It is not surprising that the ovangelists of Basic English
should have found the task of rendering Mr. Churchill's speeches into that medium too much for them. Since the Prime Minister's art consists of putting the indispensable word in the inevitable place, the substitution of someother word, sometimes a quite grotesque synonym (like eye-water or eye-wash. I forget which, in the classic "Blood, toil, tears and sweat" passage), not unnaturally reduces the sublime instantaneously to the ridiculous. The irony is that Mr. Churchill himself, in one of his perverse moments, appointed a committee to examine Basic English and report, and as a sequel had a Basic English Foundation, supported by public money, set up under the Ministry of Education. The new Minister might look into this. One thing I have never quite understood is how correct spelling is taught—or whether it is not taught at all, but merely happens. The trouble is that it so often doesn't happen. Among my onerous tasks is that of reading a certain number of articles (by no means all) submitted for publication in this journal. Many of the writers are obviously cultured. Yet when it comes to spelling they are on the level of the average third-form boy or a little lower. Here is some orthography (or is it cacography) from one article I have just been sizing up: A palling, unhygenic, comparitive, delicasies, accompaniement, consciensious, meanesses. These variants on .the normal are part of the fruit of a university education. How is their author to learn ?
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