Toggle Shavian
Hi Star & Craig & Steve
I agree running an Ad showing the Shaw Alphabet to give people an
awareness that the Shaw Alphabet is out there, with an easy Internet
window to follow-up on. Perhaps we can offer a simple pamphlet with a
series of graded teaching exercises, that they can fill in on-line
and submit to the Internet to win a prize, with successful entrants
going to the next level with a larger prize.
I don't think the prize has to be that large, but people do like to
win something. Look at the Reader's Digest Scam.
Really, shouldn't a contest be aimed at new learners, in the first
place. Once they are introduced to the idea of a Logical Alphabet for
English, they can go to the spelling reform of their choice.
I had a second question.
I can not understand why more people do not know anything about
Spelling reform or the Shaw Alphabet or even the the ITA alphabet.
I can understand Linguistics professors being in their own little
Ivory tower, but what is this conspiracy of silence from English
Teachers. Are they so tied into Spelling Bee's and Rules of
Punctuation, that they conceal this alternative.
Simon Barne appears to be the only English Teacher propagating this
useful alternative alphabet. And it is not as if there isn't a big
problem teaching children to read using the Roman Alphabet.
English Teachers need to brought on board.
Regards, Paul V.
P.S. Congratulations, Star on knowing a good thing when you see it.
__________________attached____________________________________
--- In shavian@y..., Star Raven <celestraof12worlds@y...> wrote:
> I like the idea. Ads like "Can you read this?" In shaw or
> something.
>
> That's a great thought!
> --Star (who read about it in an English textbook in high
> school and transcribed it from a tiny little picture down
> in the corner...)
> --- Craig Butz <shavian@w...> wrote:
> > In a previous episode, shavian@y... said:
> >
> > > I think it is time to stage a second Shaw alphabet
> > > competition. A $500 price is a small price to pay for
> > > the potential %50,000 worth of publicity such a
> > > competition would generate.
> >
> > I concur that it would be good to generate publicity for
> > spelling reform
> > again somehow, but am skeptical of another contest being
> > the best way to do
> > so. I think you are neglecting the fact that Shaw's name
> > at the time had a
> > lot to do with the contest getting publicity, and as I
> > understand it, the
> > will being contested was newsworthy in itself. Do you
> > really think that in
> > the age of info-glut, when every radio station and fast
> > food chain is giving
> > away thousands of dollars a week in contests, when
> > lotteries spend tens of
> > thousands of dollars running ads to buy tickets for
> > million-dollar prizes,
> > that a $500 prize for a spelling contest would grab the
> > media's attention
> > for dissemination to the masses?
> >
> > Also, as I have argued before, there are already far too
> > many proposals for
> > spelling reform, and since all reform proposals must be
> > compromises and
> > cannot be "perfect," any additional proposals just split
> > our energies.
> > Creating a new "series of inter-related quasi phonemic
> > alphabets starting
> > with an ASCII-bet and ending with an augmented alphabet"
> > doesn't seem to me
> > to be good for the cause.
> >
> > A do, however, agree that we could do some publicity work
> > (although I would
> > suggest that the keyboard issue be worked out before
> > pulling people into a
> > spelling system that is LESS efficient to type than TO.)
> > Here, I think the
> > Shaw alphabet has a great advantage in that it looks so
> > striking. Why not
> > run ads in the shaw alphabet in college newspapers around
> > the country, with
> > a URL to a website for beginners (and people who don't
> > have special fonts
> > installed)?
> >
> > The nature of the Internet is that you only come across
> > the Shaw alphabet by
> > stumbling, or if you already know about it or at least
> > about the existence
> > of spelling reform. Print ads could spark interest among
> > people who would
> > never otherwise come across it.
> >
> > Craig
> >
> >
>
>
> =====
> "You know what they say, 'Human see, Human do.' "
> --Julius, Planet of the Apes
>
> __________________________________________________
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Toggle Shavian
HISTORY OF SPELLING REFORM
This may answer some of the questions that were asked
earlier.--Steve
Spelling and Parliament, by William J. Reed*
To be published in 100 years of spelling reform
An anthology of proposals for reducing the
irregularity and inconsistency in the English writing
system and research on the social consequences of
postponing the reforms required to restore the
connection between speech and print.
