American Language Supplement 2 (60 page)

The Simplified Spelling Board, which walked high, wide and handsome during the lifetime of its angel, Andrew Carnegie, began to fade after his death in 1919, and since then not much has been heard from it.
¹
But its English opposite number, the Simplified Spelling Society, is still affluent and active, and a large number of private spelling reformers whoop up various seductive but antagonistic schemes in both countries. One of the latter is Fred S. C. Wingfield, a Chicago printer who launched what he called Fwnetik Orthqgrafi in 1928, and has since supplemented it with a rather less alarming Systematized Spelling. Wingfield is a thoughtful student of the subject, and some of his publications are of decided value – for example, his study of the vowels in the present English alphabet,
²
and his discussion of the projects of other spelling reformers.
³
Among the latter he distinguishes five groups, as follows:

There is a specimen of Wingfield’s Fwnetik Orthqgrafi, as it ran in 1931, in AL4, pp. 404–405. Since then he has changed it considerably, and by 1944 it had become Fonetik Crthografi.
¹
In most of its forms it has used
dh
for
the
and the two sounds of
th, j
for
ee, q
for the
o
of
for
and the
a
of
father
, and
ei
for the
a
of
name
, but otherwise it has shown a great deal of variation from time to time, with a general trend toward simplification. In its latest incarnation it turns the first sentence of the Declaration of Independence into the following:

Here, says Wingfield, “nearly 11.9% of the words are unchanged; more than 28.4% are but slightly altered. Consequently 40.3% of the words can be immediately read without any prior study of the system.” Even so, it seems to be too much for the customers, so its author has devised the aforesaid Systematized Spelling, which he calls “a reformed orthography for a new eera,” as a sort of concession to their weakness. What it comes to is shown by the following rendering of the Gettysburg Address:

Another diligent spelling reformer is Ralph Gustafson, of Moorestown, N. J. His system is based upon the Anglic of the late Professor R. E. Zachrisson, of Uppsala,
¹
and an English scheme called Simpl Orderli Speling, but he has introduced modifications in order to get rid of “a strickli British stiel uv pronunsiaeshon tu wich moest Amerikanz ar not akustomed.” In October, 1945, he sent out a circular warning his followers that his system “iz exsperimental and must not be regarded az definit or fienal.”

After 1941 one of the most persistent American advocates of a wholesale reform in orthography was the Hon. Robert L. Owen, a former Senator from Oklahoma.
²
He had designed a new alphabet, adapted to all languages, at some time in the past, but it was the attack on Pearl Harbor, according to his own story, that determined him “to perfect this matter.”
³
His alphabet, at the start, greatly resembled the series of strokes, curves and hooks used by the principal systems of shorthand, and the different characters in a word were usually joined by ligatures,
⁴
but he later simplified it, and in its final form it consisted of about 40 characters, to be printed separately as the letters of ordinary English are printed.
⁵
The hon. gentleman’s years and past services got him friendly attention in Congress, and his pronunciamentos were frequently printed in the Appendix to the
Congressional Record
by amiable Senators and Representatives,
⁶
but when he had a hearing before the Senate committee
on foreign relations, in 1945, his claim that his alphabet was “a perfect key to all languages – a key which can be learned in one day” – suffered somewhat under the cross-examination of the learned Senator Theodore Francis Green, of Rhode Island. His chief adjutant in his crusade was Dr. Janet H. C. Meade, who also suffered at the same hands. She appeared as secretary of the World Language Foundation, Inc.

Wingfield occasionally reports on the schemes of rival reformers, with criticisms. Thus when a lady by the name of Miss Ruby Oliver Foulk announced “a refrmeishn v dh Ixglish laexgwidzh az wel az a nuli dyvaizd speling”
¹
he dismissed it on the ground that, like the International Phonetic Alphabet, it made use of new characters – “an
aelfa
-laik keratr fcr dh vqwl in
father, army, not, aunt, guard
, and a simble rjsembling Grjk
thjta
fcr dh vqwl in
full, wolf, foot
” – and that these characters collided with the fact that “qur taipraitrz, lainotaips, mqnotaip mashjnz n dzhqb fqnts” were “nqt ikwipt widh” them. And when a Canadian brother, Ernest B. Roberts, of Toronto, launched a new system in a pamphlet entitled “Spel-Rid-Ryt” Wingfield reported that he could not “giv iz prapozd rifcrm a veri hai reiting, fcr it pru:vz ta by simpli anadhr nu letr skjm.” Two of the new letters, he admitted, were “wel chosen: tailed
n
for
ng-singer
and the IPA sign for
sh
,” but he had his doubts about “a
q
-like letter for
o-ode
,” a reversed
c
for
ch
, an
e
-like character for
th-thin
, and a reversal of the
e
-like letter for
th-then
. So far as I know, Wingfield never examined the system projected by L. Julian McIntyre in 1925,
²
but it was noticed and dismissed loftily by an anonymous reviewer in
American Speech
.
³
Its author described it as “no panfuli rot out formula brot tu perfekshon bi yerz of pashent studi, but merli a common sens us of the karakturz olreadi provided and aksepted az substitutz for the spokn word” and estimated that it would save the American people more than $5,000,000 a year, but he apparently found that not many of them were interested. William Russell seems to have had no better luck with a far
more modest scheme that he proposed in 1946,
¹
though he had kind words from a number of respected authorities on speech, including Arthur G. Kennedy and Josiah Combs. Russell mentioned Wingfield’s Fonetik Crthqgrafi politely, but did not come out for it. His system consisted mainly of shortened forms that are already in more or less use,
e.g., apothem, brunet, burlesk, catalog, cigaret, fantom, foto, furlo, gild, nabor, nite, rime, sulfur, theater, tho, thoro, thru, vinyard, wilful
and
wo
. But “such forms as
BarBQ
and
R U going 2 the Cside
,” he cautioned, “are not to be recommended.”

