From: utzoo!decvax!ittvax!swatt Newsgroups: net.nlang Title: Re: Laissez-Faire spelling reform - (nf) Article-I.D.: ittvax.403 Posted: Thu Aug 5 16:51:42 1982 Received: Sun Aug 8 03:24:25 1982 References: harpo.921 It's interesting to note the current interest in "spelling reform". About 70 years ago, it was also the rage. Progressive educators strove mightily to introduce it. Reed College first opened it's doors in 1911 under President William Trufaunt Foster (I may be spelling his middle name wrong, but to honor his memory, you can think of it as "Wilyam Trufont Fostur" and have the pronunciation right). Anyway, among his collection of zeals was a passion for what was then known as "efficiency spelling", which was an attempt not only to introduce phonetic regularity to English (as used by Americans, of course), but also to reduce the number of letters in words by eliminating all the unsounded ones. This was going on before WWI, so it wasn't just motivated by a paper shortage, but I suppose printing costs were used as one of the arguments to support the idea. He had all the courses emphasise it, had the official college publications use it, and even induced the nominally student-run newspaper to adopt it. Reading through (thru) early volumes of the Reed College Quest ("Kwest", I suppose) is really quite an experience. One wonders what the printers must have thought. Some of the highlights (hilites) are: through thru (even the Chicago Tribune uses this) are ar were wer thought thot ("I thot I thow a putty tat?") believe beleave William did not just dream all this up of course -- it was a general movement of his day. All of this has disappeared without a ripple (ripul?), even around Reed College, unless you go up to the College archives or talk to Dorthy Jo. I conclude (konklud?) from all this that spelling reform, no matter how many "rational" reasons for it, will fail before the inertia of long practice by a whole society. Variant spellings, like variant meanings, are codified when some "misusage" is adopted by enough people to qualify it as acceptable. There are, for example, typewriter keyboard designs with letter placement such that the "average" typist can type typical english 50% faster; they haven't been generally accepted. Presdent Foster? well if he'd been a better manager of college finances, perhaps it would be "Reed Kolege, wer al the wimen ar strong, and al the men ar good looking, and al the dogs ar out scaring the hell the kolege loyer".