------
In Britain we are a parliamentary democracy. We vote
at stated intervals to elect a House of Commons of 635
members. From these, the leader of the largest
political party is called upon by the Sovereign to
choose a Cabinet and form a Government. This
Government is the Executive and is the body which has
the power and the authority to make all decisions
concerning the welfare of the nation.
It is widely believed by many of those who are well
qualified to judge that our spelling conventions are
at present unsatisfactory and that they should be
improved. There is no authority which can improve them
except the authority of Parliament. No individual or
group of individuals can make any effective changes
except through Parliament.
Our present spelling is thought by some to be
'traditional' and will hereinafter be designated
'traditional orthography' or T.O.
It may be objected to what was said in the second
paragraph that T.O. itself was not brought about by
any Act of Parliament and the objection is reasonable.
What we call T.O. was brought about by printers and,
to a lesser extent, by writers during the latter part
of the 17th century. It was unsatisfactory even then,
though not as unsatisfactory then as it has become
since. It has become more unsatisfactory because,
during the intervening three centuries, it has changed
very little, while the language which it is supposed
to represent has changed very much. This
unsatisfactory spelling has continued to be accepted
by the nation because of important reasons, including
the following:
(1) Many millions of copies of the Authorised Version
of the Bible have been printed and read in something
like our present T.O.
(2) Shakespeare's plays also have been printed and
read, not in Shakespeare's spelling but in T.O.
(3) This spelling, with its disadvantages and
imperfections, was accorded the imprimatur of the
formidable Samuel Johnson when he published his
Dictionary in 1755 and when he wrote in his preface:
"I have attempted few alterations, and among those
few, perhaps the greatest part is from modern to
ancient practice." He recommended that people "should
not disturb upon narrow views or for minute propriety
the orthography of their fathers." By this he probably
meant that they should not attempt to change 17th
century spelling to match the great changes that had
taken place in the language. So 17th century spelling
was fastened even more securely on our language.
A second objection might be that thoroughgoing
spelling and alphabet reform were introduced in
Turkey, 1928, by the efforts of one man, namely Kemell
Ataturk; but the circumstances were quite different
because Turkey at that time was not a parliamentary
democracy such as we are now. A third possible
objection is that important changes were made in
American spelling by Noah Webster; but his Elementary
Spelling Book of 1783 is said to have sold more than
100 million copies and to have had the approval of no
less a person and Benjamin Franklin. Webster's
American Dictionary of the English Language, 1828, was
quickly accepted as the standard for spelling and
subsequent editions maintained this authority. It is
difficult to see how that sort of change could be
brought about in contemporary Britain by any one man
or by any small group of men, however eminent.
When compulsory schooling was introduced by Parliament
a century ago, the principal concern of the authority
might well have been to give children a good education
in their native language and literature: more
consistent spelling might have been agreed on and
introduced. The attention of the authorities was,
however, distracted by other considerations which
seemed at that time to be even more urgent. Social and
industrial changes were affecting villages and, even
more, towns. Families with children were uprooted.
Many authorities found that their foremost task was
not to provide children with a good education but to
get them off the streets. As the historian, G. M.
Young, wrote: "In 1870 the essential was to get the
children somehow into some sort of school . . . In
Birmingham, forty out of every hundred children were
running loose in the streets, while in Manchester the
figure was as high as 50 out of every hundred." [1]
Chambers' Encyclopaedia, Vol. 4, page 800, 1973,
states that in the eighteen sixties, 2 million
children [1] were not attending school: that would
have been about 40%. Well might Young say that the
essential was to get the children, somehow, into some
sort of school.
Children had to be accommodated somewhere while their
fathers, and often their mothers too, were hard at
work, and they had to be kept occupied for otherwise
they would tend to become listless, mischievous and
perhaps destructive. 'Education' was a wonderful ideal
but the authorities seemed to be chiefly interested in
making compulsory the three R's (reading, writing and
arithmetic) and thus in making children spend their
time and energy struggling with out-of-date and
unsuitable spelling units, and with out-of-date and
unreasonable units of measurement.
