The Manawatu Herald. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 4, 1906. ROOSEVELT AND THE KING’S ENGLISH.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXVIII, Issue 3718, 4 October 1906, Page 2

The Manawatu Herald. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 4, 1906. ROOSEVELT AND THE KING’S ENGLISH.

; resident Roosevelt believes that the spelling retorm to which he has given his endorsement will straighten out the tangles of the English language and orthography, and will assist materially in making the language more widely used by making it easier for foreigners to write with some degree of assurance. The President is said to be in hopes that in time English may supplant French as the language of diplomacy. He sees no reason why the language of the dominant race should not lie the dominant language of the globe: It is somewhat startling to find in the English press such epithets as “anarchist” applied to the President of. the United States in place of the unbridled eulogy with which lie has been lauded during the past two years. Every newspaper in London has turned its heaviest editorial guns upon Mr Roosevelt, and all because he has ventured to touch with profane pen the most sacred of ail Anglo-Saxon possessions, the English language. They do not go quite so far as to suggest lynching, yet it is evident that some of the leaders in the evening papers were written while steam poured from the collars of enraged editors. The “ Daily Chronicle,” which is more lenient than some others, says:— ‘ 1 Whether we like the new spelling or not, it will probably be forced upon us, because the United States is coming more and more into the control of the printing presses of the English-speak-ing world. If only President Roosevelt can establish uniformity in America on the lines he prescribes, the new spelling will likely become dominant in Great Britain, but, as he is strong, he might have been merciful and summoned an Anglo-American congress to endeavour to arrive at

an agreement on a common mode

of spelling, so that the President’s English and the King’s English should be the same.’’