Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 69.djvu/547

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that the way in which words arc written evokes an idea of beauty which these same words would lose if they were written otherwise. The people who have this feeling, which is very difficult to analyze, are stylists, caring more for form than for substance, more for words than for ideas; more for the appearance than for the words themselves. Possibly these same people suppose spelling to be immutable in its nature and fixed by law; the exclusive use of recent editions has left them in ignorance of the fact that many of these very words, admirable in their present form, were written differently by the great writers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It would be interesting to know if these words as they were written in the manuscripts of these authors would be as beautiful or less beautiful.

3. The objection which maintains that the proposed changes will lessen the etymological value of words, has only an appearance of weight. It is the opinion of those people who wish to exhibit their youthful studies. Such an argument never has been and never will be advanced by a philologist. To begin with, let us bear in mind, among other points, that these etymological traces interest only the small number of those who have studied Greek and Latin, and that it is not quite fair to overload spelling with useless letters, merely for the satisfaction of a few students of etymology. In former times this was all very well when only a small minority knew how to read and write. But to-day spelling is intended for every one.

4. The objection which maintains that different words written alike will be mistaken for one another is so childish that I hesitate to make a serious refutation. Certainly there are those who insist that we shall no longer understand each other if we write poids (weight) like pois (a vegetable). It is always easy to make puns; but the writers, had they spent a moment's reflection on the subject upon which they give their opinions so freely, would have observed that the French language in its present spelling contains a large number of these homonyms, which are essentially different even though similar in pronunciation and spelling. But these homonyms have never been considered a cause for obscurity. Are there human beings so devoid of sense as to confuse the poids (weight) with the pois (sweet peas), or petits-pois (green peas) when the d is omitted from the former? Possibly; but theirs is a case for the expert in mental pathology. . ..

To sum up: it will not be disputed that our orthography is an incoherent mixture of spellings belonging to different epochs, often modeled on conflicting systems. Is it actually possible to reform spelling so as to make it absolutely logical? The committee whose conclusions I have reviewed thinks not, believing that so extended a reform would necessitate a complete revision for which the time is not ripe. But we can at least eliminate from our customary spelling the most hideous anomalies, and, in a word, simplify it. To accomplish this all that is necessary in many cases is to reestablish the old forms, unfortunately altered at the time of the Renaissance, notwithstanding objections from many thoughtful men of that period. In adopting this course we are not revolutionizing the language, as our opponents constantly allege, perpetually confusing language with spelling. We do not even propose radical changes in spelling, and are accepting all its conventions, even when these are not entirely satisfactory. We revert to the true history of the language, lost at many points by ill-chosen innovations. Ours is really a work of preservation. I have shown that not a single objection advanced has any weight. One thing is in our way—habit; that we shall overcome.

In the more formal report to which his own incisive essay is prefixed M. Meyer is able to deal with other aspects of the case. He sees that the prospect of successive reforms in spelling will perhaps alarm those accustomed to consider the manner of writing a language as subject to fixed and immutable rules:

But since it is impossible to hinder the progress of an idiom, and since it is as impossible to establish its pronunciation forever as to exclude it from the vocabulary, it must be admitted that spelling is not a permanent and unchangeable institution—that, on the contrary, from one time to another, it must undergo modifications in order to remain in accord with pronunciation. However, even a superficial acquaintance with the history of our language is