Compton Mackenzie
I WANT to express my gratitude to Miss Pamela Hansford Johnson for her essay on 'Looking At Words' in a ,, recent Spectator. The threat to the future of English literature from this teaching of children to spell by phonetics and then because in consequence they cannot spell demanding a reform of spelling is horrible. Apparently people professing to expound phonetics are now called 'phoneticians.' They started as ' phonologers ' then became phonologists to become after that' phonetists 'with ' phoneticist ' to express an advocate VPhonetic spelling. Mr. A. Glasse of the Department of honeties at Glasgow University is a phonetician but does ae't make it clear whether he is also a phoneticist. This zest for phonation at the expense of articulation--for 'vlial.ever the phonologers may say that is what it all too often involves—is probably the reason why the children of our aehools make such a sad mess of spelling in these competitive quizzes organised by the BBC.
the is an agreeable poetic justice in finding ' phony ' at ttle end of the ' phon ' prefixes in the OED.
Of Pamela Hansford Johnson concentrated upon the shape O, Words and letters, but there is also the colour to consider, „' nich I doubt if the phoneidescope with its vibrations on a 'PaP-filin will do anything to elucidate. I remember reading or the first time when I was just fifteen Rimbaud's famous ;ionnet about the vowels and receiving what seemed to me rc,3thing less than a divine revelation. A noir, E blanc, I rouge, Vert, 0 bleu. I am not suggesting that Rimbaud estab- lished a canon. Obviously the colour of vowels must vary tctively. For me A is black, E a greenish-grey, I pale blue U a rich brown and 0 white. It was Rimbaud's con- , Mlation of my own belief that one could perceive colour in vovvels that I found so reassuring. When I was very small, phrases, sentences and words often _Presented themselves in colour. Thus the grace before meals • swas a narrow dark-chocolate rectangle and the grace after meals ',it, ustard-yellow circle. To this day I can attribute form and colour to 'what we are going to receive' and to ' what we have received, 'Once in royal David's city ' appeared to me as 'vile Phrase without any intervals between the words, the colour ' Which was a rich bluish-purple spangled with gold. 'There is a green hill far away without a city wall' Was ,I.. Lk_ ,,!ie Malvern Hills I could see from the garden and bare b ',,t.herri because ' without ' meant for me that there was no LI„liuing upon them. But the inequity of oblivion blindly scattereth her poppy, and deals with the memory of men without distinction to merit of perpetuity.'
But the unfairness of oblivion heedlessly scattereth her poppy, and is occupied with the memory of men without discrimination to merit of eternity.'
The unfortunate children of today being taught spelling by the system in vogue will grow up incapable of recognising which sentence was written by Sir Thomas Browne.
Charm'd magic casements opening on the foam Of perilous seas in faery lands forlorn.'
It will be a piece of inequity if the poor little pets learning to spell are asked to write faery ' instead of 'fairy' because no phonetician, whatever his breath control, could manage to distinguish one from the other. This may become important because the intolerable Americanism 'fairy' for a homosexual may compel us to adapt the Spenserian archaism of faerie ' or faery ' to show which we mean. I take this opportunity of protesting against the use of the word fey ' to signify 'psychic' which is now common usage. 'Fey' means fated to die' and has nothing whatever to do with table-turning, second- sight, or an ability to detect the propinquity of ghosts. I do beg my confreres to look up fey in the dictionary and stop using the word except in its proper sense. The phoneticians, of course, will be on a spot because they will be unable to devise a hideous symbol to mark the difference between the pronunciation of 'fay,' 'fey,' and fee.
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