English spelling and spelling reform

by Thomas Raynesford Lounsbury

To set these details forth is anything but an agreeable task. The subject of sounds and the methods taken to represent them cannot, by the wildest stretch of the imagination, be termed exhilarating. But some notion of it must be gained by him who seeks to get any conception of what must be deemed the main trouble affecting English orthography. This is the reason, and to some must be the excuse, for presenting the results of a piece of drudgery as wearisome as it is thankless. The dose I shall try to make as palatable as possible; but there is no disguising the fact that it is a dose. But it is only by swallowing it, or something akin to it, that men can get any conception of the real evils that afflict English spelling, and of the methods that must be taken to palliate them; for in the present state of public opinion, it is hopeless to attempt to cure them. To a consideration of the orthographic situation the next chapter will therefore be devoted.

FOOTNOTES:

[15] Swift. Journal to Stella, December 14, 1710.

CHAPTER III
THE ORTHOGRAPHIC SITUATION

I
THE PROBLEM

It is with a good deal of hesitation that I approach this part of my subject. To treat it fully, to consider it in all its details, would require a familiarity with the history of sounds, with their precise values, and with the proper way of representing these values, to which I can lay no claim. Though I have given some time to the study of this branch of the general question, I am well aware that my knowledge of it is not the knowledge of a professional, but of an amateur. It is only when I read the attempts of the assailants of spelling reform to write what they are pleased to call phonetically, that my own slender acquaintance with this field of research looms up momentarily before my eyes as endowed with colossal proportions. Fortunately, intimate familiarity with this particular part of the subject is not needed for the end had here in view. To point out the evils afflicting our present system is possible for him who is unable to prescribe a remedy. This is the special task which I set before myself in this section.

It is essential, in the first place, to have clearly before our minds the nature of the problem with which we are called upon to deal. The general statement about it may be and often is summarized in a few words. We are told that in English the same sound is represented by half a dozen signs, and the same sign is used to denote half a dozen sounds. This is all true. Unfortunately, to the vast majority of men it conveys no definite idea. It certainly would not bring clearly before them much conception of the real difficulty. Some of them would even be puzzled to explain what is meant here by the word sign. Most of them have no knowledge whatever of the number and quality of the sounds they use. This remark is not intended as a reproach. Their condition of ignorance is due to no fault of their own. The existing orthography does not content itself with hiding from the ordinary eye all knowledge of phonetic law; it puts a stumbling-block in the way of its acquisition. Accordingly, it does more than permit ignorance of the subject; it fosters it. Men are not led to consider even the most aggressively prominent facts of their own utterance. I have known intelligent young persons, of much more than ordinary ability, who had never learned as a matter of knowledge that the digraph th has two distinct sounds; that were thin pronounced as is then, or then as is thin, we should have in each case another word than the one we actually possess. They had never confused the two in their usage, but as little had they been in the habit of remarking the difference between them. Consequently, when it was brought directly to their attention, it came upon them as a sort of surprise. If a distinction which lies on the very surface could so easily escape notice, what hope can be entertained of gaining a realizing sense of those subtler ones which abound on every side?

The first point, therefore, to be made emphatic is that there is a large number of sounds in the speech and but a limited number of signs in the alphabet. The number of sounds has been variously estimated. It depends a good deal upon the extent to which the orthoepic investigator is disposed to recognize differences more or less subtle and the weight he assigns to each. In general, it may be said that usually the lowest number given is thirty-eight, and the highest forty-four. A very common estimate puts them at forty-two. Exactness on this point is not necessary for the purpose here aimed at, and for the sake of convenience the whole number of sounds will be temporarily assumed to be forty, more or less. To represent these forty sounds we have nominally twenty-six letters. Really we have but twenty-three. Either c or k is supernumerary, as are also x and q.

Here, then, lies the initial difficulty. The Roman alphabet we have adopted has not a sufficient number of letters to do the duty required of it. For us its inability has been further aggravated by the loss of two signs which the language had originally, or acquired early in its history. For the disappearance of these there was later in another quarter a partial compensation in the differentiation of i and j, and of u and v. Of the two vanished signs one was a Rune, called “thorn” or the “thorn letter,” þ, the other a crossed d, represented by ð. They were or could be used to represent the surd or hard initial sound heard in thin just mentioned, and the corresponding sonant or soft sound heard in then. These two letters, unknown to the Roman alphabet, were allowed to die out of general use in the fifteenth century. Of both the digraph th took the place. Yet in one way the so-called thorn letter has left behind a memorial of itself. Its form had something of a resemblance to the black-letter character y. Consequently, when “thorn” ceased to be used, y was at times substituted for it. Especially was this true in the case of the words the and that. These were frequently printed as yᵉ and yᵗ. This form of the latter word disappeared after a while, not merely from use, but practically from remembrance. Ye, however, in the sense of the, but with its initial letter given the sound of y, is fondly cherished and sometimes employed by certain persons, who indulge in the delusion that by so doing they are writing and talking Old English.

The use of this one digraph to represent these two distinct sounds inevitably tends to create uncertainty of pronunciation, if not to produce confusion. We can see this fact exemplified in the case of such words as tithe and path and oath and mouth. In these th has in the singular the surd sound, in the plural the sonant. The proper way of pronouncing them has therefore to be learned carefully in each individual instance, for there is nothing in the spelling to indicate it. Usage in truth is very fluctuating with respect to some of the words in which this digraph appears. In consequence, the question of their pronunciation begets at times much controversy. Still, compared with the uncertainty attending other signs, the perplexities caused by this are of slight importance.