Show V V I UK I-UK ANCIENT SPELLING V. V Dean Swift About the First to Thunder Thunder Thun Thun- der Against Reforms in English Language In the eighteenth century we find Jonathan Swift whose master of prose is one of ot our delights writing as the very first first article which appeared over his acknowledged name A Proposal Proposal Pro Pre for tori Correcting Improving and aud Ascertaining the English Tongue lIe He lamented that the English tongue lougue was becoming debased but ho attributed the cause In part to the liberties which Dryden and the tho other poets of or orthe I the Restoration had taken In shorten shorten- shortenIng Ing their syllables by omitting those I very ea ss which our spelling reformers would eliminate These gentlemen wrote Swift aV although al a V though they could not be insensible V how much our language was already overstocked with monosyllables yet yetto yetto to save time and pains palua introduced that barbarous custom of or abbreviating V Words to fit them to the measure ol or their their I that most of or the time books we we we see Bee are re full tuB of those thosa V V V IL and abbreviations abbreviations' Dis are among the time words he hue finds especially unpleasant Swift was further annoyed at a foolIsh foolish fool ish opinion advanced of or l late te years ears that we ought to spell exactly as we e 0 speak which besides the obvious Inconvenience In convenience of utterly destroying our etymology would be a thing we should never see an end of oro Also h he noted with Impatience In 1712 It is sometimes a difficult matter to read modern books and pamphlets where the words are so 50 curtailed and varied fro from their original spelling that whoever whoever whoever who who- ever has been used to plain English will hardly know them by sight How many of our new con controversies were waged centuries ago trove cent and behavior lor read your jour our heart and earnestness sour jour our thought and will which he cannot bu buy at any price In any village or city and w which he be may well travel fifty miles aud and dine sparely sparel and sleep hard in order to behold Certainly let the board be I spread and let the bed be dressed for forthe forthe forthe the traveler hut but let not th time the emphasis of ot hospitality lie In those things Honor to the house where here they ar are I simple to the verge verle of oC hardship so that there the Intellect is awake and reads the laws of the universe universe- Emerson V |