The passing of the R.E. Forster Act of 1870 did not
mark a sudden break with the past (at the time, my own
school log book did not mention it). Lowe's Revised
Code of 1862 had required that all children should be
instructed in reading, writing and arithmetic
according to a clearly defined syllabus issued by a
central authority and that all girls should be
instructed in plain needlework. School experiments
with reformed alphabet shapes or with reform spelling
were not expressly forbidden and it is possible that
some bold teachers did try such experiments. We know
that Isaac Pitman's Phonotypy had been tried in
schools 30 years earlier, in 1882; and there was the
testimony of the great Alexander Ellis who wrote
regarding "the importance of employing a phonetic
alphabet as a desirable, nay, necessary instrument in
national education in that it furnished the only means
by which reading, spelling and writing could become
general among the great body of English people." [2]
For hundreds of years, and certainly since the latter
part of the 16th century, it had been realised by many
of those who had most carefully studied the matter
that what we call T.O. is subject to serious
objections whether considered from the standpoint of
etymology, phonology or, most important of all,
teaching. It is the teaching aspects of the matter
which has led Parliament, as representing the nation,
to consider what reforms are needed and how much
reforms might be implemented.
The Simplified Spelling Society had been founded in
1908 by a group of scholars under the chairmanship of
Professor Walter Skeat. Some few years later, during
the time when Professor Gilbert Murray was president,
when Sir George Hunter was Chairman, when William
Archer was Secretary and Walter Ripman was Treasurer,
a Petition to the Prime Minister was organized by the
Society with the aim of directing Parliament's
attention to the evidence relating to the need for
spelling reform. Responsibility for the Petition and
for much of the actual work involved in interviewing
people who were prominent in administration and in
scholarship were accepted by Sir George himself and by
his personal secretary, Mr. Thomas B. Barber. Mr.
Barber was Secretary also of the Simplified Spelling
Society and remained Secretary for many years
afterwards and until his retirement in 1954.
By July, 1923, there was an impressive list of
signatures in support of the Petition. There were
names of 15,000 people who were representatives of
scholars, writers, administrators and men and women
who were prominent in public life and affairs. The
list represented, probably, hundreds of thousands of
such people inasmuch as, in many cases, the president
and secretary signed on behalf of all the members of a
society following a resolution passed at a general
meeting. The covering letter was signed by forty
people 'whose eminence in Scholarship, Science,
Letters and Affairs is widely recognised' as Sir
George Hunter commented.
During the next few years, and until shortly before
1933, the teaching staffs and the administrative
staffs of universities were generally in favour of
asking the government to appoint a representative
committee of eminent scholars who should be asked to
consider the case for spelling reforms and the means
by which such reforms might most conveniently be
carried out. 800 of these eminent scholars signed the
Petition. [3] It must be remembered in this connexion
that the number of universities, and consequently of
university staffs, was then smaller than it is now
after the great expansion of recent times. So 800
really is a notable figure.
In the Univ. of Birmingham, signatures included those
of Sir Charles Grant Robertson, the Vice-Chancellor,
C. W. Valentine, the Prof. of Education and of 20
other professors, 19 Lecturers and 4 Readers. In the
Univ. of Cambridge, those who signed included Dr. P.
Giles, the Master of Emmanuel College, Sir J. J.
Thomson, the Master of Trinity College, Dr A. C.
Seward, the Master of Downing College, Sir Arthur
Quiller Couch, the Prof. of English Literature, Dr.
Emery Barnes, the Prof. of Divinity, Dr G. G. Coulton,
the famous historian of the middle ages, together with
37 other Professors and Lecturers.
In the Univ. of Oxford, those who signed included W.
D. Ross, the Provost of Oriel College, C. H. Sampson,
the Principal of Brasenose College, Dr. A. H. Sayce,
who was later Prof. of Assyriology, Sir M. E. Sadler,
the Master of University College; Prof. Gilbert
Murray, who was Regius Prof. of Greek and who
succeeded Walter Skeat as President of the Simplified
Spelling Society in 1912 and who supervised its
policies until his death in 1957; Dr. R. R. Marrett,
Rector of Exeter College, Dr. Reg. W. Macan, late
Master of University College and an authoritative
advocate of spelling reform; Prof. H. C. Wyld, Merton
Prof. of English Language and Literature and Editor of
the Universal Dictionary of the English Language; F.
M. Powicke, Regius Prof. of Modern History; Percy
Simpson, Fellow of Oriel College, an authority with A.
W. Pollard, W. W. Greg, E. Maunde Thompson, J. Dover
Wilson and R. W. Chambers (O. U. P. 1923) on
Shakespeare's spelling in the Sir Thomas More play
(fragment) and in Venus & Adonis and Lucrece, which
are the only examples we have of how Shakespeare
himself actually spelt words: Edmund Blunden, former
Prof. of English Literature in the Imperial Univ. of
Tokyo, Dr. M. W. Keatinge, Reader in Education and D.
