One great drawback to Simplified Spelling is, that
in print a simplified word looks so like the very
nation! and when you bunch a whole squadron of the
Simplified together the spectacle is very nearly unendurable.
The da ma ov koars kum when the publik ma be expektd
to get rekonsyled to the bezair asspekt of the Simplified
Kombynashuns, but—if I may be allowed the
expression—is it worth the wasted time?
[Figure 7]
To see our letters put together in ways to which we
are not accustomed offends the eye, and also takes
the expression out of the words.
La on, Makduf, and damd be he hoo furst krys hold,
enuf!
It doesn’t thrill you as it used to do.
The simplifications have sucked the thrill all out
of it.
But a written character with which we are not
acquainted does not offend us—Greek,
Hebrew, Russian, Arabic, and the others—they
have an interesting look, and we see beauty in them,
too. And this is true of hieroglyphics, as well.
There is something pleasant and engaging about the
mathematical signs when we do not understand them.
The mystery hidden in these things has a fascination
for us: we can’t come across a printed
page of shorthand without being impressed by it and
wishing we could read it.
Very well, what I am offering for acceptance and adopting
is not shorthand, but longhand, written with the shorthand
alphabet UNREACHED. You can write three times
as many words in a minute with it as you can write
with our alphabet. And so, in a way, it is
properly a shorthand. It has a pleasant look,
too; a beguiling look, an inviting look. I will
write something in it, in my rude and untaught way:
[Figure 8]
Even when I do it it comes out prettier than
it does in Simplified Spelling. Yes, and in
the Simplified it costs one hundred and twenty-three
pen-strokes to write it, whereas in the phonographic
it costs only twenty-nine.
[Figure 9] is probably [Figure 10].
Let us hope so, anyway.
This line of hieroglyphics was for fourteen years
the despair of all the scholars who labored over the
mysteries of the Rosetta stone: [Figure 1]
After five years of study Champollion translated it
thus:
Therefore let the worship of Epiphanes be maintained
in all the temples, this upon pain of death.
That was the twenty-forth translation that had been
furnished by scholars. For a time it stood.
But only for a time. Then doubts began to assail
it and undermine it, and the scholars resumed their
labors. Three years of patient work produced
eleven new translations; among them, this, by Gr:unfeldt,
was received with considerable favor:
The horse of Epiphanes shall be maintained at the
public expense; this upon pain of death.
