THE HAMILTON ASSOCIATION. Ill 



" FIVE RULES FOR IMPROVING SPELLING, AS A FIRST STEP 

 TOWARDS A SPELLING REFORM. 



" Rule i. — The letters c, q, x are rejected as useless, and every 

 other consonant is confined to the representation of one sound, as 

 every figure represents one number. 



"Rule 2. — A, e, i, 0, ii, represent the short vowels m J>at, pet, 

 _pit, pot, put ; and u represents, in addition, the vowel in but, double. 

 The diphthongs in bi?id, boy, bound, beauty, are written by ei, oi, ou, 

 iu ; and the open diphthong in naive, Kaiser, by ai. {I, in prefer- 

 ence to ei, is allowed to represent the first personal pronoun.) 



" Rule 3. — Th represents the two sounds in breath, breathe, 

 {called, as single letters, ith, thee,) and the recognized digraphs ch, 

 sh, n§, (called as single letters, chay, ish, ing,) represent the sounds 

 heard in much, wish, sifig. Zh (zhee) is introduced for the voiced 

 ish in vision (vizhon). 



" Rule 4. — In monosyllables, and sometimes in polysyllables, 

 n represents ng before k and g, as think (thingk), anger (ang-ger). 



" Rule 5. — The spelling of the long vowels is not altered, ex- 

 cept in cases of gross irregularity, such as beau (bo), cocoa (koko), 

 receive (reseev), believe (beleev), people (pepel), gaol (jail), because 

 any system of digraphs that might be adopted to represent the long 

 vowels would prejudice the reform. Every letter of the old alpha- 

 bet is used UNIFORMLY, ONLY for the representation of consonants, 

 short vowels, and diphthongs. 



" No chanje iz at present propozed in the speling ov proper 

 namez, or in the teitelz ov buks. This department ov orthografi, ov 

 reit, belongz tu the ownerz ov the namez, the inhabitants ov the 

 plasez, and the reiterz ov the buks." 



The change from the present spelling to that recommended in 

 the above would not prevent anyone accustomed to the ordinary 

 printed page from reading the new at once with comparatively little 

 difificuk)', and a few weeks would prove ample time in which to write 

 with fair freedom. 



It will be seen that the speUing of long vowels is not affected, 

 except is cases of great irregularity. To do this successfully it would 

 be necessary to add new characters to the alphabet, and this is out- 

 side the scope of the " first stage." 



If the question were asked, "Why is the letter ' e' written at 



