Page:Handbook of simplified spelling.djvu/14

6 tory of their nativ tung, sought to emfasize their classical erudition by attempts to indicate in their spelling the real or supposed derivations of English words from the Latin and the Greek. In this way b came to be inserted in debt by those who deemd it important to trace the origin of the word directly back to the Latin debitum, rather than thru the French dette (early modern English dette, det). Thus, too, came c into scissors, from a supposed derivation of the word from the Latin scindere, whereas its true basis is caedere, to cut. The Old French form is cisoires. Chaucer has sisoures. So, also, came s into island, assumed to be derived, like isle, from the Latin insula, whereas the i really represents a quite independent Old English word that sur- vives in ey-ot, Batters-ea, Angles-ey, Aldern-ey, etc. Isle itself, tho so speld in the earliest Old French, with the s pronounst, had been simplified to ile, to accord with the changed pronunciation, at the time the word was adopted into Middle English as ile, yle. It was speld ile by Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Milton, and other modern English writers.

Unsounded and Unsound

The unsounded and misleading g was inserted into sovereign thru a desire to connect it with reign (Latin regnare), whereas the word comes from the Low Latin superanus, and is speld souerain by Chaucer, sovran by Milton. The g ' s in foreign, deign, campaign, hav not even so poor an excuse as this for their use; they can only plead an indefensible analogy. But the g looks learned to the uninformd, and makes the spelling harder. Examples of such pedantic distortions of English spelling during this period might be multiplied indefinitly.