Untitled

Wairarapa Times-Age, 9 December 1943, Page 4

It has beeh suggested that a major! difficulty in the way of the adoption of English as the world’s alternative language is to be found in modern . spelling, an oversea writer observes. One emphasises “modern” because the rigidity of our spelling is comparatively new. Under George 111 the heir to the throne could write “uggly” and a young lady about the Court might complain of the attentions of the “knatls”; no one was thought ill-educated for announcing that they had “staid” at a place! and everybody could “chuse” one thing or “choose” another. Indeed precisians of the present would have been accused of making a great fuss about nothing. Evelyn and Pepys would spell a word one way on Monday and another way on Wednesday; even family names might be spelt in three or four different ways. Was anyone the worse for this liberty? And would foreigners find our language nearly as , formidable if they could spell it as fancy dictated?