SCIENTIFIC SPELLING 365 



sufficiently copious to reproduce human speech— standardised 

 human speech — by a series of easily written and printed symbols 

 of unchanging application ; but it is not necessary to carry our 

 accuracy to a ridiculous extreme by supplying tedious equivalents 

 for every slurred or hesitating utterance. It is this preciosity 

 which has done so much to prejudice busy people against 

 phonetic spelling, or which is driving them into the opposite 

 camp of the Indian Government or Royal Geographical method, 

 one which makes no pretence at being either logical or exact. 



Now comes in the question whether or not we should change 

 the official spelling of our own tongue — English — and adopt 

 some such scientific orthography as that set forth in this article. 

 The reasons against doing so do not seem to me very adequate. 

 They are usually three in number. 



(1) That the phonetic spelling of English must first of all 

 depend on what is to be regarded as the standard pronunciation. 

 If we render it phonetically and logically as it is spoken by 

 educated people in London and Oxford, such a pronunciation is 

 at once out of keeping with that which is in vogue even amongst 

 educated people in Scotland, Ireland, or America, to say nothing 

 of the wide difference between the pronunciation of academic 

 English and dialectal English. 



(2) That in spelling English phonetically we may lose count 

 of the extremely interesting historical etymology of words. 



(3) That the revolution would be so great, so tiresome, so 

 productive of printers' strikes, that it would altogether outweigh 

 the gain in simplicity and the saving of trouble to children and 

 foreigners. 



As regards the first objection, I admit that a standard pro- 

 nunciation must be determined by some committee or educational 

 body whose decision would secure acceptance, at any rate 

 amongst the majority in the United Kingdom, in the United 

 States, and in the great dominions under the British Crown. 

 But once having fixed this standard pronunciation, the whole 

 mass of English-speaking peoples of the world would in course 

 of time adhere to it more or less, especially as it became adopted 

 in their schools. Supposing, however, that the United States, 

 out of national pride, refused to accept the standard of this 

 British committee and set up a standard of its own. American 

 pronunciation, nevertheless, at the present day does not differ 

 more from the pronunciation of the conventional, correct English 



