THE HUNTLY PRESS PUBLISHED WEEKLY AT 1 P.M Friday, March 6 1914. Notes and Comments.

Huntly Press and District Gazette, Volume 3, Issue 6, 6 March 1914, Page 2

THE HUNTLY PRESS PUBLISHED WEEKLY AT 1 P.M Friday, March 6 1914. Notes and Comments.

THE publication in English r tx,/. papers to hand of m'imM the letters of 1 ‘ children to Santa aus shows how difficult it is

or trie juvenile mind to assimiate the various combination Tor ?lyphics that go to make up )iir written language, and unconsciously demonstrates the necessity for the introduction, on scientific lines, of a sensible method of phonetic spelling nr, at least, ox a uniformity in the use at the ends of words of the “ l -ences ” and “ -ances ”, the “-ents ” and “-ants ” that form so many pitfalls for those who cannot or will not consult a dictionary. With the introduction of the dictionary in Queen Anne’s time spelling became stereotyped, but so conservative is theßritish race that, while they clamour for reform in various directions, the cumbrous system of -weights and measures adopted in Britain and many of her Colonies, and the irrational peculiarities of orthodox orthography, have received only a passing notice. The beauty and simplicity of a decimal system have been acknowledged, while it has been conceded that the adoption of such together with a reformed method of spelling would save two or three years of hard mental work to our children —time that could he more profitably employed in acquiring other branches of useful knowledge, so that a youth of fourteen would leave school as well equipped mentally as a youth of 18 now is when his secondary school life comes to an end. The hidden law that prescribes.the minimum of effort consistent with due efficiency operates in linguistic as well as in mental and industrial matters, as is proved, on the one hand, by the dropping of grammatical inflections from our own language, and, on the other, by the introduction of machinery and labour saving appliances generally. Why should “ duty ” and “beauty” look all right, and “ buty ” and “ deauty ” appear vulgar and illiterate ? Why should not “tongue” follow on the lire* of “ lung ”, and for what earthly reason should a “ b ” lie necessary in “ doubt ” and in “ lamb ” but utterly out of place in “ham’,’ and “jam”? If “ fysshe ” and “schippe,” when altered to “fish” and “ ship ”, “ fotis ” to “ feet, and “ hosen ” to “hose”, have not been found out ol place, and if approved by general use, why stop short before :i wholesale improvement lias been wrought V Why, when the context gives the meaning, should we have various assortments of words like “ write ”, “ wright ”, “ rite ”, and “ right ”; all ol which are pronounced alike? The danger of each reformer becoming a spelling law unto himself could be ob\ iated by the institution of a corporate body, like the French Academy, which would be necessary to give a literary imprimatur to the changes sanctioned, while the sentimental assertion that the present clumsy methods preserve the history of the word forms an objection that could be remedied in the dictionary which will continue to give, as it does at present, the derivation of the term Spelling reform is gradually creeping in, and the very journals that plead for the .statu* quo give their cause away by dropping the “u” from words like honour and parlour, printing “ plough ” “ plow ”, and by adopting the other short cuts already incorporated in the written language of our American cousins. Reform in this direction is gradually creeping in. and in the course of a decade many useless letters will disappear from ordinary orthography. So mote it be ! The monograph summarising the the world’s coalresoures .. r , vnT iva as presented to pn . the International nnpnry Geological CoilglV»S bUliL *- held at Toronto last August, shows that the total amount of coal still to be obtained from the subterranean parts of the five continents totals over seven billion tons, and that, with an annual consumption of twelve million tons, there is no fear of general exhaustion. The world’s coal reserves were thus estimated in millions of tons: - Oceania, 170,410 Asia, 1,279,586 Africa, 57,839 America, 5,105,528 Europe, 784,190 > Total 7,397,553 million tons