCHER, M.A. {Secntary). 
 
 E. R. EDWARDS, D.Litt. (Paris). 
 
 Miss GAVIN, M.A. 
 
 HENRY FRANK HEATH, B.A., Ph.D. 
 
 H. STANLEY JEVONS, M.A., B.Sc. 
 
 DANIEL JONES, M.A. 
 
 Professor A. S. NAPIER, D.Litt., &c. 
 
 ALFRED W. POLLARD, M.A. 
 
 Professor WALTER RIPPMANN, M.A. {Treasurer). 
 
 Professor H. C. K. WYLD, B.Litt. 
 
 Offices— 44 GREAT RUSSELL ST., LONDON, W.C. 
 
Date 19 
 
 To the Secretary, Simplified Spelling Society, 
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