H. MacGregor, Prof. of Political Economy: along with
24 other eminent scholars.
In the Univ. of London, there were: Lascelles
Abercrombie, the Prof. of English Literature (David
Abercrombie, his son, was for some years Chairman of
the Simplified Spelling Society, during the time when
I was Honorary Secretary); A. Lloyd James, who was
later Prof. of Phonetics (he did much of the work
involved in producing the fifth edition of New
Spelling 1940, and wrote the Preface which appears on
pages 5 to 7); Sir T. Percy Nunn, Director of the
Institute of Education, Sir Cyril Burt, F.B.A., Prof.
of Philosophy, together with 40 other distinguished
scholars.
In the Univ. of Manchester, those who signed included
the Professors of English Language, English
Literature, and almost all of the other departments of
the University.
There were many signatures from the Universities of
Aberdeen, Bristol, Durham, Edinburgh (58 names),
Glasgow (41 names), Liverpool (Vice-Chancellor, 25
Professors and 12 others), Reading (Vice-Chancellor
and Deputy Vice-Chancellor, 11 Professors and 20
Lecturers), St Andrew's (Vice-Chancellor and 38
others), Sheffield (Sir Henry Hadow, formerly
Vice-Chancellor and 16 others), Univ. of Wales (the
Principal, 16 Professors and 28 Lecturers), from Univ.
of Nottingham there were 16 names.
There were also the names of 125 Members of
Parliament, 22 Bishops, including William Temple, the
Archbishop of Canterbury, 49 publishers, including
Edward Arnold, Jonathan Cape, W. & R. Chambers, 8
authors, including H. G. Wells, J. B. Priestley,
Julian Huxley and Sir Norman Angell.
There was support also from many educational
associations, including the National Union of
Teachers, National Association of Schoolmasters, the
Association of Teachers in Technical Institutes, and
the Educational Institute of Scotland.
Thus supported and encouraged by the widespread
approval of the universities' teaching and
administrative staffs, by teachers, writers and
publishers, Sir George Hunter in July, 1923 met some
of the Simplified Spelling Society's committee and
interviewed Sir Charles Trevelyan, who was then
President of the Board of Education. He stated the
Board's official position thus: "While difficulties of
the present system (of spelling) were admitted, he
felt that the appointment of the Commission or
Committee could not be expected to result in any
scientific solution unless the supporters of Spelling
Reform were able as a preliminary to decide upon an
agreed and definite scheme." Lord Irwin later (in
1933) quoted and agreed with this point of view.
Rebuffed by the Board of Education because he had not
brought an agreed and definite scheme, Sir George
Hunter asked the Society's Committee to reconsider and
possibly revise the earlier proposals which had been
formulated by William Archer and Walter Ripman. After
renewed consideration, the proposers and supporters of
English Spelling Reform met on May 3rd, 1933, and
unanimously agreed to approve and submit for the
proposed Committee's consideration the scheme (New
Spelling) approved by the Simplified Spelling Society.
Sir George Hunter's covering letter included the
following sentence: "The scheme has been used in a
number of elementary schools with benefit to the
children; it does not require any new letters or any
additions to the printers' fonts of type . . . It is
not expected that our spelling can be immediately
changed by any arbitrary decree but it is believed
that any improvements recommended by the Committee
will be voluntarily and gradually adopted." This
meeting, on 3rd May, was attended by Sir George
Hunter, Chairman, and by: Mr. A. Lloyd James, Reader
in Phonetics at London Univ., Mr. Walter Ripman, Chief
Inspector of Schools for London Univ., Prof. W. Emery
Barnes, Prof. Daniel Jones, Sir E. Dennison Ross, Mr.
A. E. Henshall, ex-President of the National Union of
Teachers, Wm. Barkley, Journalist, Oswald Lewis, M.P.,
W. G. Pearson, M.P., Mr. Gray Jones, representing the
Incorporated Association of Assistant Masters, Mr.
Gordon and Mr. T. R. Barber, Secretary of the
Simplified Spelling Society.