A great many other private spelling reformers are in practise (or have been recently in practise) in the Republic,
e.g
., William J. Nixon, of Philadelphia; Iva Doty, of Bellflower, Calif.; Andrew C. Clark, of New Milford, Conn.; J. F. Hayden, of High Point, N. C.; William Simms Prosser, of San José, Calif.; John T. Gause, of New York; Carl A. Berg, of Minot, N. Dak.; William McDevitt, of San Francisco;
²
Edwin B. Davis, of Rutgers University; James Juvenal Hayes, of Oklahoma City; Arthur G. Smith, of Bryan, O.; Drew Allison, of San Antonio, Tex.; Robert E. Bullard, of Takoma Park, Md.; Elmer G. Still, of Livermore, Calif.; Frank C. Laubach and R. F. Chapin. Chapin’s scheme was set forth in the
Rotarian
in 1939,
³
but I have heard no more of it. Bullard’s, so far as I know, has never been printed, but he tells me
⁴
that its essential points are as follows: use
ä
for the
a
-sound in
hat, ae
for that in
ate
, and plain
a
for that in
halt
; drop
c, q, w
and
x
altogether, and
y
as a consonant; restrict
e
to the sound in
get, i
to that in
it, o
to that in
only, g
to that in
get, u
to that in
under
and
sunk
; use
y
for the
oo
-sound in
suit
and
boot;
use
ei
for the
i
-sound in
right
and
sign
, and
ie
for that in
beat
and
reek
; use
au
for the vowel in
cow
. Bullard estimates that his proposed changes would reduce the length of about 80% of all common words, leave 17% as now, and lengthen 3%.

Gause presents his project in the form of a game-book.
⁵
He proposes to use
y
with its tail turned to the right for the long
i
, and to indicate the other long vowels by putting dashes over them. He offers a capital
f
turned backward for the sound of
th
in
that
and a
v
upside down for the diphthong in
house
. Like most other spelling
reformers he substitutes
k
for hard
c, s
for soft
c, kw
for
qu
, and
ks
for
x
. He puts
c
to use by giving it the sound of
oo
in
good
, and
q
by giving it that of
a
in
all
. He indicates the sound of
th
in
three
by putting an
h
before his reversed
f
, that of
ch
in
church
by using
tsh
, that of the middle consonant in
vision
by
j
, and that of the
j
of
jig
by
dj
. Nixon’s system, which he calls E Z Speling,
¹
is a sort of shorthand. He advocates using & for
and, u
for
you, 2
for
to, too
and
two, c
for
see
and
sea, $
for
dollar, t
for
tee
and
tea, r
for
are, i
for
eye, 8
for
ate, x
for
ex
, etc. He is a foe of all redundant letters and uses
iland, leag, lether, lo
(low),
mor, orfan, revu
(review),
si
(sigh),
tung, yern
and
hol
(whole). His system, of course, would vastly multiply homophones. He attempts to get rid of this difficulty by the use of spaces, so that
tal e
(tally), for example, is thus differentiated from
tale
. But there are plenty of other cases in which he seems unable to solve the problem,
e.g., borrow
and
borough
, both of which become
boro; soup
, which becomes
sup
, and
glean
, which becomes
glen
. He makes heavy use of figures and of the sounds of letters, so that
expose
becomes
x pose, eyebrow i bro
, and
energy n er g
. Sometimes he slips on pronunciations, as when he turns
nucleus
into
nuclus
and
opium
into
opum
.

One of the simplest of the American schemes of reformed spelling is that of Hayes, who is professor of English at Oklahoma City University.
²
He rejects
c, x
and
q
and adds no new characters, so that his alphabet is reduced to twenty-three letters. Like Gause, he proposes to indicate the long sound of vowels by putting dashes over them. The ordinary form of
a
is used for the sound in
father
and
alms, ā
for that in
claim
and
paint
, and
ae
for that in
bat
and
clam
. Ordinary
e
is used in
beg
and
crept
, and
ē
in
creep
and
degree
. Ordinary
o
suffices in
order
, but
ō
is substituted in
toad
and
enroll
. Ordinary
u
is used both in cases where it is pure, as in
up
and
shun
, and in cases where it is preceded by the palatal glide, as in
pure
and
refuse
. To indicate its sound in
urn
and
first, ur
is used – and Hayes disregards the possible confusion with
pure
. For the sound in
fair
and
error, er
is used, and for that in
wool
and
good, uu. Oi
is used in
boy, toil
, etc.,
oo
in
food, do
, etc., and
ou
in
out, bough, crowd
, etc.
Kw
is generally substituted for
qu, tsh
for the
ch
-sound in
change, zh
for the first consonant in
azure, ks
for
x
in
vex
, and
gz
for
x
in
exist
. The sound of
th
in
thin
is represented as now, but in
this
it is changed to
dh
. The result is as follows: