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a wOrHi referens.

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TANk jM, broHer.

--- In shawalphabet@...m, dshep <dshepx@...> wrote:
>
> Recent weeks have been rather slow, summer has other
> attractionsâ€"so I
> shall take the opportunity to pad out the
> files with some
> background, and a bit of foppery as well.
> Â Â
>
> For those of you interested in how Shavian came to be,
> and how it almost didn't, there is an extensive account
> found in the appendix to Michael Holroyd's biography,
> "Bernard Shaw". The edition I have is the one-volume
> editionâ€"the original is in four volumesâ€"but as this
> account appears to be exhaustive I don't imagine the
> original to contain anything additional about this sad
> affair.
>
> The problem, as so often in life, was about money.
> Thanks to the success of My Fair Lady on the stage
> and on film, there was a lot of it. Before the royalties
> of these productions began pouring in, Shaw's financial
> situation, while comfortable, was not excessively soâ€"
> and it is possible that his will would not have been
> contested had not there been a great sum at stake; it
> would not have
> been worth the effort. As it happened,
> and this all occurred in that drab time and place
> remembered as Austerity Britain, it was discovered
> that the will could be challenged, it was worthwhile to
> do so, and so it was. Shaw had been warned of this
> possibility, even of its likelihood, but for whatever
> reason (by this time he was in his nineties) did not
> bother to set up something like a Shaw Alphabet
> Committee or equivalent that could claim its share of
> the inheritance, and it has been suggested that he
> thought that the subsequent legal battles that would
> surely ensue might stir up some public interest in the
> matterâ€"a fond hope that proved to be a delusion.
>
> In fact, according to Holroyd, had it not been for the
> efforts of James Pitman, a Member of Parliament,
> inventor of the Initial Teaching Alphabet, and grandson
> of the inventor of Pitman Shorthand, working together
> with an interesting champion of all
> worthwhile pursuits
> named Barbara Smoker, there would have been no
> money at all obtainable and thus there would never
> have been a Shavian alphabet. As it happened, Pitman
> used his influence and Smoker her persuasive abilities
> to extract the small amount used to hold the design
> competition and print Androcles. Incidentally, Shaw
> had hoped that several of his plays, not just the one,
> could be printed in the proposed new alphabet but this
> proved to be unrealistic, considering the sum of money
> available, and it is not entirely clear why Androcles was
> chosen rather than some other. Even Barbara Smoker,
> a founding member of the Phonetic Alphabet Association
> and avid supporter of Shaw's proposals, commented
> that chances for success in court would have been
> better had, say, one of Enid Blyton's children's stories
> been
> selected instead.
>
> In any event, after much wrangling, the design competion
> for a new alphabet was held, surprising everyone by the
> number of valid entries submitted, some 467 in all, and it
> took a year for Pitman, Peter MacCarthy, head of the
> department of Phonetics at the University of Leeds, and
> Alan Dodson, chief typographer of the (Government)
> Stationary Office to select four 'semi-winners', with the
> provision that the four would be co-ordinated to produce
> a final design. Barbara Smoker however deplored "the
> absence of any expert calligrapher or educational
> psychologists among the assessors, and pointed out
> that any fusion between the four winning designs was
> impossible (they being quite different in concept)."
>
> "James Pitman however felt exuberant. The final alfabet
> was an improved version of Kingsley Read's aesthetically
> pleasing forty-eight character 'sound-writing' system."
>
> One such improvement was due to Pitman himself, who
> pointed out Shaw's insistence that every letter be distinct,
> even in isolation, and this was the origin of the rotated
> letters; Read apparently had merely used a difference in
> height to distinguish his voiced and unvoiced pairs. "It
> (the final version) contained little reference to the other
> three versions but was 'better than most other alphabets',
> conceded Barbara Smoker who was to be employed as
> specialist editor on the new Androcles."
>
> Another two years were required to prepare Androcles
> for publication. "The delay had been largely caused by
> contradictory instructions from Pitman, Penguin (the
> publisher), the expert Phonetician and the Public
> Trustee (who administered the will). Eventually Barbara
> Smoker 'walked out in a huff' leaving Hans Schmoller,
> the publisher's master typographer, floundering among
> the
> hieroglyphics of 'the world's strangest type-face'."Â
> Considering such disarray, it would not have been un-
> usual if, as I believe, a few typographical mishaps
> occurred.Â
>
> I wonder too who this 'expert Phonetician' might have
> been; had it been Peter MacCarthy, one of the ap-
> pointed assessors, it would have been easy enough
> to say so; after all, his 'Notes on the spelling' are in-
> cluded in the introduction to Androcles. Whomever it
> was, it was he who most probably determined that
> Androcles would be rendered in RP, with little or no
> regard to Shaw's preference (the ligatured r-vowels
> that could be interpreted as a concession in that
> respect were I believe part of Read's original concept
> and thus, supposedly, inviolate). This is not surprising.
> Open any book by any English linguist and most often
> the only speech-form considered
> worthy of any serious
> analysis is RPâ€"this is automatically taken to be the
> standard, with all other forms of speech, implicitly,
> treated as deviations. The same is true in America
> except that there, GA or General American, is assumed,
> with supposedly a greater demographic base than RP,
> to be universal. I doubt very much that Shawâ€"who in
> one way or another throughout his adult life always
> challenged pretension and railed over the subsequent
> strife thus generatedâ€"would have approved. Recall
> that it was Shaw (or perhaps Oscar Wilde, another
> Anglo-Irishman) who quipped that No Englishman
> ever opened his mouth but that another Englishman
> despised him.
>
> All this is admittedly making a lot out of a little, but if, as
> some wish, Androcles is declared to be canonical (are
> we to set up a College of Cardinals as well?), then we
> shall be saddled with a divisive
> restriction, tied to one
> particular manner of pronunciation at the expense of
> othersâ€"one that inevitably will be resisted.
>
>
> Visitors noticed that Shaw's own 'strong Irish brogue'
> reappeared, or became more pronounced, as he grew
> older, and aware of this as he must have been, even
> earlier, and its contrast with other ways of speaking,
> it can not but have influenced him in his desire to find
> some sort of happy medium for general usage, one
> without cultural baggageâ€"indeed, he was later
> appointed to an oversight board of the BBC for that
> express purpose, but without much success at the time.
> He wished to see, or rather hear, "speaker(s) whose
> speech will be accepted in every part of the English
> speaking world" (and without rancour, one might add).
> Thus, no posh please! To this end, he thought it would
> be helpful (thus an idea was born) to promote "A new
> phonetic alphabet that would let people spell as they
> speak without any
> nonsense about bad or good or
> right or wrong spelling and speech"â€"something that
> might assist the cause of social reconciliation, one of
> the Fabian Society's goals. (Shaw always referred to his
> proposed new alphabet as 'phonetic', whereas Read's
> result is actually 'phonemic', but I think this is because
> the term phonemic is a later and also a more technical
> derivation.)
>
> There is, of course, a certain tension between a 'happy
> medium' and everyone speaking and spelling as they
> wish. Shaw seems to have cared little for logic in its
> formal sense, and enjoyed controversy, at least when
> younger. He complained, when critics complained that
> his plays contained contradictions, that they failed to
> understand that one could be 'serious about something
> and yet laugh about it at the same time'. A phonetic, or
> even phonemic, alphabet by its very nature serves the
> interests of diversity; canonical rules sabotage this
> effort
> if any leeway is discouraged. But of course, an accepted
> standard can ease wider comprehension, if it is broad
> enough to begin with. What to do?
>
> If there must be a canonical (or wouldn't it be better to say
> 'suggested standard'?) for a compiled lexicon, then it seems
> to me to be appropriate that the most comprehensive choice
> of alternative guides available, one that could best embrace
> the widest range of speech, is or rather should be the only
> realistic optionâ€"one that requires the least amount of
> sacrifice by the greatest number of speakers, and I suspect
> that this is the American Heritage Dictionary, or AHD4, for
> fourth (latest) edition. There is a little something for everyone
> here, which, after all, is an indication of a true compromise.
>
> ever more wordily,
> dshep
>

Her R 3 rOdz t rMin--wimen, gAmbliN, n tekniSonz.
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H mOst plezAnt iz wiH wimen, H kwikest iz wiH gAmbliN, but H Surest iz wiH tekniSonz.
.
--ros demRlO...6

H grOT v sFens konsists in a kontinjMal AnAlisis v fAkts v ruf n Jeneral
observESon intM grMps v fAkts mOr presFs n mFnMt. --/w. pEter 5

















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febrMEri OriJinali hAd 29 dEz.

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but H /rOmAnz tUk wun from it t giv t JMlF, sO HAt JMlF, nEmd After
/JMlius sIzR, wUd not bI infIriOr t Ygust, nEmd After /agustus sIzR.

.


--/lin JAnsen...9

il, ir Ikwelz not

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if Her iz nO survFval v Iternal vAljMz in H evolviN sOl v mAn, Hen
mOrtal egzistens iz wiHQt mIniN, n lFf itself iz a trAJik ilMZon.

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but it iz forever trM: wat jM begin in tFm jM wil aSuredli finiS in
Iterniti--if it iz wOrT finiSiN.

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--meN makOtO 4.

rI: il

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iliterat: hAviN litel edjMkESon; kAnot rId Or rFt.

.

"it waz trMli pitiful t woc His grEt mFnd v /mOzez trFiN t adApt hiz
sublFm konsept v /el eljon, H mOst hF, t H komprehenSon v H ignOrAnt n
iliterat /hIbrMz."

.

--/rolf 3

rI: il ...not loJikal

trM revelESon never renderz sFens

unAcural, reliJon unrIzonabel, Or filosofi iloJikal.

.

--/rFAn teklund 2

'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

rI: ir, il

.

muc v H ineksplikabel n irASonal in H EnSient kults iz understAndabel.

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H seremOnIz v H kult wer primitiv mAn'z atempt t kontrOl H material
wOrld.

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--/lin JAnsen 9

rI: ir

H fifT plAnet v H sOlar sistem v loN, loN agO trAversd An iregjMlar
Orbit, periodikli mEkiN klOser n klOser aprOc t /JMpiter until it enterd
H kritikal zOn v grAviti-tFdal disrupSon, was swiftli frAgmentizd, n
bekEm H prezent-dE kluster v Asterqds.

--/kris kwin 5

Some thoughts about the Shavian wiki:

1) Since we have "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" fully transliterated, and "Through the Looking Glass" mostly transliterated, I am proposing to create a printed book out of the two, using Tenniel's original illustrations, when the latter is finished. I plan to use createspace.com to do so. This will mean that there will no longer be only one book printed in the Alphabet. This should be finished in a couple of weeks.

2) I am not at all sure that "Androcles" was being reasonable in writing words which end in consonantal sonorants ("button", "bottom", "bottle", "butter") with Ado+letter. Of course in the case of "butter" we have a ligature Array to write the pair with, but in the other cases I think the Ado should be abolished. I am considering making this change on the wiki, and hence in "Alice". If anyone would like to persuade me otherwise, please feel free.

3) GBS disliked using apostrophes within words such as "don't" in the Latin alphabet; it seems misplaced to keep them in the Shavian alphabet. I am proposing removing them in the wiki, and hence in "Alice". If anyone would like to persuade me otherwise, please feel free.

-- t.