188 SAVAGE SUEVIVALS 



In general all silent letters were once sounded. 

 But thru changes in the nationality of words 

 or in the habits of those using them, many letters 

 have fallen into disuse. 



Take the word hniglit. The h and gJi are silent. 

 But our ancestors pronounced them, as the Ger- 

 mans do today their word knecM. So in the 

 French word temps, meaning ^Hime.'^ The p and 

 s are silent. But the Komans, from whom the 

 French got this word, used ail the letters, for they 

 spelled and pronounced it tempiis. 



We happen to be living at a time when a good 

 many English words (too few, however) are being 

 rationalized in their spelling. Why should we add 

 ugh to the word tho, making the word just twice as 

 long as it need be ? Why should we not spell thru 

 as we pronounce it I Or, if we insist on adding the 

 unused ogh. Why not throw in ty or ski for good 

 measure. 



Life is too short to spend half of it in learning 

 to spell. We should have a letter for every sound 

 and a sound for every letter. Then any one in a 

 few hours or days could learn to spell any word in 

 the language, whether he had ever heard the word 

 before or not. If we cease to use any certain 

 sound in a word, we should cease to use in the 

 written word the letter that stands for that sound. 



The twenty-six letters comprising our alphabet 

 were originally pictures. The forms which these 

 letters now have are much-modified survivals of 

 the original pictures from which they have come. 



