Manchester Memoirs, Vol. Ixv. (192 1), No. 6 15 



steps to alter the 1,500 homonyms, a list of which can be 

 found in Skeat's "Etymological Dictionary"? It is cer- 

 tainly a defect in a language that words of different meanings 

 should be either sounded or spelt alike. If an academy were 

 founded, having charge of the pronunciation and spelling of 

 English words, one of its duties would be to remove such 

 homonyms as caused confusion. 



(4) It has also been argued that language is now making 

 continual progress, and that this progress is beneficial. It is 

 further argued that it would be inconvenient to keep on 

 changing the spelling to suit the changing pronunciation. 

 Now as a matter of fact, the change in spelling, in the days 

 before it was standardized in our dictionaries, was very much 

 more rapid than the change in the words. The old manu- 

 scripts written in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries give 

 us a phonetic rendering of many words as we have them 

 to-day : the sound has been unchanged for hundreds of years ; 

 and yet through the uncertainty about the right use of vowels 

 and consonants the spelling has been very varied, until Dr. 

 Johnson made a rigid casting of the spelling. Since then it 

 has not altered. With the exception of a comparatively few 

 words, no progress in our spelling has been made for two 

 hundred years. If we want progress in our language we 

 cannot adopt a worse plan than to stereotype our absurd 

 spelling as we have done. With an academy looking after 

 the well-being of our language, natural and useful change 

 would be possible. At present it is practically impossible. 

 There is a slow change in our pronunciation, but it is not 

 accompanied by a change in our spelling. 



(5) As a last ditch those who oppose reformed spelling- 

 rely upon the following argument : " There are in English 

 two languages, a spoken and a written language. There 

 is no reason why they should be the same : from the 

 very nature of things they cannot be the same. When we 

 read, the written page passes to the brain without pronuncia- 

 tion, and the question of phonetics does not arise at all." 

 This argument gives away our opponents' case absolutely : 

 it admits that already the written language is such a poor 

 representation of the spoken language that the connection 

 between them can no longer be defended. Thus the only 

 logical position for them is, that there need be no connection. 

 This preposterous argument leaves out of account entirely 

 the fact that people sometimes read aloud, that all 

 children have to learn to read, and that we always 

 necessarily make a connection betwen the written and the 



