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From the results of various approximations to phonetic spelling, which
at different times have been made, and the losses thereon ensuing, we
may guess what the loss would be were the system fully carried out. Of
those fairly acquainted with Latin, it would be curious to know how
many have seen 'silva' in 'savage,' since it has been so written, and
not 'salvage,' as of old? or have been reminded of the hindrances to a
civilized and human society which the indomitable forest, more perhaps
than any other obstacle, presents. When 'fancy' was spelt 'phant'sy,'
as by Sylvester in his translation of Du Bartas, and other scholarly
writers of the seventeenth century, no one could doubt of its identity
with 'phantasy,' as no Greek scholar could miss its relation with
phantasia. Spell 'analyse' as I have sometimes seen it, and as
phonetically it ought to be, 'annalize,' and the tap-root of the word
is cut. How many readers will recognize in it then the image of
dissolving and resolving aught into its elements, and use it with a
more or less conscious reference to this? It may be urged that few do
so even now. The more need they should not be fewer; for these few do
in fact retain the word in its place, from which else it might
gradually drift; they preserve its vitality, and the propriety of its
use, not merely for themselves, but also for the others that have not
this knowledge. In phonetic spelling is, in fact, the proposal that the
learned and the educated should of free choice place themselves under
the disadvantages of the ignorant and uneducated, instead of seeking to
elevate these last to their own more favoured condition.
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