Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 May 1875 — An Argument Against Phonetic Spelling. [ARTICLE]

An Argument Against Phonetic Spelling.

The spelling-mania has revived all the theories about phonetic spelling, and from many quarters come formidable assaults upon our whole English method of constructing words. The Home Journal nas been specially zealous for a new departure in orthography and has been attempting to show its readers how tremendous is the waste of time and energy by writers and printers in consequence of the number of words over-weighted with letters. That a few simplifications of our orthography are desirable is not to be denied; but phonetic spelling, so-called, seems to us an impracticable delusion. In the first place no method can be devised by which the sound of a combination of letters can bear an accurate relation to the sounds of the letters when separated. In so simple a word as cat there is neither the of c, nor of a, nor of t, and yet all that phonetic spelling can do to aid the matter is to substitute k for c. We may get nearer to phonetic spelling by a few changes of this character, but many of the suggestions for a new spelling would only throw the language into confusion. It is proposed, for instance, that would and could should be rendered wud and cud. Is it not manifest at once that these words, so spelled, indicate the short sound of the vowel and would be inevitably pronounced so as to rhyme with bud ? The I might be dronped to advantage, perhaps; and this' is all. There are many silent letters in words that are yet useful in determining the pronunciation, especially as to the sound of the preceding vowel. The final letter in shade, rate, hate, site, is silent; yet if we strike it out the words are changed and become shad, rat, hat, sit. A series of vowel-markings could be adopted, it is true, which would indicate the long or short sound, and in instances like the above determine the meaning of the word, but writers, if not printers, would scarcely find the necessity of marking every vowel an economy of time or labor. But even if the suppression of silent letters should accomplish all that is claimed for it as a conservator of energy there are yet good reasons why its introduction should be resisted.

Phonetic spelling assumes that utility is the sole law of being. It is a theory that comprehends only a very smadl part of the subject—a theory that does not see that words are not merely sounds, but have form, proportion, and a certain aesthetic character that would be outraged in their spoliation. Our language has not grown up so capriciously as is supposed. Words are rooted down in our natures and our habits; they have grown out of conditions and perceptions that bear a subtile but no less certain relation to their forms and proportions; they embody not only a world ,of memories and associations, but have character, color and quality for the eye, as well as sound for the ear. When our American iconoclasts cast out the u trom words dike colour, honour, etc., they paused before Savior, which they reverently hesitated to despoil in the „ slightest degree. If the sole purpose of words were to convey facts, we should then naturally seek for the most expeditious and compact method of presenting them; but literature is very largely an fart designed to confer pleasure. The principal charm of many writers consists of their graces of style, amid which it is our delight to linger. We hang over the mellow tone, the play of light and shade, the Soft and insinuating melody of words ; we epjoy the affluence, of the sentences, the easy, lingering methods, the abundant luxuriance of phrase and expression; we are embowered, as it were, amid a fruithful growth and expansion of choicely:woven words; and nothing would be

less consonant to the whole spirit of this literature than an attenuated and meager orthography, wholly colorless and barbaric, stripped to its bare, logical proportions. There have entered into the construction of words a few idle caprices, no doubt; but there have also entered an aistbetic feeling for proportion, a passion for swelling roundness of form; and dry and enough would our printed sentences appear if shorn of all their “outward’limbs and flourishes.” We are not yet prepared to surrender the associations of our language to the needs of commerce and statistics, which may invent their own short-hand methods if they desire, provided their devices are kept from literature in all its aesthetic utterances.— Appleton's Journal.