SCIENTIFIC SPELLING 369 



every year in the nation's printing bill. They are not employed 

 only because of public inertia and because of the opposition of 

 a few people who imagine that they may change the spirit of 

 the language. With regard to the third class of schemes, 

 adoption is much more difficult owing to the necessity of 

 selection. Literally a score of good schemes may be devised 

 under this heading, each possessing something to commend it. 

 The system of the Simplified Speling Soesiety belongs to 

 the digraphic group, but, like other systems of this group, has 

 the defect of using many letters and of failing to indicate the 

 syllabic stress — which is just as important as the length of the 

 vowels, and which can be easily given by well-arranged dia- 

 critical systems. The latter group also saves money in printing, 

 but requires the insertion of marks in writing and typing. The 

 new-letter systems are, of course, ideally the best, but are 

 usually so expensive and troublesome to print that they cannot 

 be used at once. They also require selection ; and, moreover, 

 such excellent diacritical systems may be devised that the 

 necessity for costly new letters is not always apparent. Few of 

 the proposed schemes (apart from strictly phonetic ones) ever 

 attempt to indicate the syllabic stresses. 



The scheme now suggested by me belongs to none of these 

 classes. In its simplest form it consists merely in the intro- 

 duction of a diacritic to mark the syllabic stress on certain 

 vowels, without making any actual change at all in the accepted 

 spelling. The rule under which this is done serves, not only 

 to indicate the accent in many words, but also to give the 

 quality of the vowels in others, or, at least, to show where 

 irregularity occurs. The scheme does not of course perfect 

 our spelling, but it improves it greatly without altering it. If 

 anything, it adds elegance to it, especially in verse ; and can 

 be employed at once in printing with little additional cost. The 

 scheme can be extended by the employment, if we please, of 

 more than one diacritic, and will thus serve as an introduction 

 to more ambitious schemes. Combined with the first two 

 schemes mentioned above, it will give us what is almost an 

 homography in place of our present jumble. 



Let us begin, however, with the simplest form, and suppose 

 that only one diacritic is allowed. The best mark — the easiest 

 one to write and the most elegant in print — is the acute accent. 1 

 1 Except on z, where it may be replaced by the dieresis. 



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