SIR,—As one professionally concerned in teaching German language and literature,
I suppose I can claim to know something about both phonetics and poetry. My feeling is that both Miss Hansford Johnson and Sir Compton Mackenzie are dangerously infected by the bug of whimsy. The trouble with our spelling is that it is anarchic under the guise of archaism, it is not poetry but pedantry (which is surely the opposite), and it is time we did something about it. The difficulty is to know what to do, and nobody has yet produced a satisfactory answer. But the intolerable burden placed on our school- children is no laughing matter and may even have a direct relation to juvenile delinquency, which is certainly linked with illiteracy. Teaching children to spell 'face' Fer, Aali, Ker, Er is of course no help whatever—that I certainly concede, What Sir Compton Mackenzie means by saying that for him "A is black, E a greenish- grey, I pale blue, U a rich brown and 0 white" I just can't imagine, because in English all these letters have umpteen sound-values. What colour is a silent E? Rimbaud's' colours for the relatively fixed French vowels make some kind of sense, but in English we must first define the vowel-sounds we an dark blue or black, I white, 0 red and U yellow-brown. The diphthong I in wine Is therefore green merging into white.
, I think the sight of words is very important, but I wonder whether the effect of our spell- ing not to make many of our less poetic- 'minded youngsters hate the sight of words, with potentially dangerous social conse- Iquences. A moderate reform of spelling, 'removing the worst anomalies and difficulties, 'would probably not be too difficult if the 'phonetic fanatics could be kept at bay (they have ruined the look of Dutch by making Iheren the plural of heer on some misguided 'principle), and I submit that nothing of value 'would thereby be lost, and possibly much i.gained. A serious discussion of this prob- lem in your columns, taking due account of 'ft sthetic considerations and tradition, could literve a very useful purpose.—Yours faithfully, M. O'C. WALSHE 711 North Circular Road, N.W.2
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