] The gains consequent on the introduction of
such a change in our manner of spelling would be insignificantly small,
the losses enormously great. There would be gain in the saving of a
certain amount of the labour now spent in learning to spell. The amount
of labour, however, is absurdly exaggerated by the promoters of the
scheme. I forget how many thousand hours a phonetic reformer lately
assured us were on an average spent by every English child in learning
to spell; or how much time by grown men, who, as he assured us, for the
most part rarely attempted to write a letter without a Johnson's
_Dictionary_ at their side. But even this gain would not long remain,
seeing that pronunciation is itself continually changing; custom is
lord here for better and for worse; and a multitude of words are now
pronounced in a manner different from that of a hundred years ago,
indeed from that of ten years ago; so that, before very long, there
would again be a chasm between the spelling and the pronunciation of
words;--unless indeed the spelling varied, which it could not
consistently refuse to do, as the pronunciation varied, reproducing
each of its capricious or barbarous alterations; these last, it must be
remembered, being changes not in the pronunciation only, but in the
word itself, which would only exist as pronounced, the written word
being a mere shadow servilely waiting upon the spoken. When these
changes had multiplied a little, and they would indeed multiply
exceedingly on the removal of the barriers to change which now exist,
what the language before long would become, it is not easy to guess.
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