Even after this, Lord Irwin wrote on June 30, 1933,
saying that the Government could not agree to the
appointment by the Government of a Committee "...
because its official character would give people the
impression that legislation might be possible in the
future. There is no justification for the board to go
even this far..." Lord Irwin declined to appoint a
committee and declined to receive a deputation. The
scholarship that had produced several versions of New
Spelling and all the work that had resulted in the
collection of 15,000 signatures of prominent people
were rendered of no avail because of what must have
seemed to Sir George very much like obstinacy on the
part of Lord Irwin and his advisers. Sir George was
defeated. He died in 1937 and left a large legacy to
enable the Society to continue the work for spelling
reform which had meant so much to him. Here again, he
suffered another defeat. All moneys used for
educational purposes are 'charitable' and therefore
exempt from paying income tax. The amazing truth is
that the Society's income from the Hunter bequest was
declared to be not for educational purposes. The money
was, therefore, subject to income tax and the Society
has lost many thousands of pounds because of this
decision.
On 11th March, 1949, Dr. Mont Follick, M.P. for
Loughborough, presented his Private Member's Spelling
Reform Bill to the House of Commons. Part 1 of the
Bill asked for the establishment of a committee to
produce a scheme for the simplified and consistent
spelling of English. Part 2 required that reformed
spelling should be used first in schools, later in
government publications and later still should be used
generally. The Minister of Education and that time was
Rt. Hon. George Tomlinson and he was deeply concerned
about the welfare of children. He cautiously expressed
the opinion, however, that advocates of reform should
secure some reasonable measure of public support and
that later there should be an official inquiry into
spelling.
On the Second Reading, 11th March, 1949, the Bill was
debated for five hours and lost by only three votes,
the official figures being 84:87. This was a
remarkable achievement by Mont Follick and for
spelling reformers. Clearly, even better things were
within reach. [4]
In the autumn of 1952, Mont Follick was again
successful in the ballot for Private Members' Bills,
being drawn No. 5. He again brought in a Bill
concerned with spelling reform. It required the
Government to institute research into methods of
improving the low standard of reading and to
investigate, among other things, the use of consistent
spelling, even though there might later be a
transition to Queen Anne's spelling (T.O.). On Second
Reading, 27.2.53, the Bill was carried by 65 votes to
53 after a debate which is reported in 82 columns of
Hansard (2425-2507). Mr Ralph Morley, M.P. for Itchen,
had said: "As a class teacher for nearly fifty years,
I know it is our ridiculous and illogical spelling
which is the chief handicap in teaching children to
read." I myself have had more than fifty years
experience of teaching and agree with what Mr. Morley
said. [5]
After Second Reading, the Bill went to Committee where
it was again approved in spite of government
opposition.
On 7th May, Dr. Follick rose in the House "To ask the
Minister of Education if she will state her policy
towards proposals by a competent research organisation
to investigate possible improvements in the teaching
of reading by means of a system of simplified
spelling." Miss Florence Horsbrugh replied: "Any such
organisation could rely on my interest and goodwill
for their proposals designed to investigate possible
improvements in this field of education. There would
be no extra grant and the organization concerned would
have to secure the willing cooperation of the l.e.a.,
teachers and parents."
The sponsors of the Bill realised that it might still
meet powerful opposition and that it might be rejected
in the Lords. They agreed to withdraw the Bill, being
well pleased with the Minister's assurance that there
would be approval for properly controlled research
into how the use of simplified spelling would affect
the processes of learning to read.
John Downing was appointed to administer the tests to
the i.t.a. groups, also to the control groups. The
i.t.a. experiments were started in September 1961.
After only a few weeks it was clear that children
could learn to read in the fairly consistent i.t.a.
much more quickly and much better than the control
groups could learn to read T.O. It seemed also that
reading skill acquired with consistent i.t.a. could be
transferred later to reading matter printed in T.O.
Subsequent tests confirmed this. The most important
result of the i.t.a. research was to prove that T.O.
is a handicap to children when they are learning to
read. What happened after the transition was
interesting but it did not affect the really important
conclusion quoted in the last sentence. These
experiments, and later ones, were a consequence of the
Follick-Pitman success in the House of Commons, 27
February, 1953, and the Minister's subsequent
assurance that there would be approval of, though no
government grant for, experiments with simplified
spelling in the teaching of reading.
It seems that Mont Follick was more concerned with
spelling reform then he was with teaching children to
read T.O. It was only with reluctance that he agreed
to the withdrawal of his 1953 Bill and he later seems
to have regretted having done so. He was a true
spelling reformer and remained so until his death,
10.12.1958. His Will required that his fortune should
be used to found and endow a professor's chair of
Comparative Philology "in which spelling reform (not
merely the teaching of reading) should form a
principal part." Dr. Mont Follick had been the founder
and was the Proprietor of the Regent School of
Languages. His estate was large. After considerable
delay, the money was accepted by the Univ. of
Manchester and William Haas was appointed the first
Mont Follick Professor. This decision was the crucial
decision which must decide to what extent the
benefactor's aims are likely to be fulfilled. All this
may reasonably and fairly be said to follow from the
House of Commons' verdict on 27th February, 1953.
During recent years, two Departmental Committees have
considered language teaching and, especially, the
teaching of reading. Lady Plowden was Chairman of the
first. Detailed evidence was submitted by the
Simplified Spelling Society but this did not appear in
the report, although the name and school of the
Honorary Secretary did appear. During 1970 and 1971,
useful correspondence passed between the Society and
the Departmental Inspector for English, Mr. E.
Wilkinson. I met Mr. Wilkinson on 15 November, 1971,
and we discussed the Society's Resolution to the
Minister. We did not disagree on any of the items
included in this Resolution, and we discussed what
further progress might be made, such as experiments
with New Spelling under the auspices of a university.
The unexpected and unexplained departures of our
President and Chairman from the Annual General Meeting
made it difficult for the Society to make further
progress at the time with the Departmental Inspector.
The final sentence of the Resolution was: "Members of
this Society . . . urge the government to institute an
inquiry into the educational, financial and
international advantages likely to result from
modernizing our out-of-date spelling conventions."
Another Government Committee was appointed in 1971.
There were 19 members and Sir Alan Bullock was
appointed Chairman. During 1972 and '73, several of
Haas wrote on behalf of the Simplified Spelling
Society and expressed regret because the Society had
not been invited to give oral and written evidence.
Mr. S. S. Eustace was at that time Hon. Sec. of the
Society and wrote several times. Mr. R. Arnold was
Sec. of the Bullock Com. and early in 1971, he wrote
saying that the Society's representatives would be
able to give oral evidence to the Bullock Com. We were
invited also to send an agreed 'submission.' Of the
dates offered, the first one, Jan. 23rd, was chosen by
the Society's Committee at its meeting on Jan. 12th.
There was not adequate time in which to prepare an
agreed 'submission' but four of us (Messrs. Eustace,
Gibbs, O'Halloran and Reed) met in Elizabeth House on
Jan. 23rd. We met a Bullock Committee (not the full
Committee) under the chairmanship of Prof. J. E.
Merritt. Prof. Merritt is, incidentally, a member of
the Simplified Spelling Society.
That meeting with the members of the official Bullock
Committee was important and promising. Mr. O'Halloran,
who has since been elected Honorary Secretary of the
Simplified Spelling Society, made a particularly good
impression on the Bullock Committee and has since had
important correspondence and interviews with some of
its members. Progress towards improvement in our
spelling conventions will have to be the result of
recommendations by a Departmental Committee appointed
by, and reporting back to, Parliament.
References
[1] G. M. Young, The Victorian Age, Penguin, p. 116.
[2] Benn Pitman, Life and Labours of Isaac Pitman,
1902, quoted by Harrison in, Instant Reading, Pitman,
1964, p. 30-34.
[3] The Case for the Improvement of Spelling,
Simplified Spelling Society, 1933, pp. 16-32.
[4] Hansard, 11 March, 1949.
[5] Hansard, 27 February, 1953.
------------------------------------------------------
S I M P L I F I E D S P E L L I N G S O C I E T Y
Founded in 1908 by Professor W.W. Skeat, Lit.D.,
LL.D., D.C.L., Ph.D.
===========================================
TEXT OF RESOLUTION
to The Secretary of State,
Department of Education and Science
===========================================
"Whereas many great authorities on English have
deplored the inconsistency of its spelling and have
advocated reform;
And whereas no reasonable case against spelling reform
has ever been made by any considerable scholar;
And whereas experiments in Britain, America and
elsewhere have proved our spelling to be wasteful of
time and effort;
And whereas a number of other nations have in recent
times reformed their spelling conventions with great
benefit to themselves and to other users of their
languages;
And whereas English is now being learnt as a second
language by a large proportion of the human race and
is the most widely used international language;
Members of this Society, feeling that it is now
incumbent upon native speakers of English to remove
unnecessary difficulties in the learning and use of
the language, whether by students approaching it has a
second language or by English-speaking and other
children learning to read it and write it, urged the
Government to institute an inquiry into the
educational, financial and international advantages
likely to result from modernizing our out-of-date
spelling conventions."
Passed by subsequent Gen. Meeting, Dec. 12, 1970.
William Reed, Hon. Secretary.
=====
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Toggle Shavian
Hi Steve
This is a painfully good description of why a democratically
controlled body, essentially a committee of the whole, should not be
asked to direct research into what is a essentially a technological
question.
Democratic institutions work on the premise of not rocking the
boat. Where there is no clearly defined consensus of the direction or
insufficient feeling that this is a serious issue affecting millions
of children, a committee will just sit put. When you must also
traverse a number of levels of government, progress slows to a
snail's crawl. William Reed suggests himself, that a parliamentary
democracy make change of this nature, untenable. So this attached
note explains why there has been no government intervention in
Britian.
I would guess that the explanation on the lack of interest by
English teacher's as a whole in even presenting this alternative,
much less teaching the Shaw Alphabet or some other reasonable
phonetic system, can be found in the book, "Why Johnny Can't Read".
Regards, Paul V.
P.S. Sadly, even the use of phonetic Shorthand is dying out, like the
sliderule, with the advent of technological innovation to computerize
a number of secretarial functions.
--- In shavian@y..., Steve Bett <stbett@y...> wrote:
> HISTORY OF SPELLING REFORM
> This may answer some of the questions that were asked
> earlier.--Steve
>
> Spelling and Parliament, by William J. Reed*
>
> To be published in 100 years of spelling reform
> An anthology of proposals for reducing the
> irregularity and inconsistency in the English writing
> system and research on the social consequences of
> postponing the reforms required to restore the
> connection between speech and print.
>
> ------
>
> In Britain we are a parliamentary democracy. We vote
> at stated intervals to elect a House of Commons of 635
> members. From these, the leader of the largest
> political party is called upon by the Sovereign to
> choose a Cabinet and form a Government. This
> Government is the Executive and is the body which has
> the power and the authority to make all decisions
> concerning the welfare of the nation.
>
> It is widely believed by many of those who are well
> qualified to judge that our spelling conventions are
> at present unsatisfactory and that they should be
> improved. There is no authority which can improve them
> except the authority of Parliament. No individual or
> group of individuals can make any effective changes
> except through Parliament.
>
> Our present spelling is thought by some to be
> 'traditional' and will hereinafter be designated
> 'traditional orthography' or T.O.
>
> It may be objected to what was said in the second
> paragraph that T.O. itself was not brought about by
> any Act of Parliament and the objection is reasonable.
> What we call T.O. was brought about by printers and,
> to a lesser extent, by writers during the latter part
> of the 17th century. It was unsatisfactory even then,
> though not as unsatisfactory then as it has become
> since. It has become more unsatisfactory because,
> during the intervening three centuries, it has changed
> very little, while the language which it is supposed
> to represent has changed very much. This
> unsatisfactory spelling has continued to be accepted
> by the nation because of important reasons, including
> the following:
>
> (1) Many millions of copies of the Authorised Version
> of the Bible have been printed and read in something
> like our present T.O.
>
> (2) Shakespeare's plays also have been printed and
> read, not in Shakespeare's spelling but in T.O.
>
> (3) This spelling, with its disadvantages and
> imperfections, was accorded the imprimatur of the
> formidable Samuel Johnson when he published his
> Dictionary in 1755 and when he wrote in his preface:
> "I have attempted few alterations, and among those
> few, perhaps the greatest part is from modern to
> ancient practice." He recommended that people "should
> not disturb upon narrow views or for minute propriety
> the orthography of their fathers." By this he probably
> meant that they should not attempt to change 17th
> century spelling to match the great changes that had
> taken place in the language. So 17th century spelling
> was fastened even more securely on our language.
>
> A second objection might be that thoroughgoing
> spelling and alphabet reform were introduced in
> Turkey, 1928, by the efforts of one man, namely Kemell
> Ataturk; but the circumstances were quite different
> because Turkey at that time was not a parliamentary
> democracy such as we are now.
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