MARK TWAIN ON SPELLING.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume X, Issue 219, 1 September 1875, Page 4

MARK TWAIN ON SPELLING.

A short time since there was a spelling match at ib.3 Asylum Hill Congregational Church, Hartford, Conn., and Mr Samuel L. Clemens (Mark Twain) being called on for a few preliminary remarks, spoke as follows : — Ladies nod gentlemen, I Lave been honored with the office of introducing these approaching orthographical solemnities with a few remarks. The temperance crusade swept the land some time a^'o, that is, the vast portion of the land where it was needed, hot it skipped Hartfori?. Now comes this new spelling epidemic, and this lime we are B'ricken. So I suppose we need ihe affliction. I don't say we needed ir, for I don't see any use in spelling; a word right, and never did. I mean I don't see any use in having a uniform nnd arbitrary way of spelling words. We might as well make all clothes alike and cook alike. Sameness is tiresome; variety is phasing. I have a correspondent whose letters are always a refreshment to me ; there is such a breezy, unfettered originality about his orthography. He spells cow with a large K. Now that is just as good as to spell it with a small one. It is better. It gives the imagination a broader field, a wider scope. It suggests to the mind a grand, vague, impressive, new kind of cow. Superb effects can be produced by variegated spelling. Now, there ie Blind Tom the musical prodigy. He always spells a word according to the sound that is carried to his ear. And he is an enthusiast in orthography. When you give him a word he shouts it out— puts all his soul into it, I once heard him called upon to spell ourang-oufang before an audience. He said "O-r-a-n-g, orangr, g-e-r, ger, t-a-n-er, tangorauger tang !" IJyow, a body can respect an ourangoutang that spells his name in a vigorous wajr like that. But the feeble dictionary makes a mere kitten of him. In the old times people spelt just as they pleased. That was the right idea. You had two chances at a stranger then. You knew a Btrong man from a weak one by his iron-clad spelling, and his hand-writing helped you to verify your verdict. Some people have an idea that correct spelling can be taught to anybody. That is s mistake. The spelling faculty is born iu a man, like poetry, music and Brt. It is a gift; it is a talent. People who have this gift in a high degree only need to see a word ooce in print and it is for ever photographed upon their memory. They cannot forget it. People who havn't it must be content to spell more or less like — like thunder — and expect to splinter the dictionary wherever their orthographical lightning happens to strike. There are 114,000 worda iu the unabridged dictionary. I know a lady who can spell ooly 180 of them right. She steers clear of all the rest. She can't learn any more. So her letter always consists of those constantly recurring 180 words. Now and then when she finds herself obliged to write upon a subject which necessitates the use of aome other words, she — well, she don't write on that subject. I have a relative in New York w'ho is almost sublimely gifted. She can't spell any word right. There is a game called Verbarium. A dozen people are each provided with a sheet of paper, across the top of which is written a long word like kaleidoscopical, or something like that, and the game is to see who can make up the most words out of that in three minutes, always beginning with the initial letter of the word. Upon one occasion the word chosen waa cofferdam. When time was called, everybody had builtfrona five to twenty words, except the young kdy. She had ooly had one word— calf. We all studied a momeni, and then said, "Why, there is no lin cofferdam ?" Then we examined her paper. To the eternal honor of that uninspired, unconscious, sublimely independent soul be it eaid, she had spelled that word " caff !" If anybody here can spell calf any more seuaibly than that, let him step to the front and take his milk. The insurrecrection will cow begin.