REFORMED SPELLING.
As the births of living creatures at first are ill shapen, so are all innovations, which are the births of time: yet, notwithstanding, as those that first bring honor into their family are commonly more worthy than most that succeed, so the first precedent (if it be good) is seldom attained by imitation; for ill, to man’s nature as it stands perverted, hath a natural motion, strongest in continuance; but good, as a forced motion, strongest at first. Surely every medicine is an innovation, and he that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils: for time is the greatest innovator; and if time of course alter things to [for] the worse, and wisdom and counsel shall not alter them to the better, what shall be the end? It is true that what is settled by custom, though it be not good, yet at least it is fit. And those things which have long gone together, are, as it were, confederate with themselves; whereas new things piece not so well; but, though they help by their utility, yet they trouble by their inconformity; besides, they are like strangers, more admired [wondered at], and less favored. All this is true, if time stood still; which, contrawise, moveth so round [rapidly], that a froward retention of custom is as turbulent a thing as an innovation; and they that reverence to much old times, are but a scorn to the new. It were good, therefore, that men in their innovations, would follow the example of time itself, which indeed innovateth greatly, but quietly and by degrees scarce to be perceived; for otherwise, whatsoever is new is unlooked for; and ever it mends some, and impairs others; and he that is holpen takes it for a fortune, and thanks the time; and he that is hurt, for a wrong, and imputeth it to the author. It is food also not to try experiments in States, except the necessity be urgent, or the utility evident; and well to beware, that it be the reformation that draweth on the change, and not the desire of change that pretendeth the reformation: and lastly, that the novelty, though it be not rejected, yet be held for a suspect; and, as the Scripture saith, “That we make a stand upon the ancient way, and then look about us, and discover what is the straight and right way, and so to walk in it.”—Bacon’s Essays. “Of Innovations.”
The italicised sentence in the above quotation justifies an attempt to amend English spelling, which is the worst in the world. Lord Bacon elsewhere says “that writing should be consonant to speaking is a branch of unprofitable subtlety.” But this censure must be considered as leveled against those crude attempts to reform our orthography which had been made in his day.
In the following pages the reader is introduced to a reformed spelling by successive stages. The first five Chapters are printed in the received orthography.
First Stage.—In Chapters 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11, the principle of phonetic spelling is acknowledged, as far as it can be, in the use of the 23 serviceable letters of the old alphabet; c, q, and x being rejected as unnecessary, as duplicates of k and s.
Second Stage.—Five new letters are introduced in Chapter 12, namely,
| ƫ, | ŋ, | ʒ, | ɞ, | ɤ, | |
| for the sounds in | thin, | sing, | vision, | alms, | son, |
| faith, | long, | pleasure, | father, | but. |
Third Stage.—In Chapter 13 and 14, five more new letters, long vowels, are brought in; namely,
| ɛ, | ᶖ, | ɷ, | σ, | ᶙ, | |
| for the sounds in | they, | field, | fall, | bone, | boot, |
| make, | feel, | fought, | boat, | truly. |
Fourth Stage.—Three more consonants,
| đ, | ʃ, | ꞔ, | |
| for the sounds in | then, | she, | cheap, |
| breathe, | wish, | much, |
complete the enlarged alphabet. They will be found in concluding Chapter 15, 16, 17, and 18.
